Poem by Joseph Rodman Drake

To a Friend

    “You damn me with faint praise.”

I.

   Yes, faint was my applause and cold my praise,
   Though soul was glowing in each polished line;
   But nobler subjects claim the poet’s lays,
   A brighter glory waits a muse like thine.
   Let amorous fools in love-sick measure pine;
   Let Strangford whimper on, in fancied pain,
   And leave to Moore his rose leaves and his vine;
   Be thine the task a higher crown to gain,
The envied wreath that decks the patriot’s holy strain.

II.

   Yet not in proud triumphal song alone,
   Or martial ode, or sad sepulchral dirge,
   There needs no voice to make our glories known;
   There needs no voice the warrior’s soul to urge
   To tread the bounds of nature’s stormy verge;
   Columbia still shall win the battle’s prize;
   But be it thine to bid her mind emerge
   To strike her harp, until its soul arise
From the neglected shade, where low in dust it lies.

III.

   Are there no scenes to touch the poet’s soul?
   No deeds of arms to wake the lordly strain?
   Shall Hudson’s billows unregarded roll?
   Has Warren fought, Montgomery died in vain?
   Shame! that while every mountain stream and plain
   Hath theme for truth’s proud voice or fancy’s wand,
   No native bard the patriot harp hath ta’en,
   But left to minstrels of a foreign strand
To sing the beauteous scenes of nature’s loveliest land.

IV.

   Oh! for a seat on Appalachia’s brow,
   That I might scan the glorious prospect round,
   Wild waving woods, and rolling floods below,
   Smooth level glades and fields with grain embrown’d,
   High heaving hills, with tufted forests crown’d,
   Rearing their tall tops to the heaven’s blue dome,
   And emerald isles, like banners green unwound,
   Floating along the lake, while round them roam
Bright helms of billowy blue and plumes of dancing foam.

V.

   ’Tis true no fairies haunt our verdant meads,
   No grinning imps deform our blazing hearth;
   Beneath the kelpie’s fang no traveller bleeds,
   Nor gory vampyre taints our holy earth,
   Nor spectres stalk to frighten harmless mirth,
   Nor tortured demon howls adown the gale;
   Fair reason checks these monsters in their birth.
   Yet have we lay of love and horrid tale
Would dim the manliest eye and make the bravest pale.

VI.

   Where is the stony eye that hath not shed
   Compassion’s heart-drops o’er the sweet Mc Rea?
   Through midnight’s wilds by savage bandits led,
   “Her heart is sad—her love is far away!”
   Elate that lover waits the promised day
   When he shall clasp his blooming bride again—
   Shine on, sweet visions! dreams of rapture, play!
   Soon the cold corse of her he loved in vain
Shall blight his withered heart and fire his frenzied brain.

VII.

   Romantic Wyoming! could none be found
   Of all that rove thy Eden groves among,
   To wake a native harp’s untutored sound,
   And give thy tale of wo the voice of song?
   Oh! if description’s cold and nerveless tongue
   From stranger harps such hallowed strains could call,
   How doubly sweet the descant wild had rung,
   From one who, lingering round thy ruined wall,
Had plucked thy mourning flowers and wept thy timeless fall.

VIII.

   The Huron chief escaped from foemen nigh,
   His frail bark launches on Niagara’s tides,
   “Pride in his port, defiance in his eye,”
   Singing his song of death the warrior glides;
   In vain they yell along the river sides,
   In vain the arrow from its sheaf is torn,
   Calm to his doom the willing victim rides,
   And, till adown the roaring torrent borne,
Mocks them with gesture proud, and laughs their rage to scorn.

IX.

   But if the charms of daisied hill and vale,
   And rolling flood, and towering rock sublime,
   If warrior deed or peasant’s lowly tale
   Of love or wo should fail to wake the rhyme,
   If to the wildest heights of song you climb,
   (Tho’ some who know you less, might cry, beware!)
   Onward! I say—your strains shall conquer time;
   Give your bright genius wing, and hope to share
Imagination’s worlds—the ocean, earth, and air.

X.

   Arouse, my friend—let vivid fancy soar,
   Look with creative eye on nature’s face,
   Bid airy sprites in wild Niagara roar,
   And view in every field a fairy race.
   Spur thy good Pacolet to speed apace,
   And spread a train of nymphs on every shore;
   Or if thy muse would woo a ruder grace,
   The Indian’s evil Manitou’s explore,
And rear the wondrous tale of legendary lore.

XI.

   Away! to Susquehannah’s utmost springs,
   Where, throned in mountain mist, Areouski reigns,
   Shrouding in lurid clouds his plumeless wings,
   And sternly sorrowing o’er his tribes remains;
   His was the arm, like comet ere it wanes
   That tore the streamy lightnings from the skies,
   And smote the mammoth of the southern plains;
   Wild with dismay the Creek affrighted flies,
While in triumphant pride Kanawa’s eagles rise.

XII.

   Or westward far, where dark Miami wends,
   Seek that fair spot as yet to fame unknown;
   Where, when the vesper dew of heaven descends,
   Soft music breathes in many a melting tone,
   At times so sadly sweet it seems the moan
   Of some poor Ariel penanced in the rock;
   Anon a louder burst—a scream! a groan!
   And now amid the tempest’s reeling shock,
Gibber, and shriek, and wail—and fiend-like laugh and mock.

XIII.

   Or climb the Pallisado’s lofty brows,
   Were dark Omana waged the war of hell,
   Till, waked to wrath, the mighty spirit rose
   And pent the demons in their prison cell;
   Full on their head the uprooted mountain fell,
   Enclosing all within its horrid womb
   Straight from the teeming earth the waters swell,
   And pillared rocks arise in cheerless gloom
Around the drear abode—their last eternal tomb!

XIV.

   Be these your future themes—no more resign
   The soul of song to laud your lady’s eyes;
   Go! kneel a worshipper at nature’s shrine!
   For you her fields are green, and fair her skies!
   For you her rivers flow, her hills arise!
   And will you scorn them all, to pour forth tame
   And heartless lays of feigned or fancied sighs?
   Still will you cloud the muse? nor blush for shame
To cast away renown, and hide your head from fame?

1. To Eva
2. To Sarah
3. To a Lady with a Withered Violet
4. Song (Oh! go to sleep, my baby dear)
5. Lines Written on Leaving New Rochelle

John Pierpont To a Friend ("Friend of my dark and solitary hour")

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