Richard Huntington
Sunrise on the Tusket
I
STILL, in the light of morning gray,
That ushered in the summer day,
The fair Acadien hamlet lay
Its fringing hem of forest round,
Its verdured slopes with orchards crowned,
Lie steeped in silence most profound.
No zephyr’s wing the leaf hath stirred,
No sound to break the calm is heard,
Save crickets’ chirp or trill of bird.
The frequent fireflies’ fitful gleam,
The star of morning’s lucent beam,
Shine mirrored in the glassy stream,
In whose clear depths are pictured seen
The drooping boughs and foliage green
Of graceful trees that o’er it lean.
II
Glows in the kindling East a blush,
Morn’s old and immemorial flush!
Afar, the distant Tusket’s rush
Is heard, in muffled murmur deep,
As, past green isle and headland steep,
Its eddying waters seaward sweep.
Morn’s steps advance, and lo, the West
Hath donned a new and gorgeous vest
Of purple and of amethyst.
Look East once more!—a sea of gold
Along the far horizon rolled—
The rising orb of day behold!
It gilds with flame St Michael’s spire,
Whose panes, agleam with living fire,
Blaze like some sacrificial pyre.
It lights, as with celestial glow,
The slender crosslets ranged below,
Man’s last, sad resting-place to show....
III
In yonder modest glebe-house near,
Unconscious of my presence here,
Sleeps one to friendship’s heart most dear.
Unwakened by the orient beam,
Perchance in some ecstatic dream
He roams by Tiber’s classic stream,
Or sees St Peter’s mighty dome
Soar grandly o’er the pomp of Rome—
His own loved Church’s pride and home.
Blest be his visions, wheresoe’er
His dream-enfranchised fancy veer—
The faithful priest, the friend sincere!
Louisburg
AND this is Louisburg! whose moss-grown ruin
Stretches before me—one deserted waste!
Scarce can the eye, its eager search pursuing,
The outlines of her strong defences trace—
Relentless by the miner’s blast effaced.
Yet was she once the brightest gem of all
The gorgeous brilliants that with splendor graced
The diadem of old monarchial Gaul,—
She who defiance frowned, and Britain foe did call.
The Dunkirk of this land!—how fallen since then!
The eye but wanders o’er a waste of stone,
Remains of dwellings once the abodes of men,
But now forlorn, deserted, silent, lone;
And rank and mantling grass hath overgrown
Her streets, her sepulchres, her ruined walls.
The voice of bygone ages hath a tone
Which lingers yet amid these prostrate halls,
As reverent ’mid their maze my pensive footstep falls.
Lo, yon green rampart! towering once in pride,
And bristling, too, with bayonets, that long
The prowess of the immortal Wolfe defied.—
Not to the peaceful Muse doth it belong
To weave with sturdy martial words her song,
Else might I speak of glacis and of fosse,
Of massy culvert, and of battery strong,
And blasted battlements o’ergrown with moss,
Around whose ruined base the angry billows toss.—
Eastward there stood upon the frowning steep—
And of its wreck some fragments still remain—
Their beacon light, the Pharos of the deep!...