Look forth on the forest ere autumn wind scatters
Its frondage of scarlet, and purple, and gold:
That forest, through which the great "Father of Waters"
For thousands of years his broad current has rolled!
Gaze over that forest of opaline hue,
With a heaven above it of glorious blue,
And say is there scene, in this beautiful world,
Where Nature more gaily her flag has unfurled?
Or think'st thou, that e'en in the regions of bliss,
There's a landscape more truly Elysian than this?
Behold the dark sumac in crimson arrayed,
Whose veins with the deadliest poison are rife!
And, side by her side, on the edge of the glade,
The sassafras laurel, restorer of life!
Behold the tall maples turned red in their hue,
And the muscadine vine, with its clusters of blue;
And the lotus, whose leaves have scarce time to unfold,
Ere they drop, to discover its berries of gold;
And the bay-tree, perfumed, never changing its sheen,
And for ever enrobed in its mantle of green!
And list to the music borne over the trees!
It falls on the ear, giving pleasure ecstatic--
The song of the birds and the hum of the bees
Commingling their tones with the ripples erratic.
Hark! hear you the red-crested cardinal's call
From the groves of annona?--from tulip-tree tall
The mock-bird responding?--below, in the glade,
The dove softly cooing in mellower shade--
While the oriole answers in accents of mirth?
Oh, where is there melody sweeter on earth?
In infamy now the bold slanderer slumbers,
Who falsely declared 'twas a land without song!
Had he listened, as I, to those musical numbers
That liven its woods through the summer-day long--
Had he slept in the shade of its blossoming trees,
Or inhaled their sweet balm ever loading the breeze,
He would scarcely have ventured on statement so wrong--
"Her plants without perfume, her birds without song."
Ah! closet-philosopher, sure, in that hour,
You had never beheld the magnolia's flower?
Surely here the Hesperian gardens were found--
For how could such land to the gods be unknown?
And where is there spot upon African ground
So like to a garden a goddess would own?
And the dragon so carelessly guarding the tree,
Which the hero, whose guide was a god of the sea,
Destroyed before plucking the apples of gold--
Was nought but that monster--the mammoth of old.
If earth ever owned spot so divinely caressed,
Sure that region of eld was the Land of the West!
The memory of that scene attunes my soul to song, awaking any muse from
the silence in which she has long slumbered. But the voice of the coy
maiden is less melodious than of yore: she shies _me_ for my neglect:
and despite the gentlest courting, refusing to breathe her divine spirit
over a scene worthy of a sweeter strain. And this scene lay not upon
the classic shores of the Hellespont--not in the famed valleys of Alp
and Apennine--not by the romantic borders of the Rhine, but upon the
banks of _Mud Creek_ in the state of Tennessee! In truth, it was a
lovely landscape, or rather a succession of landscapes, through which I
rode, after leaving the cabin of my hospitable host. It was the season
of "Indian summer"--that singular phenomenon of the occidental clime,
when the sun, as if rueing his southern declension, appears to return
along the line of the zodiac. He loves better the "Virgin" than
"Aquarius;" and lingering to take a fond look on that fair land he has
fertilised by his beams, dispels for a time his intruding antagonist,
the hoary Boreas. But his last kiss kills: there is too much passion in
his parting glance. The forest is fired by its fervour; and many of its
fairest forms the rival trod of the north may never clasp in his cold
embrace. In suttee-like devotion, they scorn to shun the flame; but,
with outstretched arms inviting it; offer themselves as a holocaust to
him who, through the long summer-day, has smiled upon their trembling
existence.
At this season of the year, too, the virgin forest is often the victim
of another despoiler--the _hurricane_. Sweeping them with spiteful
breath, this rude destroyer strikes down the trees like fragile reeds--
prostrating at once the noblest and humblest forms. Not one is left
standing on the soil: for the clearing of the hurricane is a complete
work; and neither stalk, sapling, nor stump may be seen, where it has
passed. Even the giants of the forest yield to its strength, as though
smitten by the hand of a destroying angel! Uprooted, they lie along the
earth side by side--the soil still clinging to the clavicles of their
roots, and their leafy tops turned to the lee--in this prostrate
alignment slowly to wither and decay! A forest, thus fallen, presents
for a time a picture of melancholy aspect. It suggests the idea of some
grand battle-field, where the serried hosts, by a terrible discharge of
"grape and canister," have been struck down on the instant: not one
being left to look to the bodies of the slain--neither to bury nor
remove them. Like the battle-field, too, it becomes the haunt of wolves
and other wild beasts; who find among the fallen trunks, if not food, a
fastness securing them from the pursuit both of hound and hunter. Here
in hollow log the black she-bear gives birth to her loutish cubs,
training them to climb over the decaying trunks; here the lynx and red
couguar choose their cunning convert; here the racoon rambles over his
beaten track; the sly opossum crawls warily along the log, or goes to
sleep among the tangle of dry rhizomes; while the gaunt brown wolf may
be often heard howling amidst the ruin, or in hoarse bark baying the
midnight moon.
In a few years, however, this sombre scene assumes a more cheerful
aspect. An under-growth springs up, that soon conceals the skeletons of
the dead trees: plants and shrubs appear--often of different genera and
species from those that hitherto usurped the soil--and the ruin is no
longer apparent. The mournful picture gives place to one of luxuriant
sweetness: the more brilliant sheen of the young trees and shrubs, now
covering the ground, and contrasting agreeably with the sombre hues of
the surrounding forest. No longer reigns that melancholy silence that,
for a while, held dominion over the scene. If, at intervals, be heard
the wild scream of the couguar, or the distant howling of wolves, these
scarcely interrupt the music falling endlessly upon the ear--the red
cardinals, the orioles, the warbling _fringillidae_, and the polyglot
thrushes--who meet here, as if by agreement, to make this lovely sylvan
spot the scene of their forest concerts.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Shortly after leaving the cabin of this young backwoodsman, my path,
hitherto passing under the gloomy shadows of the forest, debouched upon
just such a scene. I had been warned of its proximity. My host, at
parting, had given me directions as to how I should find my way across
the _herrikin_--through which ran the trace that conducted to the
clearing of the squatter, some two miles further down the creek. I was
prepared to behold a tract of timber laid prostrate by the storm--the
trees all lying in one direction, and exhibiting the usual scathed and
dreary aspect. Instead of this, on emerging from the dark forest, I was
agreeably surprised by a glorious landscape that burst upon my view.
It was, as already stated, that season of the year when the American
woods array themselves in their most attractive robes--when the very
leaves appear as if they were flowers, so varied and brilliant are their
hues--when the foliage of the young beeches becomes a pale yellow, and
glimmers translucent against the sun--when the maples are dying off of a
deep red, and the sumac and sassafras turning respectively crimson and
scarlet--when the large drupes of the Osage orange, the purple clusters
of the fox-grape, and the golden berries of the persimmon or Virginian
lotus, hang temptingly from the tree: just at that season when the
benignant earth has perfected, and is about to yield up, her annual
bounty; and all nature is gratefully rejoicing at the gift. No wonder I
was agreeably impressed by the gorgeous landscape--no wonder I reigned
up, and permitted my eyes to dwell upon it; while my heart responded to
the glad chorus, that, from bird and bee, was rising up to heaven around
me! I, too felt joyous under the reflection that, amid such lovely
scenes, I had chosen my future home.