Page:The Poets and Poetry of the West.djvu/199

1830-40.] THOMAS H. SHREVE. 183 REFLECTIONS OF AN AGED PIONEER. The Eternal Sea Is surging up before my dreaming mind ; And on my ear, grown dull to things of earth, Its sounds are audible. My spirit soon Shall brave its billows, like a trusty bark. And seek the shore where shadows never fall. Oh, I have lived too long ! Have I not seen The suns of four-score summers set in gloom ? Hath not my heart long sepulchered its hopes, And desolation swept my humble hearth? All that I prized have passed away, like clouds "Which float a moment on the twilight sky And fade in night. The brow of her I loved Is now resplendent in the light of heaven. They who flung sunlight on my path in youth. Have gone before me to the cloudless clime. I stand alone, like some dim shaft w^hich throws Its shadow on the desert's waste, while they Who placed it there are gone — or like the tree Spared by the ax upon the mountain's cliff, Wiiose sap is dull, while it still wears the hue Of life upon its withered limbs. Of earth And all its scenes, my heart is weary now. 'Tis mine no longer to indulge in what Gave life its bliss, jeweled the day with joys, And made my slumbers through the night as sweet As infant's dreaming on its mother's breast. The blood is sluggish in each limb, and I No longer chase the startled deer, or track The wily fox, or climb the mountain's side. My eye is dim, and cannot see the stars Flash in the stream, or view the gathering storm, Or trace the figures of familiar things In the light tapestry that decks the sky. My ear is dull, and winds autumnal pass And wake no answering chime within my breast : The songs of birds have lost their whilom spells, And water-falls, unmurmuring, pass me by. 'Tis time that I were not. The tide of life Bears not an argosy of hope for me, And its dull waves surge up against my heart, Like billows 'gainst a rock. The forests wide, All trackless as proud Hecla's snowy cliffs. From which, in youth, I drew my inspira- tion. Have fallen round me ; and the waving fields Bow to the reaper, where I wildly roamed. Cities now rise where I pursued the deer ; And dust offends me where, in hai:)pier years, I breathed in vigor from untainted gales. Nature hath bowed before all-conquering Art — Hath dropped the reign of emj^ire, which she held With princely pride, when first I met her here. The old familiar things, to w^hich my heart Clung with deep fondness, each, and all, are gone ; And I am hke the patriarch who stood Forgotten at the altar which he built, While crowds rushed by who knew him not, and sneered At his simplicity.