Page:The Overland Monthly volume 9.djvu/303

This page needs to be proofread.

THE

Overland Monthly

DEVOTED TO

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE COUNTRY.

Vol. 9. — OCTOBER, 1872. — No. 4.


ISLES OF THE AMAZONS.

PART II.

Forsake the city. Follow me To where the white caps of a sea Of mountains break and break again,

As bloivn in foam against a star

As breaks the fury of a main —

And there remains, as fixed, as far.

Forsake the people. What are they

That laugh, that live and love, by rule? Forsake the Saxon. What are these That shun the shadows of the trees : The Druid -forests ? ... Go thy way, We are not one. I will not please

You . . . Fare you well, O wiser fool !

But you who love me . . . Ye who love

TJie shaggy forests, fierce delights

Of sounding water -falls, of heights That hang like broken moons above, Believe and follow. We are one ; The wild man shall to us be tame :

The woods shall yield their mysteries ; The stars shall answer to a name, •

And be as birds above the trees.

In the days when my mother, the Earth, was young, And you all were not, nor the likeness of you,

She walked in her maidenly prime among The moonlit stars in the boundless blue.

Then the great sun lifted his shining shield, And he flashed his sword as the soldiers do,

And he moved like a king full over the field,

And he looked, and he loved her brave and true.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by John H. Carmany, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. Vol. IX. — 20.