Years twenty since the farmer's daughter Had met the student at the tree, Where Mississippi's mighty water Rolls like a full flood to the sea.
Bent near the Doctor then, and laid he His hand upon her wasted breast, And with low cheerful whisper said he No more words than "the eagle's nest!"
The change was sudden and amazing,-- Opened her eyes and closed again, And like the keel of vessel grazing The ground, grated her teeth in twain.
Gasped a long breath, as if a struggle Were going on, as night with morn, No sound made but a low faint guggle, Like cry of infant newly born.
A smile passed o'er her features sunken, Grasped she the hand beside her then, Remembrance, just as one half-drunken, Strove to retrace its course again.
Ah! then came back the well-known faces Of her young days upon her mind, The scenes of long ago, in traces All clear and full and well defined.
She saw her father as he taught her Her youthful lessons at his knee, Where Mississippi's mighty water Rolls like a full flood to the sea.
She saw her mother too beside her Long, long since taken to her rest, And then, as opened Memory wider, She stood beneath the eagle's nest,
With him she loved, in courtship prudent, And of love's sweetest cup she drank, She saw again the youthful student,-- All that came after was a blank.
Thus ever Memory touched can bring time, With its past feelings into light, And thus the sweet joys of her spring-time Came rushing thickly on her sight.
Thus, too, doth roused Imagination Vibrate the tender chords that bind The wide links of Association Within the chambers of the mind.
Then turned the fever, as the meeting Of the free air upon her brain, Her pulse resumed a quickened beating, Revolved the wheels of life again.
And day by day she gained new strength then Beneath the Doctor's care and skill, Able to quit her bed at length then, 'Twas this she loved to talk of still,
That when Death's dart did o'er her hover, And she could find no sleep or rest, 'Twas this that made her to recover, The simple words, "the eagle's nest!" (9)
A time there is, though far its dawn may be, And shadows thick are brooding on the main, When, like the sun upspringing from the sea, Truth shall arise, with Freedom in its train;