Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
America: Vols. XXV–XXIX. 1876–79.
The Wabash
By John B. L. Soule (1815–1891)S
As, fixed in thought, I stay my wandering feet,
And list the gentle rippling of thy surge,
What moving spirits do my fancy greet;—
What flitting phantoms from thy breast emerge,
Forms for the shrouded sepulchre more meet!
More than is wont to fix the transient gaze
Of vulgar admiration, though there be
Enough to wake the poet’s sweetest lays
In all thy silent beauty; for to me
Thou hast a voice,—a voice of other days.
Unmoved by the intrusive thoughts of sadness,
While fancy pictures thee not as thou art,
But what thou hast been, when the tones of gladness
Were heard upon thy borders, ere the smart
Of stern Oppression turned that joy to madness!
The light pirogue hath skimmed its silent way,
When nature all around had sunk to rest,
And long had faded the last beam of day;
And still it onward leaped the moonlit crest
And dashed delighted through the silver spray.
The savage tenant knit his fiery brow,
And fanned the flame he knew not to abate
Save by the unwearied chase and deadly blow,
Toiling with ceaseless energy to sate
His vengeance on some far, devoted foe!
Some lordly chieftain, in his pride of power,
Hath lingered oft in rapturous thought to meet
His dark-eyed goddess at the sunset hour,
Where wanton zephyrs dance with flitting feet,
And kiss in gambols rude each blushing flower.
This fragrant bank his consecrated shrine,
Mayhap the pious votary oft hath come,
On nature’s breast his sorrows to resign;
From day’s dull avocations far to roam
With gazing on such loveliness as thine!
All heedless of my meditative lay!
But from the tranquil beauty of thy pride
I ’ll glean such moral teachings as I may;—
Howe’er may vary Fortune’s fickle tide,
Like thee in sweet content I ’ll wend my peaceful way.