Frontispiece

And 'mid the awful stillness
    Of their grave,
The forest oaks have flourished
    And the breath
Of years hath swept their races,
    Wave on wave,
As ages fainted
    On the shores of death.
The tumbling cliff perchance
    Hath thundered deep,
Like a rough note
    Of music in the song
Of centuries, and the whirlwind's
    Crushing sweep,
Hath ploughed the forest
    With its furrows strong.

Samuel Griswold Goodrich

Samuel Griswold Goodrich, born on August 19, 1793, and passing away on May 9, 1860, was an American author notable for his numerous children's books. Writing under the pseudonym 'Peter Parley,' he was a significant literary figure in the 19th century. Goodrich’s works were known for their educational content, aiming to teach young readers about history, geography, and other subjects in an engaging manner. His publications had a lasting impact on American children's literature.

Samuel Griswold Goodrich

The Two Windmills.

Samuel Griswold Goodrich, Simple Poetry

The Gipsy's Prayer.

Samuel Griswold Goodrich, Simple Poetry

The Mountain Stream.

Samuel Griswold Goodrich, Simple Poetry

English

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The Old Oak.

Friend of my early days, we meet once more!
Once more I stand thine aged boughs beneath,
And hear again the rustling music pour,
Along thy leaves, as whispering spirits breathe.

Full many a day of sunshine and of storm,
Since last we parted, both have surely known;
Thy leaves are thinned, decrepit is thy form,
And all my cherished visions, they are flown!

How beautiful, how brief, those sunny hours
Departed now, when life was in its spring
When Fancy knew no scene undecked with flowers,
And Expectation flew on Fancy's wing!

Here, on the bank, beside this whispering stream,
Which still runs by as gayly as of yore,
Marking its eddies, I was wont to dream
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The Funeral Tree Of The Sokokis. 1756

Around Sebago's lonely lake
There lingers not a breeze to break
The mirror which its waters make.

The solemn pines along its shore,
The firs which hang its gray rock o'er,
Are painted on its glassy floor.

The sun looks o'er, with hazy eye,
The snowy mountain tops which lie
Piled coldly up against the sky.

Dazzling and white! Save where the bleak,
Wild winds have bared some splintering peak,
Or snow-slide left its dusky streak.

Yet green are Saco's banks below,
And belts of spruce and cedar show,
Dark fringing round those cones of snow.

The earth hath felt the breath of spring,
Though yet on her deliverer's wing
The lingering frosts of winter cling.

Fresh grasses fringe the meadow-brooks,
And mildly from its su...

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The First Frost Of Autumn.

At evening it rose in the hollow glade,
Where wild-flowers blushed 'mid silence and shade;
Where, hid from the gaze of the garish noon,
They were slily wooed by the trembling moon.
It rose for the guardian zephyrs had flown,
And left the valley that night alone.
No sigh was borne from the leafy hill,
No murmur came from the lapsing rill;
The boughs of the willow in silence wept,
And the aspen leaves in that sabbath slept.
The valley dreamed, and the fairy lute
Of the whispering reed by the brook was mute.
The slender rush o'er the glassy rill,
As a marble shaft, was erect and still,
And no airy sylph on the mirror wave,
A dimpling trace of its footstep gave.
The moon shone down, but the shadows deep
Of the pensile flowers, were hushed in sleep.
The p...

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Sunset In Autumn

Blood-Coloured oaks, that stand against a sky of gold and brass;
Gaunt slopes, on which the bleak leaves glow of brier and sassafras,
And broom-sedge strips of smoky-pink and pearl gray clumps of grass
In which, beneath the ragged sky, the rain pools gleam like glass.

From West to East, from wood to wood, along the forest-side,
The winds, the sowers of the Lord, with thunderous footsteps stride;
Their stormy hands rain acorns down; and mad leaves, wildly dyed,
Like tatters of their rushing cloaks, stream round them far and wide.

The frail leaf-cricket in the weeds rings a faint fairy bell;
And like a torch of phantom ray the milkweed's windy shell
Glimmers; while, wrapped in withered dreams, the wet autumnal smell
Of loam and leaf, like some sad ghost, steals over field an...

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Funeral Tree Of The Sokokis

Around Sebago's lonely lake
There lingers not a breeze to break
The mirror which its waters make.

The solemn pines along its shore,
The firs which hang its gray rocks o'er,
Are painted on its glassy floor.

The sun looks o'er, with hazy eye,
The snowy mountain-tops which lie
Piled coldly up against the sky.

Dazzling and white! save where the bleak,
Wild winds have bared some splintering peak,
Or snow-slide left its dusky streak.

Yet green are Saco's banks below,
And belts of spruce and cedar show,
Dark fringing round those cones of snow.

The earth hath felt the breath of spring,
Though yet on her deliverer's wing
The lingering frosts of winter cling.

Fresh grasses fringe the meadow-brooks,
And mildly from its s...

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The Mississippi.[A]

I.

Far in the West, where snow-capt mountains rise,
Like marble shafts beneath Heaven's stooping dome,
And sunset's dreamy curtain drapes the skies,
As if enchantment there would build her home
O'er wood and wave, from haunts of men away
From out the glen, all trembling like a child,
A babbling streamlet comes as if to play
Albeit the scene is savage, lone and wild.
Here at the mountain's foot, that infant wave
'Mid bowering leaves doth hide its rustic birth
Here learns the rock and precipice to brave
And go the Monarch River of the Earth!
Far, far from hence, its bosom deep and wide,
Bears the proud steamer on its fiery wing
Along its banks, bright cities rise in pride,
And o'er its breast their gorgeous image fling.
The Mississippi needs no herald...

Samuel Griswold Goodrich