With thy sweet smile and silver voice, Its silent loveliness. For thee the wild grape glistens, On sunny knoll and tree, The slim papaya ripens Its yellow fruit for thee. For thee the duck, on glassy stream, My rifle for thy feast shall bring The wild swan from the sky. The forest's leaping panther, Fierce, beautiful, and fleet, I know, for thou hast told me, When our wide woods and mighty lawns Bloom to the April skies, The earth has no more gorgeous sight To show to human eyes. In meadows red with blossoms, All summer long, the bee Murmurs, and loads his yellow thighs, Or wouldst thou gaze at tokens Of ages long ago Our old oaks stream with mosses, And mighty vines, like serpents, climb The giant sycamore; And trunks, o'erthrown for centuries, Cumber the forest floor; And in the great savanna, The solitary mound, Built by the elder world, o'erlooks The loneliness around. Come, thou hast not forgotten Thy pledge and promise quite, Come, the young violets crowd my door, Upon the mulberry near, And the night-sparrow trills her song, All night, with none to hear. THE GREEK BOY. GONE are the glorious Greeks of old, Their bones are mingled with the mould, The forms they hewed from living stone And, scattered with their ashes, show Yet fresh the myrtles there-the springs Gush brightly as of yore; Flowers blossom from the dust of kings, There nature moulds as nobly now, And copies still the martial form That braved Platæa's battle storm. Boy! thy first looks were taught to seek Her airs have tinged thy dusky cheek, Her sunshine lit thine eyes; Thine ears have drunk the woodland strains Heard by old poets, and thy veins That slumber in thy country's sods. Now is thy nation free-though late— Broke, ere thy spirit felt its weight, The intolerable yoke. |