Tioughnioga

              Tioughnioga

Far up Mt. Toppin's shingly side,

O'er mossy rocks and brakes and fern,
And neath long branches swaying wide
Back to the vale again I turn;
Adown the dizzy sloping height
And far away beyond the plain,
O'er winding stream and lakelet bright,
Mine eyes retrace my steps again.

‘Tis in the morn of springtime bright

And vale and hill are waving green
And dimmest distance bounds the sight
Till fades in blue the melting scene;
And swimming vision knows no rest
Except against the arching sky,
Or pauses on the mountain crest
To note the misty clouds go by.

'Tis here from boyhood's days I've viewed

Tioughnioga's stream and plain,
The rugged path o'er rocks pursued
And climbed the gentler slopes again;
And as the distance far I view,
So back through hazy years I dwell
And fain recall the old and new
Of all the scenes I’ve loved so well.

And what of those who gave the name

To this long trail of vale and wood;
Who searched the glades for fleeing game
Or pausing by their campfires stood;
Who careless roved so wild and free
Amid the mighty monarch shades,
And recked not that those shades might be
But mold'ring shrouds above their heads.

For now they sleep, and forest, wood,

And fleetest limb alike lie low,
And not one brave there comes to brood
Beside Tioughnioga's flow;
And meadows green and fields of corn
And gem like lakes and winding stream
Are tranquil as the summer morn
While pensively I pause to dream.

I dream of boyhood's time—nay more,

My thoughts go back beyond the day
Of those I knew to those before,
The fathers that had passed away;
The tales beside ancestral fires
That I have heard come back again,
While in the group the aged sires
Recounted all their toils and pain.

O'er rugged roads amid the wild,

Through summer's heat or winter's chill,
Came husband, wife and baby child.
And wandering on o'er vale and hill
Came boy and girl, the oxen, cart,
And weary kine, and bleating sheep,
And jaded horse, new life to start
In cabin home by waters deep.

Then came the crash and rose the smoke

Of forests falling here and there,
And rang the axeman's sturdy stroke
Till many a field lay brown and bare.
And many a low but cheery cot
Was reared along the opening plain,
And many a stubborn, uncouth plot
Was made to yield its store of grain.

And hamlets grew, and household fires

Gleamed through the shady depths of night,
And circling hearths of brawny sires
And mothers true and wee ones bright
All nestled where the fleeing wood
Fell back to let the sunlight down,
That every cot might rear its brood
Of children, laughing, ruddy, blown.

And winter's eve, with sifting snow

And howling wolf on mountain far,
And hooting owl and meanings low
Of tempest shrouding moon and star,
Staid not the hardy pioneers
Who gathered oft in hearty glee
And had for night or cold no fears
Where hearts were warm and friendship free.

They gathered in some rough hewn pile

Of logs and clay and sticks and stone,
With festive cheer to greet the while
And make their joys and sorrows known.
Huge, blazing logs from hearthstone wide
Flashed gaily o'er the grateful scene,
O'er lad and lass in youthful pride
And sturdy sire with sober mien.

The thrifty housewife plied with care

Her far-fetched skill of those old days,
And baked the crispy corncake rare
And swung the sparerib in the blaze.
E'en faithful dog and purring cat
Were happy in that firelit home,
Where hearty cheer and merry chat
In spite of chilling blast had come.

And when the merry round was done.

The meal and dance and rustic play,
The storm again took back its own
Through dreary woods to fight their way;
The men with shirts of madder red
And women with their flannel frocks then
All jumped aboard the old wood sled
And homeward rode behind the oxen.

And thus, with joys and hardships blent,

They builded well for future years,
And toiled right on with hearts content
And took their meed with hopes and fears.
Their work is done; upon the shore
Beyond the mist-bound river turning.
Say, would they fain look back once more,
Back to this land of their sojourning?

But sunken mounds and mossy stones

Are sole reminders of the past;
A century's forgotten ones
Lie strown like leaves before the blast.
And o'er the wide, once woody vale,
Behold the bustling towns arise,
And, sped along on iron rail.
The mighty steam horse snorts and flies.

Where once, high in its whizzing flight,

For death the feathered arrow wrought,
There speed on trembling wires all bright
The lightning-winged shafts of thought.
Thus, fairest landscape that I know,
From Toppin's rocks do I look down—
Down on Tioughnioga's flow,
On lake and wood and field and town.

 

HORACE HISCOCK, Preble, N.Y.
Cortland Evening Standard, Friday, June 19, 1896.

Editor's note:
   Punctuation may not be 100% accurate due to newsprint irregularities. Horace Hiscock lived from 1828 to1904. His wife's name was Kate. Mt. Toppin is a Preble landmark visible from I-81. The west branch of the Tioughnioga River flows south at Preble. Mr. Hiscock's poem memorializes Native Americans and early European pioneers and settlers who made a home in Cortland County.
Horace Hiscock obituary:
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=71262761