Page:The Poets and Poetry of the West.djvu/490

47i WILLIAM W. FOSDICK. [1850-60. Whose vintage unto labor yields Returns more rich than harvest fields — In healthful occupation free, Rewards well honest industry, Till vineyard cottages are made The homes where Plenty smiles in shade. Long may the lovely valley shine With miles of waving slopes of vine, Blushing with its unpressed wine. Where luscious clusters, amber-clear, Under the purple leaves appear — Long may the traveler gladly gaze On Melds of vine and fluttering maize. And see Ohio's valley smile More rich with harvests than the Nile, And find, though Egypt be not blessed, There's corn and wine far in the West. THE PAWPAW. Asia hath banian and Afric hath palm. And Europe the sweet-scented haw ; The isles of the South have their forests of balm. Where blazes the brilliant macaw ; The fern on the ground, and the pine on the crest Of the mountain, my sympathies draw ; But far more I love thee, thou plant of the West, My native, my backwood pawpaw ! Where the woodland is darkest, so dark in its shade. That the sun on the roof of the trees Can only peep through where a parting is made In the thatch by the hand of the breeze ; In Kentucky's deep woods, where my heart has its home. Where the flashing-eyed hunter and squaw. Of old, w^ere wont through the forest to roam. There grows the green, polished pawpaw. Broad, broad are its leaves, and as green as the sea, And its blossoms are chocolate bell?. Where booming inside is the hum of the bee, Like the roar of the ocean in sheHs ; And brown as a wine-skin, transfomied to a purse, Are the rinds that its riches enfold ; A heart of bright yellow — black seeds in- terspersed — A fruit of ambrosia and gold! Oh ! white are the caps of the elder in May, That gracefully nod o'er the fence. And many the plumes that the sumachs display Of velvety crimson intense ; And the Indian an-ow has scai'let, 'mid snows. That shames the red berries of haw ; But doubly more dear to my bosom than those, Are the broad, ribby leaves of pawpaw. Green plant ! 'mid a forest of giants in green. Of Cottonwood Titans in black, Where like a Colossus the sycamore's seen, Through summer, with snows on his back ; And huge above all, in proportion so vast That dizzy grow upturned eyes. The poplar, in blossom, floats out in the blast, Like an island of bloom in the skies. There, there is the land that no place can supplant ; No magic of nature, or art.