Chapter II

Ages have flown,--the vagrant gales
Have swept that lonely land; the flowers
Have nodded to the breeze; the vales,
Long, long, have sheltered in their bowers,
The forest minstrels; and the race
Of mastodons hath come and gone;
And with the stream of time, the chase
Of bubbling life hath swept the lawn,
Unmarked, save that the bedded clay,
Tells where some giant sleeper lies;
And wrinkled cliffs, tottering and gray,
Whisper of crumbled centuries.
Yet there the valley smiles; the tomb
Of ages is a garden gay,
And wild flowers freshen in their bloom,
As from the sod they drink decay.
And creeping things of every hue,
Dwell in this savage Eden-land,
And all around it blushes new,
As when it rose at God's command.
Untouched by man, the forests wave,
The floods pour by, the torrents fall,
And shelving cliff and shadowy cave,
Hang as bold nature hung them all!
The hunter's wandering foot hath wound,
To this far scene, perchance like mine,
And there a Forest Dreamer found,
Who walks the dell with spectral mien.
Youthful his brow, his bearing high--
Yet writhed his lip, and all subdued,
The fire that once hath lit his eye.
Wayward and sullen oft his mood;
But he perchance may deign to tell,
As he hath told to me, his tale,
In words like these,--while o'er the dell,
The autumn twilight wove its veil.