Page:Southern Life in Southern Literature.djvu/309

Vast mountains lift their plumed peaks cloud-crowned; And, save where up their sides the plowman creeps, An unhewn forest girds them grandly round, In whose dark shades a future navy sleeps! Ye Stars, which, though unseen, yet with me gaze Upon this loveliest fragment of the earth! Thou Sun, that kindlest all thy gentlest rays Above it, as to light a favorite hearth! Ye Clouds, that in your temples in the West See nothing brighter than its humblest flowers! And you, ye Winds, that on the ocean s breast Are kissed to coolness ere ye reach its bowers! Bear witness with me in my song of praise, And tell the world that, since the world began, No fairer land hath fired a poet s lays, Or given a home to man! But these are charms already widely blown! His be the meed whose pencil s trace Hath touched our very swamps with grace, And round whose tuneful way All Southern laurels bloom; The Poet of "The Woodlands," unto whom Alike are known The flute s low breathing and the trumpet s tone, And the soft west wind s sighs; But who shall utter all the debt, O land wherein all powers are met That bind a people s heart, The world doth owe thee at this day, And which it never can repay, Yet scarcely deigns to own! Where sleeps the poet who shall fitly sing The source wherefrom doth spring