Who, having o'er the past no power, would live
No longer in subjection to the past,
With abject mind-from a tyrannic lord
Inviting penance, fruitlessly endured:
So, like a fugitive, whose feet have cleared
Some boundary, which his followers may not cross
In prosecution of their deadly chase,
Respiring I looked round.-How bright the sun,
The breeze how soft! Can anything produced1
In the old World compare, thought I, for power
And majesty with this gigantic stream,
Sprung from the desert ?* And behold a city
Fresh, youthful, and aspiring! What are these
To me, or I to them? As much at least
As he desires that they should be, whom winds
And waves have wafted to this distant shore,
In the condition of a damaged seed,
Whose fibres cannot, if they would, take root.
Here may I roam at large;-my business is,
Roaming at large, to observe, and not to feel
And, therefore, not to act-convinced that all
Which bears the name of action, howsoe'er
Beginning, ends in servitude-still painful,
And mostly profitless. And, sooth to say,
On nearer view, a motley spectacle
Appeared, of high pretensions-unreproved
But by the obstreperous voice of higher still;
Big passions strutting on a petty stage;
Which a detached spectator may regard
How promising the Breeze! Can aught produced 1814.
The Hudson river, some of the sources of which rise in the Adirondack wilderness.-ED.
Not unamused.-But ridicule demands
Quick change of objects; and, to laugh alone,
At a composing distance1 from the haunts
Of strife and folly, though it be a treat
As choice as musing Leisure can bestow;
Yet, in the very centre of the crowd,
To keep the secret of a poignant scorn,
Howe'er to airy Demons suitable,
Of all unsocial courses, is least fit2
For the gross spirit of mankind,—the one
That soonest fails to please, and quickliest turns
Into vexation.
Leave this unknit Republic to the scourge
Of her own passions; and to regions haste,
Whose shades have never felt the encroaching axe,
Or soil endured a transfer in the mart
Of dire rapacity. There, Man abides,
Primeval Nature's child. A creature weak
In combination, (wherefore else driven back
So far, and of his old inheritance
So easily deprived?) but, for that cause,
More dignified, and stronger in himself;
Whether to act, judge, suffer, or enjoy..
True, the intelligence of social art
Hath overpowered his forefathers, and soon-
Will sweep the remnant of his line away;
But contemplations, worthier, nobler far
Than her destructive energies, attend
His independence, when along the side
Of Mississippi, or that northern stream*
That spreads1 into successive seas,† he walks;
Pleased to perceive his own unshackled life,
And his innate capacities of soul,
There imaged or when, having gained the top
Of some commanding eminence, which yet
Intruder ne'er beheld, he thence surveys
Regions of wood and wide savannah, vast
Expanse of unappropriated earth,
With mind that sheds a light on what he sees;
Free as the sun, and lonely as the sun,
Pouring above his head its radiance down
Upon a living and rejoicing world!
So, westward, tow'rd the unviolated woods I bent my way; and, roaming far and wide, Failed not to greet the merry Mocking-bird; ‡ And, while the melancholy Muccawiss
* See Wordsworth's note, p. 397.-ED. †The St Lawrence.-ED.
"The Mocking Bird (Turdus polyglottus, Linn.), the American nightin. gale. He has a voice full, strong, and musical, and capable of almost every modulation, from the clear mellow tones of the Wood Thrush, to the savage scream of the Bald Eagle. In measure and accent he faithfully follows his originals. In force and sweetness of expression he greatly im proves upon them. In his native groves, his song rises pre-eminent over every competitor. Neither is his strain altogether imitative. His notes are bold and full, and varied seemingly beyond all limits. They consist of short expressions of two, three, or, at the most, five or six syllables; generally interspersed with imitations, and all of them uttered with great emphasis and rapidity, and continued with undiminished ardour for half
(The sportive bird's companion in the grove)
Repeated, o'er and o'er, his plaintive cry,*
I sympathised at leisure with the sound;
But that pure archetype of human greatness,
I found him not. There, in his stead, appeared
A creature, squalid, vengeful, and impure;
Remorseless, and submissive to no law
But superstitious fear, and abject sloth.
Enough is told! Here am I-ye have heard
What evidence I seek, and vainly seek;
What from my fellow-beings I require,
And either they have not to give, or I
Lack virtue to receive; what I myself,
Too oft by wilful forfeiture, have lost1
Nor can regain. How languidly I look
Upon this visible fabric of the world,
May be divined-perhaps it hath been said :-
But spare your pity, if there be in me
Aught that deserves respect: for I exist,
Within myself, not comfortless.-The tenour
Which my life holds, he readily may conceive
Whoe'er hath stood to watch a mountain brook
In some still passage of its course, and seen,
Within the depths of its capacious breast,
And cannot find; what I myself have lost,
an hour, or an hour at a time." American Ornithology, by Wilson, Bonaparte, and Jardine, Vol. I. p. 164, &c.-ED.
* I am indebted to Mr Edward Tylor, and also to the Rev. Charles M. Addison, of Arlington, Mass., for identifying the "melancholy Muccawiss " as the Whip-poor-will (Caprimulgus vociferus, or Antrostomus v.). "Their melancholy night song has led some Indians to consider them the souls of ancestors killed in battle."-Mr Tylor. For some interesting letters in reference to the Muccawiss, see Note E in the Appendix to this volume; and compare Charles Waterton's Wanderings in South America, &c., &c. (1828), and Wordsworth's poem, A Morning Exercise, written in 1828.-ED.
Inverted trees, rocks, clouds, and azure sky;1
And, on its glassy surface, specks of foam,
And conglobated bubbles undissolved,
Numerous as stars; that, by their onward lapse,
Betray to sight the motion of the stream,
A softened roar, or murmur;2 and the sound
Though soothing, and the little floating isles
Though beautiful, are both by Nature charged
With the same pensive office; and make known
Through what perplexing labyrinths, abrupt
Precipitations, and untoward straits,
The earth-born wanderer hath passed; and quickly,
That respite o'er, like traverses and toils.
Must he again encounter.3-Such a stream
Is human Life; and so the Spirit fares
In the best quiet to her course allowed ;*
And such is mine,-save only for a hope
That my particular current soon will reach
The unfathomable gulf, where all is still!"
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