Page:Scenes in my Native Land.pdf/78

Made the young pulse too wildly beat,
Or woke the warmth of self-conceit.
But age, slow curdling through my veins,
All touch of arrogance restrains.
For pride, alas! and boastful trust
Are not for trees, which root in dust,
Nor men, who ere their noontide ray,
Oft like our wind-swept leaves decay.
Yet not unscathed, have centuries sped
Their course around my hoary head,
My gouty limbs for ease I strain,
And twist my gnarled roots in vain,
And still beneath the wintry sky
These stricken branches quake and sigh,
Which erst in manly vigor sent
Stout challenge to each element.

But lingering memories haunt my brain,
And hover round the past, in vain,
Of chiefs and tribes who here had sway,
Then vanished like the mist away.
Near river's marge, by verdure cheered,
Their humble, bowery homes they reared,
At night, their council-fires were red,
At dawn, the greenwood chase they sped;—
But now, the deer, that bounded high,
Amid his forest canopy,
The stag, that nobly stood at bay,
The thicket where at noon he lay,