Judge Trumbull

I saw him in his reverie. Night had drawnDense curtains o'er the slumbering, snow-rob'd earth,And a lone lamp its fitful lustre threwUpon his musing brow. 'Twas mark'd by age,And thought profound, perchance, with sadness ting'd,Yet from the piercing eye that beauty beam'dWhich wrinkled Time respecteth.This was he,Whose shaft of Wit had touch'd the epic strainWith poignant power, the father of the harp,In his own native vales. He seem'd to museAs if those lov'd retreats did spread themselvesAgain before his eye. The sighing windThrough the long branches of those ancient treesWhere first his boyhood lisp'd the lore of song,Doth lull his soul. Then brighter visions come,A sound of music rises. 'Tis thy voiceConnecticut! as when by vernal rainsSurcharg'd, it swell'd in tuneful murmurs roundThe vine-clad mansion, where his children grew.But lo! the clangor of yon mighty lakesHolding hoarse conflict with the winged stormBreaks up the melody. And is it so?

That in the feebleness of four score years,Thou, with unshrinking hand dost pitch thy tentNear the rude billows of the Michigan,And mark in that far land, young life start forthIn vigor and in beauty and in power,Where erst the Indian and the panther dwelt,Sole lords? It was a bold emprise to changeThe robe of science and of minstrelsy,Worn from thy cradle onward, for the staffOf the rough emigrant.Again I look'd,His lamp had faded, and the learned pageWas clos'd within his study. The blest bookOf God's great love to man, was open still:Where was the eye that ponder'd it? the heartThat priz'd it more than Greek or Roman lore?—There was a shroud, a pall, a tender sighOf Woman's grief, and 'neath the broken sodsOf that New World, the patriarch poet lies,"And 'dust to dust' concludes our noblest song."—Master and friend! until this feeble lyreIn silence moulders, till my heart forgetThe thrill of gratitude, the love of song,The praise of virtue, shall thine image dwellBright with the beauty of benignant ageIn my soul's temple-shrine.