To feel; and, rising from afar, were heard
Shrill shrieks and pipings desolate-a pause
Ensued, and then the same lone sounds return'd,
And suddenly the whirring rush of wings
Went circling round us o'er the level sands,
Then died away; and, as we look'd aloft,
Between us and the sky we saw a speck
Of black upon the blue-some huge, wild bird,
Osprey or eagle, high amid the clouds
Sailing majestic, on its plumes to catch
The earliest crimson of the approaching day.
'Twere sad to tell our murderous deeds that morn. Silent upon the chilly beach we lay
Prone, while the drifting snow-flakes o'er us fell,
Like Nature's frozen tears for our misdeeds
Of wanton cruelty. The eider ducks,
With their wild eyes, and necks of changeful blue,
We watch'd, now diving down, now on the surge
Flapping their pinions, of our ambuscade
Unconscious-till a sudden death was found;
While floating o'er us, in the graceful curves
Of silent beauty, down the sea-mew fell;
The gilinot upon the shell-bank lay
Bleeding, and oft, in wonderment, its mate
Flew round, with mournful cry, to bid it rise,
Then shrieking, fled afar; the sand-pipers,
A tiny flock, innumerable, as round
And round they flew, bewail'd their broken ranks;
And the scared heron sought his inland marsh.
With blood-bedabbled plumes around us rose
A slaughter'd hecatomb; and to my heart
(My heart then open to all sympathies)
It spoke of tyrannous cruelty-of man
The desolator; and of some far day,
When the accountable shall make account,
And but the merciful shall mercy find.
Soul-sicken'd, satiate, and dissatisfied,
An alter'd being homewards I return'd,
My thoughts revolting at the thirst for blood,
So brutalising, so destructive of
The finer sensibilities, which man
In boyhood owns, and which the world destroys.
Nature had preach'd a sermon to my heart:
And from that moment, on that snowy morn—
(Seeing that earth enough of suffering has
And death)-all cruelty my soul abhorr'd,
Yea, loathed the purpose and the power to kill.
THERE lay an ancient churchyard
Upon a heathy hill,
And oft of yore I loiter'd there,
Amid the twilight still;
For 'twas a place deserted,
And all things spake a tone, Whose wild long music vibrated To things for ever gone.
Yes! Nature's face look'd lonelier
To fancy's brooding eye,
The dusky moors, the mountains,
And solitary sky;
And there was like a mournfulness
Upon the fitful breeze,
As it wail'd among the hoary weeds,
Or mounted through the trees.
Around were gnarly sycamores,
And, by the wizard stream,
I lay in youth's enchanted ring,
When life was like a dream
;
And spectral generations pass'd
Before my mind like waves,
Men that for creeping centuries
Had moulder'd in their graves.
There, as the west was paling,
And the evening-star shone out,
I leant to watch the impish bat,
That flitting shriek'd about;
Or the crow that to the forest,
With travel-wearied wing,
Sail'd through the twilight duskily,
Like some unearthly thing.
Within that solitary place
No monuments were seen
Of woman's love, or man's regret,
To tell that such had been;
And to the soul's wild question,
"Oh dead! where are ye flown?" Waved to and fro, in mournful guise, The thistle's beard of down.
There as I linger'd, pondering,
Amid the mantling night,
Upon the old grey wall the hawk
Would silently alight;
And, rushing from the blasted hills,
With rain-drops on its wing,
The wind amid the hemlock-stalks
Would desolately sing.
Life, and the living things of earth,
Seem'd vanish'd quite away;
As there, in vague abstraction,
Amid the graves I lay :
The world seem'd an enchanted world,
A region dim and drear,
A shadowy land of reverie,
Where Silence dwelt with Fear.
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