Staying for nothing, and crushing still, Oh, that broad-wheeled wagon! The huddling violets with their blue eyes, And the red strawberries with their ripe pouting lips, Letting their sweet blood flow Till the green velvet of the grass blushed like a sunset cloud. And so we journeyed on, Resting upon the brawny shoulder Of the honest settler. At sunset he made us work, And we bit into the trees, And formed his night-bower in the forest. And so we journeyed on Till we came in sight of the home That the settler had chose in the forest, The forest that blackened the tide Of the Delaware, mountain-born; Here he made his home—here he looked at his sylvan empire, And led his band to hew and slaughter the forest, The forest that blackened the tide Of the Delaware, mountain-born. Bright was the August morn That laughed on the vales and the tree-tops, When he led his stalwort band To slaughter the virgin forest That blackened the Delaware’s brow, And gayly and freely they slaughtered The trees of the creek-fed river, The river that leaped from its mountain-goblet Glittering, clear as dew, and pure as a thought of the Deity, Far up in its deep scoop of rock. How they laughed as they swung their blows On the hemlock and spruce and green maple That arbored the glen of the eagle, And bent o’er the cave of the wolf. How they laughed as they heard the deep groans Of the hemlock and spruce and green maple And their proud plumes were bowed to the ground. The forests thus vanished away Like the fog that is breathed from the water, And the eagle screamed keen from the top Of his dwelling, laid bare from her brood, Whilst they shivered and shook with the cold, Icy cold of the gauntlet that Jack Frost Laid upon the soft down of their breasts. Thus vanished the forests away, And the green smiling farm-fields succeeded, Some like the tawny lion-skin, Some spotted like the robe of the ounce, And some striped like the splendid glory of the tiger. The cabin arose in its clearing, The kine-bells sent tinklings like sounds of silver amidst the thickets and bushes, That grouped in rounded clusters the grassy and quiet glades. Then the log hut was swept away With its chimney of sticks, And its little window, like the eye of the deer Peering out from its leafy ambush. The village spread out with its roofs And its delicate finger-like steeple That pointed forever toward heaven, Like the prayer of the pastor ascending. On an emerald knoll, with the shape Of the delicate finger-like steeple Cutting black in the sunshine beside it, The pioneer’s white modest dwelling Sparkled out of its bosom of verdure. There lived the brave old patriarch, The father of many children— There lived the gray old patriarch,