From the Flats
What heartache—ne’er a hill!Inexorable, vapid, vague and chillThe drear sand-levels drain my spirit low.With one poor word they tell me all they know;Whereat their stupid tongues, to tease my pain,Do drawl it o’er again and o’er again.They hurt my heart with griefs I cannot name:Always the same, the same.
Nature hath no surprise,No ambuscade of beauty ’gainst mine eyesFrom brake or lurking dell or deep defile;No humors, frolic forms—this mile, that mile;No rich reserves or happy-valley hopesBeyond the bend of roads, the distant slopes.Her fancy fails, her wild is all run tame:Ever the same, the same.
Oh might I through these tearsBut glimpse some hill my Georgia high uprears,Where white the quartz and pink the pebble shine,The hickory heavenward strives, the muscadineSwings o’er the slope, the oak’s far-falling shadeDarkens the dogwood in the bottom glade,And down the hollow from a ferny nookBright leaps a living brook!
Tampa, Florida, 1877.