Page:The Poets and Poetry of the West.djvu/311

1840-50.] REBECCA S. NICHOLS. 295 The fearless chamois scarce would dare to But ever still was this my heart's shrill cry leap ! (That, like a prisoned eagle, beat its bars), While far below, oh, wan and dismal Oh! give me back my soul, thou pure, blue sight! sky, Lay bleaching bones : the traveler shrinks Or draw me upward to thy sphered stars, in fright, Enthroned like gods upon their flaming As leaning midway o'er the deep abyss, cars. His shuddering nerves like adders o'er him Their wheels strike fire as swift they roll creep ! through space — While flashing tlirough his brain are Oh, leave me not alone, my soul, to die ! thoughts like this — Give me one print thy flying track to trace, " How short a step is here to lasting woe Lest, lifting up my voice, I curse thee and or bliss ! " thy race ! And onward still ! through long, bright But the sky heard not, and the moon grew summer days. dim. When sunshine rippled o'er a sea of As mists wound upward from the sleeping grass; vale; Down mossy hollows— over brier)' ways — Like giant forms, they cUmbed the heaven's Through lonely gorge and arched and rocky blue rim, pass. And all the stars grew sudden faint and Whose gloomy grandeur pierced my heart pale. — alas ! As through the forests came the hollow That not a moment of one perished hour, wail E'er held a rainbow in its glittering rays, Of spectral winds, that madly swept along. To lure me up to an immortal bower. And, in the pauses of the ocean's hymn, Where Hope, divinely bright, shines out Burst into chorus wild and deep and through cloud and shower ! strong, Till all the caves of night o'erflowed with At length the Autumn, drunken deep with mourniui song ! wines, Drained from the purple grape, reeled o'er Then, by the margin of that mighty river the land ; That rolls between us and the shores of His frosty fingers pinched the rambling rest. vines ; Whose bitter waves flow on, and on, for- His breath came cutting thi'ough the breezes ever. bland ; With hapless shipwrecks on their heaving On fruit and flower was laid a palsying breast, hand ; Drifting, like shadows, toward the climes The long-drawn notes of insect-lyres no unblessed — more My wandering feet were stayed — and there Thrilled the young twilight of the whis- I mourned pering pines ; The broken arrows in life's golden quiver, A stillness stole along the wood and shore, The ashes dead that on hope's altar burned; And Summer's gentle trance, with all its While all my vital part for its lost essence joys, was o'er. yearned.