Cofachiqui, and Other Poems/A farewell

by Castello Newton Holford

A FAREWELL.

FAREWELL to Clarvand's ville and vale
  And hills of emerald hue.
Let me a dirge's long, sad wail,
  Condense into "adieu!"
'Round that dear spot, home of my youth,
  Each rock and brook and tree,
As photographed with life and truth,
  In memory I see.

Each white cot like a pure pearl gleams,
  In settings rich half hid;
The dell an emerald casket seems,
  The summer sky its lid.
Far reaching from the wooded dell
  In waves of varied green
The prairies roll and grain waves swell
  And flash like lances' sheen.

Upon the rocky ledges low
  Half hid by trailing vines,
Like dark plumes o'er their brows there grow
  The melancholy pines.
Their leafy hands in gay salute
  The graceful aspens toss
As zephyrs pass; all others mute
  Hang heavy with their gloss.

Why should I leave my place of birth
  And old acquaintance too,
And say farewell for aye on earth
  To whom I've loved so true?
The traitor face and selfish heart.
  In yon fair homes are found,
Well skilled to play the double part
  And smile on whom they wound.

Must youth's companions be forgot?
  Have ties like these no worth.
Is friendship but an idle thought,
  And are none true on earth?
Trust not fair words and clasping hands,
  Of constant hearts ne'er dream,
For hearts are shifting like the sands
  In dark Missouri's stream.

"Love is a gift which God has given,"
  Says Scotia's brightest bard,
"To man alone beneath the heaven"—
  A gift to keep and guard.
If so, O God, who didst impart,
  Thy gift of woe retake;
Give me the mountain's granite heart
  That tempests cannot shake;

That kiss of dew, with soft, bright eyes,
  Or tears of changeful rain,
Or tempting smiles of sunny skies
  Ne'er move with joy or pain.
"T were better thus than like the vale,
  As seemeth now my heart,
When gloomy clouds ride on the gale
  And zigzag lightnings dart;

When drear and wild the dark night lowers
  And beating rain-floods pour,
And turbid waves sweep down the flowers
  That decked the banks before.
Oh! why, since they were but to wound,
  Why were quick feelings given?
Since, when heart's ties seem firmest bound,
  They may be rudely riven.

I shall recall in distant climes
  The past with fond regret,
For dear to me are those old times
  And old acquaintance yet.
What strangers e'er can fill the place
  Of those my boyhood knew?
Where find the peer of that fair face
  Of one loved long and true?

Away such thoughts! my heart is dead,
  O'erclouded Hope's bright star;
Henceforth my wandering feet shall tread
  In tropic lands afar,
Where tremble to the earthquake's strokes
  The mountains of Peru,
Where wave in lieu of Clarvand's oaks
  The palms of Otafu;

Where broad Pacific's tropic tides
  Embrace the island world
And from Mendana's mountain sides
  The swift cascades are hurled.
Would I could find in South Sea waves
  Or Andes caverns deep
For my dark memories darker graves
  Where they might ever sleep.

But two and twenty years have cast
  Their shadows on my head,
Yet all life's joy seems in that past
  So brief and dear and dead.
Farewell to Clarvand's vale and ville
  And summer skies so blue;
Each leafy glen and sparkling rill,
  A long, a last adieu!