The writings of John Greenleaf Whittier, Volume 3.
John Greenleaf Whittier, Ed.

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[297]

The Lumbermen.

Wildly round our woodland quarters
     Sad-voiced Autumn grieves;
Thickly down these swelling waters
     Float his fallen leaves.
Through the tall and naked timber,
     Column-like and old,
Gleam the sunsets of November,
     From their skies of gold.

O'er us, to the southland heading,
     Screams the gray wild-goose;
On the night-frost sounds the treading
     Of the brindled moose.
Noiseless creeping, while we're sleeping,
     Frost his task-work plies;
Soon, his icy bridges heaping,
     Shall our log-piles rise.

When, with sounds of smothered thunder,
     On some night of rain,
Lake and river break asunder
     Winter's weakened chain,
Down the wild March flood shall bear them
     To the saw-mill's wheel,
Or where Steam, the slave, shall tear them
     With his teeth of steel.

Be it starlight, be it moonlight,
     In these vales below,