THE BRILLIANT NOR-WEST.
Reading edition
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BY J. K. MITCHELL.
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Let Araby boast of her soft spicy gale,
And Persia her breeze from the rose-scented vale;
Let orange-trees scatter in wildness their balm,
Where sweet summer islands lie fragrant and calm!
Give me the cold blast of my country again,
Careering o’er snow-cover’d mountain and plain,
And coming, though scentless, yet pure, to my breast,
With vigor and health from the cloudless Nor-West.
I languish where suns in the tropic sky glow,
And gem-studded waters on golden sands flow,
Where shrubs blossom-laden, bright birds, and sweet trees,
With odors and music encumber the breeze;
I languish to catch but a breathing of thee,
To hear thy wild winter-notes brilliant and free,
To feel thy cool touch on my heart-strings opprest,
And gather a tone from the bracing Nor-West.
Mists melt at thy coming, clouds flee from thy wrath,
The marsh and its vapors are seal’d on thy path,
For spotless and pure as the snow-covered North,
Their cold icy cradle, thy tempests come forth.
Thy blue robe is borrowed from clearest of skies,
Thy sandals were made where the driven snow lies,
And stars, seldom seen in this low world, are blest
To shine in thy coronet—brilliant Nor-West.
Health bounds to thy pathway, joy shouts in thy course,
The virtues of manhood thy breathings enforce;
The pure, and the fair, and the brave, and the free,
Are purer, and fairer, and braver, for thee;
As flames sweeping wildly o’er mountain and heath,
But burn the more fiercely the colder thy breath,
So glow, but more brightly for thee, in the breast,
The virtues of freedom—soul-stirring Nor-West.
Forever, forever, be thine, purest wind,
The lakes and the streams of my country to bind;
And oh, though afar I am fated to roam,
Still kindle the hearths, and the hearts of my home!
While blows from the Polar skies holy and pure,
Thy trumpet of freedom, the land shall endure,
As snow in thy pathway, and stars on thy crest,
Unsullied and beautiful—glorious Nor-West.
Philadelphia, March, 1841.