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6l4 LIMITED STATES
Tlie Mountaineer^^ ISong*.
Composed for "• Tmt AMERICA.^ MINSTREL.**
Oh, talk not to me of the '* West" and its rivers-
Its valleys retiring the forests' gloom through—
Its lakes, in whose bosoms the summer sun quivers,
Reflecting a sky ever smiling and new.
Tho' fair be thy streams which flash through the
wildwood.
And rich are thy valleys, and sunny thy skies—
The scenes that encompass the home of my childhood,
Tho' less bright their aspect, more dearly I prize.
Soft, soft is the South, as it sighs o'er thy flowers.
Or noiselessly ripples the slumbering fount;
And cool are the shades of thy vine-t-rellic'd bowers,
Like Eden spots glowing on hill side and mount
They are bright—they are fair—but give me the
mountains,
That rush in magnificence on the clear sky;
Tho' dark be the gush of their pine-coverd fountains.
And rugged the glens where the covert deer lie.
Broad, broad are thy plains where the bufialo grazes.
And verdant the emcmld swells of their ffrass;
But the Indi'in alone tin:»ads their diUicult mazes.
Or skulks where the prairie-wolves tremblinglj pass.
'Phcie's a splendor aye broods o'er the rush of thy
waters,
A sweet song of birds from copse,dingle, and grove.
And kind are die heaits of thy gazelle-ey'd daughters,
When fiiendship awakens, and ushers in love.
But mcm'ry still clings with its tendrils around thee.
And hovers and weeps o'er my chUdhood's first
home;
Too strong are the links which in infancy bound me,
To break now, when destiny bids me to roam.