LOYE S CALENDAR, LAYS OF THE HUDSON, AND OTHER POEMS. BY CHARLES FENNO HOFFMAN. NEW YORK : D. APPLETON AJSTD COMPANY, 346 & 348 BROADWAY. M.DOOO.LVIII. ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1847, by D. APPLETON & Co., In the Clerk s Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New-York. im CONTENTS. h LOVE S CALENDAR ; or Eros and Anteros, . LAYS OF THE HUDSON. The Forest Cemetery, .... 33 The Thaw-King : his Visit to New- York, 39 Moonlight upon the Hudson, ... 45 Kachesco : Part I. " Camping out" ... 51 Part II. The Vigil of Faith, ... 69 The Bob-O-Linkum, .... 93 Forest Musings 96 Indian Summer, 1828, 100 What is Solitude ? 102 Primeval Woods, 104 The Laurel, 106 SONGS AND OCCASIONAL POEMS. Monterey, Ill " Brunt the Fight," 113 M801723 1 CONTENTS. Le Faineant, 315 Sparkling and bright, ... 117 Rosalie Clare, 119 The Myrtle and Steel 121 Algonquin War Song, . . . 123 Algonquin Death Song, .... 125 "Rio Bravo," 120 Buff and Blue, 133 The Men of Churubusco, .... 135 The Mint Julep, 137 The Loon upon the Lake, . , . .130 Room, Boys, Room, .... 140 "Faraway," 142 The Sleigh Bells, 144 Morning Hymn, 145 The Streamlet, 147 St. Valentine s Day, . . . . .148 The Blush, . 150 Thy Name, 151 The Language of Flowers, . . . 153 The Call of Spring, 154 Monody, 156 Love s Memories, 157 Written in a Lady s Prayer Book, . . 159 -0 CONTENTS . 5 Anacreontic, ...... 160 The Song of the Drowned, ... 162 No more No more, 164 A Hunter s Matin, 165 My Birchen Bark, 166 TheYatcher, 168 Boat Song, . . , . . . .169 Where dost thou loiter, Spring ? . . 171 Chansonnette, 173 Wake, Lady, Wake ! .... 174 Serenade, 176 The Brook and the Pine, ... 177 Think of me, Dearest 179 Away to the Forest, .... 181 The Waxen Rose, 182 Myne Heartte, 184 The Lover s Star, 186 The Invitation, 187 The Love Test, 189 Afterthought, 191 Seek not to understand her, . . . 192 Withering, Withering, ... 194 A place for me, 195 Our Friendship," .... 197 O CONTENTS. My Dog, 198 A Portrait, ,200 Buena Vista, 202 NOTES ON KACHESCO, .... 207 Cotie (Haleniar. 6 LOVE S CALENDAR; OR EROS AND ANTEROS. LOVE, with the ancient sages, if it be not twin- born, yet hath a brother wondrous like him, called Anteros ; whom while he seeks all about, his chance is to meet with many false and feigning desires that wander singly up and down in his likeness. By them, in their borrowed garb, is Love often deceived ; partly that his eye is not the quickest in this dark region here below (which is not love s proper sphere), partly out of the simplicity and credulity which is native to him, and embraces and consorts him with those suborned striplings, as if they were his mother s own sons. But after awhile, soaring above the sha dow of the earth, he discerns that this is not his gen uine brother, as he imagined ; he has no longer the power to hold fellowship with such a personate mate. For that original and fiery virtue given him, by fate, all on a sudden goes out, and leaves him undeified o- 10 LOVE S CALENDAR, OR and despoiled of all his force ; till finding Anteros at last, he kindles and repairs the almost faded ammu nition of his deity, by the reflection of a coequal and homogeneal fire. MILTON. I. THEY are mockery all those skies, those skies Their untroubled depths of blue ; They are mockery all these eyes, these eyes, Which seem so warm and true. Each quiet star in the one that lies, Each meteor glance that at random flies The other s lashes through ; They are mockery all, these flowers of spring, Which her airs so softly woo ; And the love to which we would madly cling, Ay ! it is mockery too ; The winds are false which the perfume stir, And the looks deceive to which we sue, And love but leads to the sepulchre, Which the flowers spring to strew. II. Ay ! there it is, that winning smile, That look that cheats my heart forever, That tone that will my brain beguile Till reason from her seat shall sever. EROS AND ANTEROS. 11 All, all bewitching, as when last I for the twentieth time forswore them, Resistless as when first I cast My whole adoring soul before them. Like carrier doves that hurry back To the bright home from which they re parted, However blind may be their track, Or far the goal from which they started, So from Love s jesses if e er free I set my thoughts one moment roving, Somehow the very next in thee They always find their home of loving. ill. She loves but tis not me she loves : Not me on whom she ponders, When in some dream of tenderness Her truant fancy wanders. The forms that flit her visions through Are like the shapes of old, Where tales of Prince and Paladin On tapestry are told. Man may not hope her heart to win, Be his of common mould ! But I though spurs are won no more Where herald s trump is pealing, Nor thrones carved out for lady fair Where steel-clad ranks are wheeling 12 LOVE S CALENDAR OR I loose the falcon of my hopes Upon as proud a flight As they who hawk d at high renown, In song-ennobled fight. If daring then true love may crown. My love she must requite ! Tell her I love her love her for those eyes Now soft with feeling, radiant now with mirth, Which, like a lake reflecting autumn skies, Reveal two heavens here to us on earth The one in which their soulful beauty lies, And that wherein such soulfulness has birth : Go, autumn flower, before the season flies, And the rude winter comes thy bloom to blast Go ! and with all of eloquence thou hast, The burning story of my love discover, And if the theme should fail, alas ! to move her, Tell her, when youth s gay budding time is past, And summer s gaudy flowering is over, Like thee, my love will blossom to the last ! v. Her heart is like a harp whose strings At will are touched alike by all : Her heart is like a bird that sings In answer to each fowler s call. EROS AND ANTEROS. 13 That harp ! has it one secret tone Reserved for master hands alone ? That bird ! has it one soulful note Which only toward its mate will float ? Let it not wile thy soul away That harp with its beguiling touch ; Let not that bird s bewildering lay Thrill through thy bosom over-much : They ll cheat thine eyes of sleep to-night, Yet find thee dreaming with the light With heart and brain all idly stirred The music of that harp and bird ! VI. Tis hard to share her smiles with many ! And while she is so dear to me, To fear that I, far less than any, Call out her spirit s witchery ! To find my inmost heart when near her Trembling at every glance and tone, And feel the while each charm grow dearer That will not beam for me alone. How can she thus, sweet spendthrift, squander The treasures one alone can prize 1 How can her eyes to all thus wander, When I but live in those sweet eyes ? Those syren tones so lightly spoken Cause many a heart I know to thrill ; 14 LOVE S CALENDAR, OR But mine, and only mine, till broken, In every pulse must answer still. VII. Well ! call it Friendship ! have I asked for more, Even in those moments, when I gave the most ? Twas but for thee, I looked so far before ! I saw thy bark was hurrying blindly on, A guideless thing upon a dangerous coast. With thee, with thee, where would I not have gone ? But could I see thee drift upon the shore, Unknowing drift, upon a shore unknown ? Yes, call it Friendship, and let no revealing If Love be there, e er make Love s wild name heard, It will not die, if it be worth concealing ! Call it then Friendship but oh, let that word Speak but for me for me, a deeper feeling Than ever yet a lover s bosom stirred \ VIII. As he who, on some clouded night, When wind and tide attend his bark, Waits for the North star s steady light To shine above the waters dark, Will often for its guiding beam Mistake some wandering meteor s ray ; But wilder d by that fitful gleam Doubt yet to launch upon the stream, Till wind and tide have passed away. EROS AND ANTEROS. So I, if ever Life s dark sea Be swept by some propitious gale, Look for my guiding light in thee, Before I dare to spread my sail ; So, while thy smiles deceitful shine, Then leave all darker than before, I for some surer beacon pine, Till breeze and flood no longer mine, I m stranded on the barren shore. IX. I will love her no more ! t is a waste of the heart, This lavish of feeling a prodigal s part Who, heedless, the treasure a life could not earn Squanders forth where he vainly may look for return. I will love her no more it is folly to give Our best years to one, when for many we live. And he who the world will thus barter for one, I ween by such traffic must soon be undone. I will love her no more it is heathenish thus To bow to an idol which bends not to us | Which heeds not, which hears not, which recks not for aught That the worship of years to its altar hath brought. I will love her no more for no love is without Its limit in measure, and mine hath run out ; 16 LOVE S CALENDAR, OR She engrosseth it all, and till some she restore, Than this moment I love her how can I love more 1 O ! how could my heart so falsely guage, Singing that more than now I could not love thee ! Others, like me, may, at thy budding age, Hold every feeling in sweet vassalage Unto thy charms. But I by all above me ! Will prove thee suzerain of my soul more nearly ; When Time his arts shall gainst thy beauty wage, To break their serfdom serving thee more dearly. Mark how the sunset, with its parting hues, The heaving bosom of yon river staineth ! To yield those tints the grieving waves refuse, Nor yet that purpling light at last will lose Till Night itself, like Death, above them reigneth ! So more and more will brighten to the last The light, which once upon my true soul cast, Reflected there, still true till death remaineth. XI. Think not I love thee by my word I do not ! Think not I love the for thy love I sue not ! And yet, I fear, there s hardly one that weareth Thy beauty s chains, who like me for thee careth ! Who joys like me when in thy joy believing Who like me grieves when thou dost seem but griev ing ? EROSANDANTERO3. 17 But, though I charms so perilous eschew not, ^ Think not I love thee trust me that I do not ! Think not I love thee ! pr ythee why so coy, then 1 Doth it thy maiden bashfulness annoy, then ? Sith the heart s homage still will be up-welling, Where Truth and Goodness have so sweet a dwell ing? Surely, unjust one, I were less than mortal, Knelt I not thus before that temple s portal. Others dare to love thee dare what I do not Then let me worship, bright one while I woo not ! XII. I know thou dost love me ay ! frown as thou wilt, And curl that beautiful lip, Which I never can gaze on without the guilt Of burning its dew to sip : I know that my heart is reflected in thine, And, like flowers that over a brook incline, They toward each other dip. Though thou lookest so cold in these halls of light, Mid the careless, proud, and gay, I will steal like a thief in thy heart at night, And pilfer its thoughts away. I will come in thy dreams at the midnight hour, And thy soul in secret shall own the power It dares to mock by day. o- ~ 18 LOVE S CALENDAR, OR XIII. I ask not what shadow came over her heart, In the moment I thought her my own If love in that moment could really depart, I mourn not such love when tis flown. I ask not what shadow came over her then, What doubt did her bosom appal, For I know where her heart will turn truly again, If it ever turn truly at all ! It is not at once that the reed-bird takes wing, When the tide rises high round her nest, But again and again, floating back, she will sing O er the spot where her love-treasures rest : And oh, when the surge of distrust would invade, Where the heart hoped forever to dwell, Love long upon loitering pinion is stay d, Ere his wing waves a mournful farewell. XIV. I waited for thee but all restless waited, For soul like mine, it ever must be moving ; I knew one spirit with my own was mated, Yet I mistook that restlessness for loving : Of mine own nature an ideal created, And loved because I only thus was fated. Fated, bewilder d thus in thought and feeling, To waste the freshness of my soul away, -O EROS AND ANTEROS. 19 To see each bud of spring in turn revealing But canker d blooms upon a fruitless spray, Why marvel then in prayer I oft am kneeling, Sweet minister of grace ! to bless thy spirit-healing ? xv. My life s whole pilgrimage have i not told Mapping my Past before those loving eyes, With such minuteness that they might behold Each hair-line of my soul, without disguise? Was Truth not woven, every line acrost An iron thread thro silver subtleties Of Fancy or of Feeling, howe er gloss d? Was Faith not there, at rein or helm the while, A guide, a check, for fancy s luring smile, A guide, a check, for feeling passion-toss d ? Oh, how then, now, can thought of me so vile, Thought as of one to truth and faith, both lost, Ignobly come thy bosom to beguile, And kill affection with suspicion s frost ! XVI. Nay, plead not thou art dull to-night, When I can see the tear-drop stealing, Soft witness to love s watchful sight, Some lurking grief within revealing. Wouldst thou so cheat the friend thou lovest Of half the wealth he owns in thee ? Why, sweet one, by that smile thou provest Thy tears as well belong to me ! 0- c 20 LOVE S CALENDAR, OR Ah, tears again ! well, let them flow, In tenderness thus flow for ever, Those last upon my breast I know Fresh from affection s fruitful river. What I smiles once more ! Sweet April wonder, Thy sun and rain thou wilt not miss ; Why should not I then have my thunder, And melt each bolt into a kiss ? xvn. Life seems to thee more earnest, dearest ! And is it not the same with me ? Why, sweet, each shadow that thou fearest To me become s reality A thought a pang to mar my gladness, And cloud my brow with tender sadness And all of loving thee ! The jest from which thou often turnest Is only love s fond thoughtful guile, And comes from heart in love most earnest When it would make thee smile Is but the stream s bright circles breaking Beneath thy blessed tear-dropswaking Love s dimples there the while. XVIII. Thou ask st me why that thought of death Should rise within our souls the same EROS AND ANTEROS. Why now, when dearer grows each breath Of life, we shrink not at his name ? What is it, sweet, but faith in each The other could not live alone ? What but the wish at once to reach The land where change is never known ? As, parted here, we dare not think Of wearying years to come between ! Nay, start not, love, as on the brink Of what may be as it hath been WE only part like twin-born rays Diverging from the morning sun Again within his orb to blaze When fused in heaven into one. XIX. Ask me not why I should love her, Look upon those soul-full eyes ! Look while mirth or feeling move her, And see there how sweetly rise Thoughts gay and gentle from a breast Which is of innocence the nest Which, though each joy were from it shred, By truth would still be tenanted ! See from those sweet windows peeping, Emotions tender, bright, and pure, And wonder not the faith I m keeping Every trial can endure ! 22 LOVE S CALENDAR, OR Wonder not that looks so winning Still for me new ties are spinning ; Wonder not that heart so true Keeps mine from ever changing too. xx. While he thou lovest were not the same, If scathless all from passion s flame, Wouldst thou the temper d steel forego At thought of what hath made it so ? Wouldst thou have bann d the sun to shine In spring upon thy chosen pine, And dwarf d the stature of the tree That thus had never shelter d thee ! Think st thou the dream by fancy sent, The fervor by "wild passion lent Think st thou the wandering tenderness That yearns each loving heart to bless That either, or that all can be The love my soul still kept for thee ? Still faithful kept, till thou or death Should come to claim her inmost breath I XXI. Thoughts wild thoughts ! oh why will ye wander, Wander away from the task that s before ye ? Heart weak heart ! ah why art thou fonder, Fonder of her than ever of glory 1 EROS AND ANTEROS. 23 What though the laurel for thee hath no glitter, What though thy soul never yearn d for a name : When did Love garland a brow that was fitter To wake in Love s bosom the wild wish of fame 1 Doth she not watch o er thine every endeavor ? Leans not her heart in warm faith on thine own ? If thou sit doubting and dreaming forever, Too late thou lt discover that her dream has flown ! Ay ! though each thought that is tender and glowing Hath yet no errand, save only to her She may forget thee, while time is thus flowing ; Thou waste thy worship fond idolater ! In dreams in dreams she answers to my yearning, And fondly lays her downy cheek to mine ; In dreams each night that faithful form returning Will on my breast with sweet content recline : Awhile my heart keeps time to her soft breathing, Heaving in motion to her bosom heaving. I wake and oh, there is an inward sinking, A drear soul-faintness coming o er me then, That through the livelong day but makes my thinking One fond, fond aching thus to dream again. Soul soul, where art thou through the day employ d, Only to fill at night my bosom s void 1 24 LOVE S CALENDAR, OR XXIII. Why should I murmur lest she may forget me ? Why should I grieve to be by her forgot ? Better, then, wish that she had never met me, Better, oh far, she should remember not ! Yet that sad wish ah, would it not come o er her Knew she the heart on which she now relies? Strong it is only in beating to adore her Faint in the moment her lov d image flies ! Why should I murmur lest she may forget me ? Would I not rather be remember d not Ere have her grieve that she had ever met me 1 /"only suffer if I am forgot ! XXIV. They say that thou art alter d, Amy, They say that thou no more Dost keep within thy bosom, Amy, The faith that once it wore ; They tell me that another now Doth thy young heart assail ; They tell me, Amy, too, that thou Dost smile on his lore tale. But I I heed them not, my Amy, Thy heart is like my own ; And still enshrined in mine, my Amy, Thine image lives alone : EROS AND ANTEROS. 25 Whate er a rival s hopes have fed, Thy soul cannot be moved Till he shall plead as I have plead, And love as I have loved. Take back then thy pledges, and peace to that heart In which faith like a shadow can come and depart ! From which love, that seems cherished most fondly to-day, Is cast, without grieving, to-morrow away. Such a heart it may sadden mine own to resign, But it never was mated to mingle with mine. Love another ! Nay, shrink not more wisely thou wilt If truth to thy plighted in thine eyes be guilt. I claim not, I ask not one thought in thy breast While that thought brings misgiving and doubt to the rest. If the heart that thus fails thee can bid me depart, Take back all love s pledges, and peace to that heart ! XXVI. They tell me that my trusting heart Thy fondness is deceived in ; 26 LOVE S CALENDAR, OR They say that thou all faithless art Whom I so well believed in ! 1 heed not, reck not what they say So earnestly about thee ; I d rather trust my soul away Than for one moment doubt thee Like mine thy youth was early lost ; Thy vows too rashly plighted ; Thy budding life by wintry frost Of grief untimely, blighted. Devotion is most deep and pure In souls by sorrow shaded, And love like ours will still endure When brighter ties have faded. XXVII. Alas ! if she be false to me It is for her alone I weep ! Tis that in coming years I see Her suffering from such frailty Than mine, oh, far more deep ! So tender, yet so false withal, So proud, and yet so frail, Responding to each flatterer s call, Loving, yet often blind to all Of love that could not fail EROS AND ANTEROS. Oh who will watch her wayward soul, Who minister when I am gone, Who point her spirit to its goal, Who with unwearying love console That truth- abandon d one ? XXVIII. I knew not how I loved thee no ! I knew it not till all was o er Until thy lips had told me so- Had told me I must love no more ! I knew not how I loved thee ! yet I long had loved thee wildly well ! I thought twere easy to forget I thought a word would break the spell : And even when that word was spoken, Ay ! even till the very last, I thought, that spell of faith once broken, I could not long lament the past. O, foolish heart ! O, feeble brain, That love could thus deceive subdue ! Since hope cannot revive again, Why cannot memory perish too ? XXIX. The conflict is over, the struggle is past, I have look d I have loved I have worship d my last; 28 LOVE S CALENDAR, OR And now back to the world, and let fate do her worst On the heart that for thee such devotion hath nurs d. To thee its best feelings were trusted away, And life hath hereafter not one to betray. Yet not in resentment thy love I resign ; I blame not upbraid not one motive of thine ; I ask not what change has come over thy heart, I reck not what chances have doom d us to part ; I bu-t know thou hast told me to love thee no more, And I still must obey where I once did adore. Farewell, then, thou loved one oh ! loved but too well, Too deeply, too blindly, for language to tell Farewell ! thou hast trampled love s faith in the dust, Thou hast torn from my bosom its hope and its trust ! But if thy life s current with bliss it would swell, I would pour out my own in this last fond farewell ! XXX. We parted in kindness, but spoke not of parting ; We talk d not of hopes that we both must resign ; I saw not her eyes, and but one teardrop starting Fell down on her hand as it trembled in mine : Each felt that the past we could never recover, Each felt that the future no hope could restore, She shudder d at wringing the heart of her lover, /dared not to say I must meet her no more. EROS AND ANTEROS. 29 Long years have gone by, and the springtime smiles ever As o er our young loves it first smiled in their birth ; Long years have gone by, yet that parting, oh ! never Can it be forgotten by either on earth. The note of each wild bird that carols toward heaven Must tell her of swift-winged hopes that were mine, While the dew that steals over each blossom at even Tells me of the teardrop that wept their decline. of 1 THOU didst hear the far off Ocean sound, Inviting thee from hill and vale away, To mingle thy deep waters with its own ; And at that voice thy steps did onward glide, Onward from echoing hill and valley lone Like thine oh be my course ! nor turned aside While listing to the soundings of a land That, like the ocean-call, invites me to its strand." MRS. OAKKS SMITH S Sonnet to the Hudson LAYS OF THE HUDSON THE FOREST CEMETERY. WILD TAWASENTHA !* in thy brook -laced glen The doe no longer lists her lost fawn s bleating, As panting there, escaped from hunter s ken She hears the chase o er distant hills retreating ; No more, uprising from the fern around her, The Indian archer, from his " still-hunt" lair, Wings the death-shaft which hath that moment found her When Fate seemed foiled upon her footsteps there : * Tawasentha, meaning in Mohawk, " The place of the many dead," is the finely appropriate name of the new Forest Cemetery on the banks of the Hud son, between Albany and Troy. 34 L AY SOFT HE HUDSON. II. Wild Tawasentha ! on thy cone-strew d sod, O er which yon Pine his giant arm is bending, No more the Mohawk marks its dark crown nod Against the sun s broad disc toward night descend ing, Then crouching down beside the brands that redden The columned trunks which rear thy leafy dome, Forgets his toils in hunter s slumbers leaden, Or visions of the Red Man s spirit home : III. But where his calumet by that lone fire, At night beneath these cloister d boughs was lighted, The Christian orphan will in prayer aspire, The Christian parent mourn his proud hope blighted ; And in thy shade the mother s heart will listen The spirit-cry of babe she clasps no more, And where thy rills through hemlock branches glisten, There many a maid her lover will deplore. Here children linked in love and sport together, Who check their mirth as creaks the slow hearse by, Will totter lonely in life s autumn weather, To ponier where life s springtime blossoms lie ; THE FOREST CEMETERY. 35 And where the virgin soil was never dinted By the rude ploughshare since creation s birth, Year after year fresh furrows will be printed Upon the sad cheek of the grieving earth. Yon sun returning in unwearied stages, Will gild the cenotaph s ascending spire, O er names on history s yet unwritten pages That unborn crowds will, worshipping, admire ; Names that shall brighten through my country s story Like meteor hues that fire her autumn woods, Encircling high her onward course of glory Like the bright bow which spans her mountain floods. Here where the flowers have bloomed and died for ages Bloomed all unseen and perished all unsung On youth s green grave, traced out beside the sage s, Will garlands now by votive hearts be flung ; And sculptured marble and funereal urn, O er which gray birches to the night air wave, Will whiten through thy glades at every turn, And woo the moonbeam to some poet s grave 1 36 LAYS OF THE HUDSON. VII. Thus back to Nature, faithful, do we come, When Art hath taught us all her best beguiling Thus blend their ministry around the tomb Where, pointing upward, still sits Nature smiling ! And never, Nature s hallowed spots adorning, Hath Art, with her a sombre garden dress d, Wild Tawasentha ! in this vale of mourning, With more to consecrate their children s rest. VIII. And still that stream will hold its winsome way, Spar-Ming as now upon the frosty air, When all in turn shall troop in pale array To that dim land for which so few prepare. Still will yon oak which now a sapling waves, Each year renewed, with hardy vigor grow, Expanding still to shade the nameless graves, Of nameless men that haply sleep below. IX. Nameless as they, in one dear memory blest, How tranquil in these phantom peopled bowers Could I here wait the partner of my rest In some green nook, that should be only ours ; Under old boughs, where moist the livelong summer The moss is green and springy to the tread, When thou, my friend, shouldst be an often comer To pierce the thicket, seeking for my bed : Q 7? THE FOREST CEMETERY. 37 X. For thickets heavy all around should screen it From careless gazer that might wander near, Nor e en to him who by some chance had seen it, Would I have aught to catch his eye, appear : One lonely stem a trunk those old boughs lifting, Should mark the spot ; and, haply, new thrift owe To that which upward through its sap was drifting From what lay mouldering round its roots below. XI. The Wood-duck there her glossy-throated brood Should unmolested gather to her wings ; The schoolboy, awed, as near that mound he stood, Should spare the Redstart s nest that o er it swings, And thrill when there, to hear the cadenc d winding Of boatman s horn upon the distant river, Dell unto dell in long-link d echoes binding- Like far off requiem, floating on for ever. XII. There my freed spirit with the dawn s first beaming Would come to revel round the dancing spray ; There would it linger with the day s last gleaming, To watch thy footsteps thither track their way. The quivering leaf should whisper in that hour Things that for thee alone would have a sound, And parting boughs my spirit-glances shower In gleams of light upon the mossy ground. 38 LAYS OF THE HUDSON. XIII. There, when long years and all thy journeyings over Loosed from this world thyself to join the free, Thou too wouldst come to rest beside thy lover In that sweet cell beneath our Trysting-Tree ; Where earliest birds above our narrow dwelling Should pipe their matins as the morning rose, And woodland symphonies majestic swelling, In midnight anthem, hallow our repose. THE THAW-KING: HIS VISIT TO NEW-^ORK. HE comes on the wings of the warm south-west, In the saffron hues of the sunbeam dress d, And lingers awhile on the placid bay, As the ice-cakes languidly steal away, To drink those gems which the wave turns up, Like Egyptian pearls in the Roman s cup. Then hies to the wharves where the hawser binds The impatient ship from the wistful winds, And slackens each rope till it hangs from on high, Less firmly pencil d against the sky ; And sports in the stiffen d canvas there Till its folds float out in the wooing air : Then leaves these quellers of Ocean s pride To swing from the pier on the lazy tide. He reaches the Battery s grassy bed, And the earth smokes out from beneath his tread ; 40 LAYS OF THE HUDSON. And he turns him about to look wistfully back On each charm that he leaves on his beautiful track ; Each islet of green which the bright waters fold, Like emeralds, fresh from their bosom roll d, The sea just peering the headlands through Where the sky is lost in its deeper blue, And the thousand barks which securely sweep With silvery wing round the land-lock d deep. He loiters awhile on the springy ground, To watch the children gambol around, And thinks it hard that a touch from him Cannot make the aged as lithe of limb ; That he has no power to melt the rime, The stubborn frost that is made by Time ; And sighing, he leaves the urchins to play, And launches at last on the world of Broadway. There were faces and figures of heavenly monld Of charms not yet by the poet told ; There were dancing plumes, there were mantles gay, ] Flowers and ribbands flaunting there, jl Such as of old on a festival day The Idalian nymphs were wont to wear. And the Thaw-king felt his cheek flush high, And his pulses flutter in every limb, As he gazed on many a beaming eye, And many a form that flitted by, Wi:h twinkling foot and ankle trim. -o THE THAW-KING. And he practised many an idle freak, As he lounged the morning through ; He sprung the frozen gutters aleak, For want of aught else to do ; And left them black as a libeller s ink, To gurgle away to the sewer-sink. He sees a beggar, gaunt and grim, Arouse a miser s choler, And he laughs while he melts the soul of him To fling the wretch a dollar ; And he thinks how small a heaven twould take For a world of souls like his to make. He read placarded upon the wall, " That the country now on its friends did call, For liberty was in danger ;" And he went to a room ten feet by four, Where a chairman and sec., and couple more (Making jive with our friendly stranger), By the aid of four slings and two tallow tapers, Were preparing to tell in the morning papers Of the UNION unbroken, By this very token " That the people in mass last night had woken And their will at the primal meetings spoken !" And he trembled himself to the tip of his wing At the juggling might of the Caucus king. 42 LAYS OF THE HUDSON. He saw an Oneida baskets peddling Around the place where the polls w,ere held ; And a Fed. the Red -skin kicked, for meddling, As the Indian a Democrat s ballot spell d. That son of the soil Who had no vote, How dared he to spoil A trick so neat, Meant only to cheat The voters who hither from Europe float ! And now as the night falls chill and gray, Like a drizzling rain on a new made tomb, And his father, the Sun, has slunk away, And left him alone to gas and gloom, The Thaw-king steals in a vapor thin, Through the lighted porch of a house, wherein Music and mirth were gaily mingled ; And groups like hues in one bright flower Dazzled the Thaw-king while he singled Some one on whom to try his power. He enters first in a lady s eyes, And thrusts at a dandy s heart ; But the vest that is made by Frost, defies The point of the Thaw-king s dart ; And the baffled spirit pettishly flies On a pedant to try his art ; THETHAW-KINQ. 43 But his aim is equally foil d by the dust- Y lore that envelopes the man of must. And next he tries with a fiddler s sighs To melt the heart of a belle ; But around her waist there s a stout arm placed, Which shields that lady well. And that waist ! oh ! that waist it is one that you would Like to clasp in a waltz, or wherever you could. Her figure was fashion d tall and slim, But with rounded bust and shapely limb ; And her queen-like step as she trod the floor, And her look as she bridled in beauty s pride, Was such as the Tyrian heroine wore When she blush d alone on the conscious shore, The wandering Dardan s unwedded bride. And the Thaw-king gazed on that lady bright, With her form of love and her looks of light, Till his spirits began to wane, And his wits were put to rout ; And entering into a poet s brain, He thaw d these verses out : " River, oh river, thou rovest free From the mountain height to the fresh blue sea, 44 LAYS OF THE HUDSON. Free thyself, while in silver chain Linking each charm of land and main. Calling at first thy banded waves From hill-side thickets and fern-hid caves, From the splinter d crag thou leap st below Through leafy glades at will to flow Idling now with the dallying sedge, Slumbering now by the steep s moss d edge, With statelier march once more to break From wooded valley to breezy lake ; Yet all of these scenes, though fair they be, River, oh river, are bann d to me ! " River, oh river ! upon thy tide Gaily the freighted vessels glide : Would that thou thus couldst bear away The thoughts that burthen my weary day, Or that I, from all, save them, set free, Though laden still, might rove with thee. True that thy waves brief lifetime find, And live at the will of the wanton wind True that thou seekest the ocean s flow To be lost therein for evermoe ! Yet the slave who worships at glory s shrine, But toils for a bubble as frail as thine, But loses his freedom here, to be Forgotten as soon as in death set free." MOONLIGHT UPON THE HUDSON. WRITTEN AT WEST POINT. I M not romantic, but, upon my word, There are some moments when one can t help feeling As if his heart s chords were so strongly stirr d By things around him, that tis vain concealing A little music in his soul still lingers, Whene er its keys are touch d by Nature s fingers : And even here upon this settee lying With many a sleepy traveller near me snoozing, Thoughts warm and wild are through my bosom flying, Like founts when first into the sunshine oozing : For who can look on mountain, sky and river, Like these, and then be calm and cold as ever ! 46 L AY S OF THE HUDSON. Bright DIAN, who, Camilla-like, dost skim yon Azure fields Thou who, once earthward bendingj Didst loose thy virgin zone to young Endymion, On dewy Latmos to his arms descending Thou whom the world of old on every shore, Type of thy sex, Triformis, did adore : Tell me where er thy silver bark be steering, By bright Italian or soft Persian lands, Or o er those island-studded seas careering, Whose pearl-charged waves dissolve on choral strands ; Tell if thou visitest, thon heavenly rover, A lovelier stream than this the wide world over ? Doth Achelous or Araxes flowing Twin-born from Pindus, but ne er meeting bro thers- Doth Tagus o er his golden pavement glowing, Or cradle-freighted Ganges, the reproach of mo thers, The storied Rhine, or far-famed Guadalquiver Match they in beauty my own glorious river ? What though no cloister gray nor ivied column Along these clifts their sombre ruins rear ! What though no frowning tower nor temple solemn Of tyrants tell and superstition here O- MOONLIGHT UPON THE HUDSON. 47 What though that mouldering fort s fast crumbling walls Did ne er enclose a baron s banner d halls- Its sinking arches once gave back as proud An echo to the war-blown clarion s peal, As gallant hearts its battlements did crowd, As ever beat beneath a vest of steel, When herald s trump or knighthood s haughtiest day Call d forth chivalric host to battle fray : For here amid these woods He once kept court Before whose mighty soul the common crowd Of heroes, who alone for fame have fought, Are like the patriarch s sheaves to heaven s chosen bow d HE who his country s eagle taught to soar, And fired those stars which shine o er every shore. And sights and sounds at which the world have wonder d Within these wild ravines have had their birth ; Young FREEDOM S cannon from these glens have thunder d, And sent their startling voices o er the earth ; And not a verdant glade nor mountain hoary But treasures up within the glorious story o 48 LAYS OF THE HUDSON. And yet not rich in high-souPd memories only, Is every moon-kiss d headland round me gleaming, Each cavern d glen and leafy valley lonely, And silver torrent o er the bald rock streaming ; But such soft fancies here may breathe around, As make Vaucluse and Clarens hallow d ground. Where, tell me where, pale watcher of the night Thou that to love so oft has lent its soul. Since the lorn Lesbian languish d neath thy light, Or fated Romeo to his Juliet stole Where dost thou find a fitter place on earth To nurse young love in hearts like theirs to birth ? Oh, loiter not upon that fairy shore To watch the lazy barks in distance glide, When sunset brightens on their sails no more, And stern -lights twinkle in the dusky tide ; Loiter not there, young heart, at that soft hour, What time the dueen of Night proclaims love s power. Even as I gaze, upon my memory s track Bright as yon coil of light along the deep, A scene of early youth comes dream-like back, Where two stand gazing from the tide-wash d steep, A sanguine stripling, just toward manhood flushing, A girl, scarce yet in ripen d beauty blushing. MOONLIGHT UPON THE HUDSON. 49 The hour is his ! and while his hopes are soaring Doubts he that maiden will become his bride ? Can she resist that gush of wild adoring Fresh from a heart full-volumed as the tide ? Tremulous, but radiant, is that peerless daughter Of loveliness, as, is the star-strown water ! The moist leaves glimmer as they glimmer d then, Alas ! how oft have they been since renew d, How oft the whippoorwill, from yonder glen, Each year has whistled to her callow brood, How oft have lovers by yon star s same gleam, Dream d here of bliss and waken d from their dream ! But now bright Peri of the skies, descending Thy pearly car hangs o er yon mountain crest, And Night, more nearly now each step attending, As if to hide thy envied place of rest, Closes at last thy very couch beside, A matron curtaining a virgin bride. Farewell ! Though tears on every leaf are starting, While through the shadowy boughs thy glances quiver, As of the good, when heavenward hence departing, Shines thy last smile upon the placid river, So could I fling o er glory s tide one ray Would I too steal from this dark world away. K AC HE SCO: A LEGEND OF THE SOURCES OF THE HUDSON. He held him with his glittering eye. COLERIDGE. L ENVO Y. THE fragile bark whereon the Indian traces Rude tokens of his path for other eyes. Sometimes outlasts the tree on which he places Anew the birchen scroll he thence had peeled, And while he wanders forth to other skies, Some curious Settler, ere his axe he wield, The frail memorial careful bears away : So I have freely traced a woodland lay, In lines as quaint as chart of forest child, Content, like him, if passing on my way, I cheer some friendly heart in life s dull wild, A birchen scroll from birchen tree y cleft, A trail of moccasin in wildering forest left. KACHESCO. 51 PART I. "CAMPING OUT." TWAS in the mellow autumn time, That revel of our masquing clime, When, as the Indian crone believes, The rainbow tints of Nature s prime She in her forest banner weaves ; To show in that bright blazonry, How the young earth did first supply Each gorgeous hue that paints the sky, Or in the sunset billow heaves. Twas in the mellow autumn time, When, from the spongy, swollen swamp, The lake a darker tide receives ; When nights are growing long and damp ; And at the dawn a glistering rime Is silver d o er the gaudy leaves ; When hunters leave their hill-side camp, With fleet hound some, the dun-deer rousing, In " still-hunt " some, to shoot him browsing ; And close at night their forest tramp, 52 LAYS OF THE HUDSON. Where the fat yearling scents their fire, And, new unto their murderous ways, Affrighted, feels his life expire As stupidly he stands at gaze, Where that wild crew sit late carousing. in. Twas in the mellow autumn time, When I, an idler from the town, With gun and rod was lured to climb Those peaks where fresh the HUDSON takes His tribute from an hundred lakes ; Lakes which the sun, though pouring down His mid-day splendors round each isle, At eventide so soon forsakes That you may watch his fading smile For hours around those summits glow When all is gray and chill below ; While, in that brief autumnal day Still, varying all in feature, they, Will yet some wilding beauty show, As through their watery maze you stray. IV. For he beholds, whose footfalls press The mosses of that wilderness, Each charm the glorious HUDSON boasts Through his far-reaching strand When sweeping from these leafy coasts, KACHESCO. 53 His mighty march he seaward takes First pictured in those mountain lakes, All fresh from Nature s hand ! Lakes broadly flashing to the sun, Like warrior s shield when first display d, Lakes, dark, as when, the battle done, That shield oft blackens in the glade. Round one that on the eye will ope With many a winding sunny reach, The rising hills all gently slope From turfy bank and pebbled beach. With rocks and ragged forests bound, Deep set in fir-clad mountain shade, You trace another, where resound The echoes of the hoarse cascade. v. Aweary with a day of toil, And all uncheer d with hunter spoil, Guiding a wet and sodden boat, With thing, half paddle, half an oar, I chanced, one murky eve, to float Along the grim and ghastly shore Of such wild water ; Past trees, some shooting from the bank, With dead boughs dipping in the wave, And some with trunks moss-grown and dank, On which the savage, that here drank A thousand years ago, might grave His tale of slaughter. 54 LAYS O F THE HUDSON. Peering amid these mouldering stems, Through thickets from their ruins starting, To spy a deer-track if I could, I saw the boughs before me parting, Revealing what seemed two bright gems Gleaming from out the dusky wood ; And in that moment on the shore, Just where I brush d it with my oar, An aged INDIAN stood I VII. Nay ! shrink not, lady, from my tale, Because, erst moved by border story Thy thoughtful cheek grew still more pale At images so dire and gory ; Nor yet grown colder since that day Cry half disdainful of my lay, " An INDIAN ! why, in theme so stale, There can be no new interest ! can there ? Twas but some border vagrant gazing From thicket that your boat was grazing, And you you took him for a panther !" VIII. It was just so, and nothing more ; The deer-stand that I sought was here, Here too Kachesco came for deer ; KACHESCO. 55 A civil Indian, seldom drunk, Who dragg d my leaky skiff ashore, And pointed out a fallen trunk, Where sitting I could spy the brink, Beneath the gently tilting branches, And shoot the buck that came to drink Or wash the black-flies from his haunches. With this he plunged into the wood, Saying he on the " run-way " knew Another stand, and quite as good If but the night breeze fairly blew. So there, like mummied sagamore, I crouch with senses fairly aching, To catoh each sound by wood or shore Upon the twilight stillness breaking. I start ! that crash of leaves below A light hoof surdy rattles ? No ! From overhead a dry branch parted. A plash ! Tis but the wavelet tapping Yon floating log. The partridge drums ; With thrilling ears again I ve started : The booming sound at distance hums Like rushing herds. I start as though A gang of moose had caught me napping. And now my straining sight grows dim While nearer yet the night-hawks skim ; 56 LAYS OF THE HUDSON. Well, " let the hart ungalled play," I ll think of sweet looks far away. But no ! I list and gaze about, My rifle to my shoulder clapping At leap of every rascal trout, Or lotus leaf the water flapping. An hour went thus, without a sign Of buck or doe in range appearing ; The wind began to crisp the lake, The wolf to howl from out the brake, And I to think that boat of mine Had better soon be campward steering ; When near me through the deepening night Again I saw those eyes so bright, And as my swarthy friend drew nigher, I heard these words pronounced in tone, Lady, as silken as thine own, " White man, we d better make a fire. Our kindling-stuff lay near at hand Peelings of bark, some half uncoil d In flakes, from boughs by age despoil d, And some in shreds by rude winds torn ; Dead vines that round the dead trees clung ; Long moss that from their old arms swung, Tattei d and stain d all weather-worn, KACHESCO. 57 Like funeral weeds hung out to dry, Or banners drooping mournfully ; These quickly caught the spark we fann d. Branches, that once waved over head, Now crisply crackling to our tread, Fed next the greedy flame s demand. Lastly a fallen trunk or two Which from its weedy lair we drew, And o er the blazing brushwood threw For savory broil supplied the brand. XII. Of hemlock fir we made our couch, A bed for cramps and colds consoling ; I had some biscuit in my pouch, A salmon-trout I d kill d in trolling ; My comrade had some venison dried, And com in bear s lard lately fried ; And on my word, I will avouch That when we would our stock divide In equal portions, save the last, Apicius could not deride The relish of that night s repast. XIII. We talk d that night 1 love to talk With these grown children of the wild, When in their native forest walk, Confiding, simple as a child, 58 L AY S OF THE HUDSON. They loose at times that sullen mood Which marks the wanderer of the wood, And in that pliant hour will show As prodigal and fresh of thought As genius when its feelings flow In words by feeling only taught. XIV. And much he told of Metai* lore ; Of WABENOS we call enchanters ; Of water sprites called Nebanai In floating logs oft packed away, As much at home on every shore As other " spirits " in decanters. From him I learned of NABOZHOO, The Harlequin of Indian story ; (A kind of half Deucalion, too, Who beats the Greek one in his glory ;) And of the pigmy WEENG, whose tap Upon the forehead, near one s peepers, Will make the liveliest hunter nap As soundly as The Seven Sleepers ; And of the huge WEENDIGO race, (The Cyclopes of Red-skin fable,) Whose housewives for their breakfast place A whole cooked Indian on the table. * Wizard. See Notes on Indian Mythology at the end of the volume. KACHESCO. 59 XV. Much of PA-PUCK- wis too he said, The urchin god of fun and trickery, And other godlings by him led, And demons dancing on the head, As supple as a sapling hickory. And looking toward The Milky Way, Which he The Path of Spirits named, He told how half the soul would stay Around its early haunts to play, When God the other half had claimed ; And how all living Red men stand With half their shade in shadow land ; And how all Life to Red men known Once walked in shapes just like our own ; . And though doomed now as brutes to walk, How Spirits still to brutes will talk, And whisper blessed words of cheer From bush or tree they re browsing near, Saying that none at last shall go Down to the Fiend MACHINETO. XVI. We talk d twas next of fish and game, Of hunter arts to strike the quarry, Of portages and lakes whose name, As utter d in his native speech, If memory could have hoarded each, A portage-labor twere to carry. 50 LAYS OF THE HUDSON. Yet one whose length it is a score Of miles perhaps in length, or more Tis glorious to troll, I can recall the name and feature From dull oblivion s scathe, Partly because in trim canoe I since have track d it through and through, Partly that from this simple creature I heard that night a tale of faith Which moved my very soul. XVII. Yes, INCA-PAH-CO ! though thy name Has never flow d in poet s numbers, And all unknown, thy virgin claim To wild and matchless beauty, slumbers ; Yet memory s pictures all must fade Ere I forget that sunset view When issuing first from darksome glade A day of storms had darker made, Thy floating isles and mountains blue, Thy waters sparkling far away Round craggy point and verdant bay The point with dusky cedars crown d, The bay with beach of silver bound Upon my raptured vision grew. Grew every moment, brighter, fairer, As I, at close of that wild day, Emerging from the forest nearer, KACHESCO. 61 Saw the red sun his glorious path Cleave through the storm-cloud s dying wrath, And with one broad triumphant ray Upon thy crimson d waters cast, Sink warrior-like to rest at last. And he who stands as then I stood By INCA-PAH-CO S glorious water, And gazes on the haunted flood Where long ago KACHESCO wooed In early youth its Island daughter, And threads that island s solitude, Once witness of his loved one s slaughter, At that same season of the leaf In which I heard him tell his grief, Will own, mid autumn s wildest glory, The wilder tissue of that story, And feel while shuddering at the view Which, with each feature stern and true, Of his relentless race he drew Feel not yet wholly waste the mind Where Faith so deep a root could find : Faith which hoth love and life could save, And keep the first, in age still fond, Yet blossoming this side the grave, In fadeless trust of fruit beyond ! 62 LAYS OF THE HUDSON. Long years had passed when 7 thus gazed, By INCA-PAH-CO S beauty dazed ; Long years and many a distant scene Of tamer life had come between, Since by that nameless mountain tarn I realized, a stripling stout, My first night s fun of " camping out," And listened to the Indian yam I here am going to tell about ; Whose wampum beads, perchance astray, Had idly slipped, unstrung, away Save now in coasting that bright shore Where INCA-PAH-CO S wavelets chime, The sounds that moved my soul of yore, The scene of our lone bivouac Came, each and all, as freshly back, Beneath the crisp October prime, As springs by matted leaves choked up Which brighten in the hoof-stamped cup, Upon the Caribou s wild track. Again KACHESCO S face of truth I saw before my fancy move, Fixed as the memory of my youth, And sad as all it knew of love. KACHESCO. 63 Again, as chillier blew the blast, When he had ceased to speak that night While I, still wakeful, pondered o er His wondrous story more and more I saw him moving in the light The fire which he was feeding, cast ; Again his words were in my ear, As I ll repeat them simply here, And tell the tale from first to last. XXI. u I like Lake INCA-PAH-CO well," Half mused aloud my wild-wood friend ; " Why, white man, I can hardly tell ! For fish and deer, at either end The rifts are good ; but run- ways more There are by crooked KILLOQUORE And RACQUET at the time of spearing, As well as that for yarding moose, Hath both enough for hunter s use : Amid these hills are lakes appearing More limpid to the Summer s eye ; In some at night the stars will twinkle As if they dropp d there from the sky The pebbled bed below to sprinkle ; I ply my paddle in them all Of all at times, a home have made Yet, stranger, when Fve thither stray d I seem d to hear the ripples fall 64 LAYS OF THE HUDSON. Each time still sweeter than before On INCA-PAII-CO S winding shore." XXII. There was a sadness in his tone His careless words would fain disown ; Or rather I would say their touch Of mournfulness betray d that much, Much more of deep and earnest feeling Was through his wither d bosom stealing : For now far back in memory So much absorb d he seem d to be, I d not molest his revery ; And when in phrase I now forget When I at last the silence broke, In the same train of musing yet, Watching awhile the wreathed smoke Curl from his lighted calumet, He thus aloud half pondering spoke : XXIII. " Years, years ago, when life was new, And long before there was a clearing Among these ADIRONDAC HIGHLANDS, My sachefti kept his best canoe On one of INCA-PAH-CO S islands The largest which lies tow rds the north, As you are through the Narrows veering And there had reared his wigwam too. KACHESCO. 65 A trapper now, with years o erladen, He lived there with one only daughter, A gentle but still gamesome maiden, Who, I have heard, would venture forth, Venture upon the darkest night Across the broad and gusty water To climb that cliff upon the main, By some since call d THE MAIDEN S REST, That foot save hers hath never press d, And watch the camp-fire s distant light, Which told that she should see again Her hunter when the dawn was bright." He paused look d down, then stirr d the fire, He smiled I did not like that smile, As leaning on his elbow nigher His bright eyes glared in mine the while. And I was glad that scrutiny o er, When neither had misgivings more, While he, in earnest now at last, Re veal d his memories of the past. XXV. " White man, thy look is open, kind, Thou scornest not a tale of truth ! Should I in thee a mocker find, Twould shame alike thy blood and youth. 66 LAYS OF THE HUDSON. I trust thee ! well, now look upon This wither d cheek and shrunken form ! Canst think, young man, / was the one For whom that maiden dared the storm ? Yes, often, till a tribesman came It matters not to speak his name A youth as tall, as straight as I, As quick his quarry to descry, A hunter bold upon his prey As ever struck the elk at bay. But thou shalt see him, if thou wilt Gaze on the wreck since made by guilt.- Where glints its crag-drip to the moon , And raves through soaking moss the Scroon, To where Peseco s waters lave Its shining strand and beach-clad hills, From hoarse Ausable s caverned wave To Saranac s most northern rills These woods around, do they not know That doomed one s guilt, my sleepless woe ? Know it in every glen and glade Of Adirondac s haunted shade, Where branches bend or waters flow ! " Oft in that barren hollow, where Through moss-hung hemlocks blasted, there Whirl the dark rapids of Yowhayle ; KACHESCO. 67 Oft, too, by Teoratie blue, And where the silent wave that slides Tessuya s cedar islets through, Cahogaronta s cliff divides In foam through deep Kurloonah s vale Where great Tahawus splits the sky. Where Borrhas greets his melting snows, By those linked lakes that shining lie Where Metauk s whispering forest grows From Nessingh s sluggish waters, red With alder roots that line their bed, To where, through many a grassy vlie, The winding Atatea flows ; And from Oukorla s glistening eye To hoary Wahopartenie, As still from spot to spot we fled, How often his despairing sigh, How oft his hoarse, half-muttered cry The very air has thickened On which his fruitless prayer was sped ! Where naked Oun-owarlah towers ; Where Sandanona s shadows float ; Where wind-swept Nodoneyo lowers, And in that gorge s quaking throat, Reft by OTNEYARH S giant band, Where splinters of the mountain vast, Though lashed by cable roots, aghast, Toppling amid their ruin, stand ; Through Reuna s nundred isles of green, o 68 LAYS OF THE HUDSON. By Onegora s pebbly pools ; Where Paskungamah s birches lean, And where, through many a dark ravine, The triple crown of crags is seen By which grim Towaloondah rules By Gwi-endauqua s bristling fall, Through Twen-ungasko s echoing glen, To wild Ouluska s inmost den, Alone alone with that poor thrall, I wrestled life away in all !" XXVII. Breathless, he paused, while vaguely stirred By theme, as yet, all dark to me, I thrilled beneath each savage word That from his throat came savagely. But now some softer memories make That tawny bosom heave and swell, As, gazing far into the night, He rivets there his aching sight, Nor will again his tale forsake, Till there s no more to tell. KACIIESCO. PART II. THE VIGIL OF FAITH. " BRIGHT NULKAH, doe-eyed forest girl ! Oh ! still in dreams those evening skies Bend over me as soft as when, Born to a faith first plighted then, We silent sought each other s eyes To read their spirit mysteries : Then watched the lake s low ripples curl, Then sought each other s eyes again, Then looked around on crag and hill, Looked on each shadowy tree so still, Looked on them each and all to see All all was real, Earth Love and WE. " I round her neck the wampum threw, String after string she kissed them each, And parting at the water s edge When I had launched my light canoe, Unwilling yet to leave the beach, But poised upon a fallen tree I long could see the holy pledge, 70 LAYS OF THE HUDSON. Pressed to her heart or waved to me : Could see it glimmer in the dew Yet yet again from rocky ledge, When, after the first head-land cast My boat in shadow as I pass d, Again across the moonlit bay, She saw my glistening paddle play And gave me back one answering ray. " Ah ! bounding then the broad lake over, What vigor to my arm love gave ! What life, fresh life to every wave, That buoy d up my NULKAH S lover! And sadly as she left me there, How much of sweetness was to spare For her who soon would climb the cliff, To vainly watch my coming skiff, Would toiling gain the rugged height, To suffer all love s sadness where It came unmixed with love s delight And seemed the herald of Despair ! IV. " I sent to her I sent a friend. The chosen one of all our band Wkh whom my heart was wont to blend Like those which mate in spirit land. KACHESCO. 71 From SACANDAGA S fountain head Where in our camp I fevered lay, Through NUSHIONA S vale he sped, And gained her home at close of day. Beside her father s fire he slept It was too late to speak that night, And when my NULKAH S beauty first Upon him with the morning burst, He had no tongue to speak aright And still my message from her kept Kept back love s message day by day Till sullen weeks had worn away While lonely NULKAH often wept. " Nay, more, when she would cross the wave At midnight in the wildest weather, While tempests round the peak would rave, From which she watch d for nights together, He told that tribesman whom I loved, Yes, loved as if he were my brother He told her that the woods I roved To feed the lodge where dwelt another : Another who now cherish d there The child that claim d a hunter s care ; Claim d it upon some distant shore, From which I would return no more. 72 LAYS OF THE HUDSON. " All this in her had wrought no change No anxious doubt, no jealous fear, But he, meanwhile, had words most strange, Breathed in my gentle NULKAH S ear, Which made her wish that I were near: Words strange to her, who, simple, true, And only love as prosperous knew, Shrank from the fitful fantasy, Which seeming less like love than hate, Would cloud his moody brow when he, Gazing on her arraigned the fate Which could such loveliness create Only to work him misery. And when she heard that lying tale, Her woman s heart could soon discover Some double treachery might assail, Through him, her unsuspecting lover ; And Love in fear, still fearless, brought her On errand Love in hope first taught her. VII. " I came at last. She ask d me nought It was enough to see me there ; But of the friend who thus had wrought, Though he now streams far distant sought, She bade me in the woods beware. A wound my coming had delay d, KACHESCO. 73 And, still too weak to use my gun, I set the nets the old chief made ; Baited his traps in forest glade ; And sweetly after woo d the maid. At evening when my toils were done. " Twas then I chose a grassy swale, In which my wigwam frame to make ; Shelter d by crags from northern gale, Shaded by boughs, save toward the lake. The RED-BIRD S nest above it swung ; There often the MA-MA-TWA sung ; And MONING-GWUNA S quills of gold Through leaves like flickering sunshine told ; There too, when Spring was backward, first, Her shrinking blossoms safely burst ; And there, when autumn leaf was sere, Some flowers still stay d the loitering year. " She learn d full soon to love the spot, For who could see and love it not ? Why, Morning there had newer splendor, There, Twilight seemed to grow more tender And Moonbeams first would thither stray, To light PUCKWUDJEES to their play. 74 LAYS OF THE HUDSON. And there, when I the isle would leave, And sometimes now my gun resume, She d shyly steal the mats to weave Which were to line our bridal room. Happy we were ! what love like ours, Blossoming thus as fresh and free, As unrestrain d as wild-wood flowers, Yet keeping all their purity ! " Happy we were ! my secret foe, How dread a foe, I knew not then, Remain d to fish the streams below That into CADARAQUI flow, Returning to us only when Some kinsmen on our bridal morn, Impell d by a mysterious doom Which with that fateful man was born, Brought him to shroud the day in gloom And blast our joys about to bloom. " Just MANITOU ! O may the boat That bears him to the spirit land, For ages on those black waves float Which catch no light from off its strand, Float blindly there, still laboring on Toward shores tis never doom d to reach ; K A C H E S C O . 75 Float there till time itself is gone, And when again twould seek the beach From which with that lone soul it started, Baffling let that before it flee, Till hope of res* hath all departed, And still when that last hope is gone, A guideless thing, float on, float on ! XII. " The birds of song had sunk to rest ; The eagle s tireless wing was furl d ; On INCA-PAH-CO S darkening breast The last few golden ripples curl d ; The distant mountains bright before, Now seem d to darken more and more Against the eastern sky ; Until a white pine s slender cone, Tapering above the hill-top, shone, And show d the moon was nigh. Our friends, they all stood gravely round Waiting until that moon should rise, The bridal moon whose aspect crown d, For good or ill, our destinies : The signal too, the hour had come, When I could claim my bride and home. XIII. " Blushing at that fast-brightening sky, When on her father s lodge it shone, 76 LAYS OF Til E HUDSON. How did she shrink within, when I Would lead that loved one to my own ! Forth stepp d e en then that dismal guest Who grimly stood amid the rest, And, while his knife he drew, With cry that made us all aghast, And frantic gesture hurrying past, He sprang the threshold through. XIV. " A shriek ! and I with soul of flame Devour d the fearful space between : Another and another came E en while my grip was on his throat, Where, writhing in the dark unseen, His victim in her gore did float ! And life was oozing through each wound That gash d her lovely form about, When hurling him upon the ground, I bore her to the light without. xv. " Aided by that untimely beam, Wh*ch harbinger d such bridal woes, I watch d its ebbing current gleam, And, watching, would not, could not deem That blessed life s too precious stream Growing each moment darker, colder, E en while I to my heart did fold her, KACHKSCO. 77 Already at its close. She tried to speak then press d my hand, And look d oh, look d into my eyes As if through them the spirit-land Would first upon her vision rise ; As if her soul that could not stay, Through mine might only pass away. XVI. " I know not when that look did fade, Nor when did fail that dying grasp, Nor how they loosed the lifeless maid, Stiffening within love s desperate clasp. The sod upon her grave was green, The leaflet greening on the oak, The autumn and the winter o er, When I once more to sense awoke, Awoke to know some joys had been Which now to me could be no more ; Awoke to know that life to me Was henceforth but a girdled tree Whose tough limbs still must bide the blast Until the trunk to earth be cast, Though fruit nor blossom ne er can smile Upon those wrestling limbs the while. He still was there, that youth accurst, Who thus through blood his end had sought, 78 L AY S OF THE HUDSON. He who, with frenzied love athirst, Snch wreck of loveliness had wrought. He still was there, for while I breathed, With sense and feeling almost gone The aged father, thus bereaved, Raving the wretch should still live on Of all our friends there was not one Would deal the vengeance they believed Twas mine on him to wreak alone. XVIII. " He still was there. Twas he that kept A nurse s watch while thus I slept : Ever and ever by my side, With anxious eye and noiseless tread, Hanging about my fever d bed, With none he would his task divide ; Trembling, with jealous fear afraid, When near the grave I seem d to hover, Lest that bright land which claim d the maid Was opening too upon her lover. XIX. " And now, when no more languishing, My mind and strength became renew d, Amid the balmy airs of spring, And I once more could take the wood ; Think you he fear d the bloody fate Which blood will alway expiate ? o- - KACHESCO. 79 Oh, no ! he look d too far before Look d far beyond this fleeting shore, Where bliss will die as soon as born ! He hoped, he blindly trusted, he, That on the instant that I woke, Revenge would be so fierce in me, I d madly deal some deathful stroke Would send his soul where hers was gone ! xx. " But I I knew too well his guile, Twas whisper d me in dreams the while, I saw a form about my bed, That alway shrunk from him with dread : Twould come by night, twould come by day, But clearest in the moonbeam show, Then ever, as it nearer drew Ere melting from my wistful view, With palm reversed it seem d to say, If yet thou wilt not with me go, Keep him Oh keep but him away I 1 XXI. " And did I not ? ay, while the knell Of youth and hope yet echo d by, Did I not then allay thy fears, Perturbed soul, that his was nigh ? And o er the waste of dreary years, On which, heart-wither d doom d to dwell, JO LAYS OF THE HUDSON. I look with weary vision back Have I not on that desert track, Sweet spirit, kept love s vigil well ? Oh have I not ? Yes though no more I see at night those moon-touch d fingers, Still beckoning as they did of yore ; And though the features of my love, As near me still in dreams she lingers, Look bright, as yon bright star above, And, peaceful, as in that blest time, When our young loves were in their prime I know that from the land of shades, When wandering thus to haunt these glades, The vigil to her soul is dear I kept, and still am keeping here ! Enough of this, thou still wouldst know How dealt I with my mortal foe. " The stag that snuffs the breeze of morn, Where first it lifts the birchen spray, Gazing on lakes all newly born From valley mists that roll away, Treads not the upland fern more free, Looks not with eye more bright below, Than moved and look d that man, when he Strode forth and stood beneath the tree To bide my avenging hatchet s blow : KACHESCO. 81 The crestless doe, whose faint limbs sink Beside the rill to which they bore her Life-stricken on its very brink That instant when she d gasping drink From the bright wave that leaps before her- Lies not more lowly and forlorn, All stretch d upon, the forest leaves, Than near the tree that Outcast lay, When, by my gleaming hatchet shorn, His warrior-tuft is cleft away, And he the living doom receives To wande.r thus where er he may Of woman and of man the scorn ! " A month went by ; the wigwam-smoke No more from that cold hearth ascended, Where the old chief no longer woke To woes that with his life were endted : A month, and that deserted isle Was left alone to me and her ! The summer had begun to smile, The winds of June the leaves to stir ; And flowers that budded late the while, To bloom above her sepulchre : Meek, pallid things, grave-nurseA beJow, That feebly there as yet would grow, Brighter in coming years to blow 82 LAYS OF THE HUDSON. And where was he whose fell despair The Flower of Love laid bleeding there ? " Shooting from out the leafy land, Right opposite our island home, There was a narrow neek of sand, O er which the wave on either hand, Would fling at times its crest of foam. And here as I one morning stood Upon a rock which faced that beacfl I saw, wild rushing from the wood, Within my loaded rifle s reach, A figure that distracted ran Until it gain d the frothy marge, And there, an unarm d, kneeling man, Bare his broad bosom to my charge ! " I stood, but did not raise the gun Although it rattled in my grasp I stood and coldly look d upon The suppliant, who still lower bent, His hands in agony did clasp, As if the soil within him pent Would rend its penal tenement. At last, with low half smother d cry KACHESCO. 83 And quivering frame, he gain d his feet, And to the woods began to fly, Growing at every step more fleet : But from that hour where er he fled, There too my shadow darkened ! " One moment was enough to bind Firmly my weapons on my head, The strait was swum, and far behind The crested waves effaced my tread Upon the beach, o er which I sped So swiftly that the forest glade At once the wanderer s trail betray d ; And though it led o er rocky ledge, Led oft within the pool s black edge, Twas soon reveal d anew The springy moss just crisping back, I saw upon his recent track, Nor paused to trace it in the brook, Whose alders still behind him shook Where he had bounded through. " And when again the stream he cross d, Where in its forks, awhile I lost His trail amid the maze 84 LAYS OF THE HUDSON. Of severing rills, and run-ways wound About the deer-lick s trampled ground The very living things around, Which in these forest-depths abound, The sable darting from the fern, The gliding ermine each in turn His whereabout betrays : From plunging beaver s warning stroke From wood-duck whirring from the oak, And screaming loon, alike I learn Where lead the wanderer s ways. " At length within a broken dell, Where a gnarl d beach the tempest shock Had parted from the leaning rock, Among its cable roots, he fell ; Where, panting, soon I saw him lie, Shrivelling against the blasted trunk With knees drawn up and cowering eye, As if my avenging tread had shrunk The miscreant there as I drew nigh. I spoke not but I gazed upon That wolf with fangs and courage gone, Gazed on his quailing features till Their furtive glance was fix d by mine, And I could see his writhing will Her feeble throne to me resign. KACHKSCO. 85 " He rose, an abject, broken man, He dared not fight he dared not fly ; His very life in my veins ran, Who would not let him cast it by ! And still he is the thing that then He wilted to, within that glen : Living if life be drawing breath But dead in all that last should die, For him there is no further death Till from the earth he withereth. XXX. " I hunt for him I dress his food, I guide his footsteps in the wood, Or, when alone for game I d beat, Direct where we at night shall meet. He cleans my arms my snow-shoes makes ; He bales my shallop on the lakes ; And when with fishing spear I glide At midnight o er the silent tide, Tis he who holds the pine-knot torch, That seems her blazing path to scorch Where waves o er reddening shoals divide. XXXI. " With me he now is alway meek, But sometimes, chafing in his thrall, *6 LAYS OF THE HUDSON. He to my dog will sharply speak, Who comes, or comes not at his call. They both are in my camp below, From which I now in hunting weather For days can often safely go, Leaving the two alone together. But in those years my watch began His limbs were agile as my own, And sometimes then the tortured man For weeks beyond my search hath flown, In shades more deep to breathe alone. XXXII. " But ever when he thus would flee, Flee from himself as well as me, Some hollow trunk or swampy lair Betrayed his howlings of despair, As near the she-wolf ceased her moan To listen to his dreaming groan, Or, scared from perch on dead branch by, The fish-hawk caught his sharper cry, When light that waked from seeming pain Brought back the living sense again. And sometimes then with strange dismay, Flinging a frantic look around, He from the " windfall s " ghastly fray Of uptorn trunks would shrieking bound As if from their convulsion grew Some shape to his distracted view, KACHESCO. 87 Some hideous shape his soul first caugb From havoc there by Nature wrought ! Then shivering in each limb with dread As o er the quaking bog he fled, And, flying toward it, still afraid To reach again the forest shade, He joyed that even I was near To soothe him in his mortal fear. " Again, when in his wildest mood, He would some mystic power obey, Which from that island s haunted wood Ne er let him wander far away, And alway soon or late I could Steal on him in his solitude : While oft, as weaker grew his brain, And he forgot God s law of blood, I ve track d the poor bewilder d thing, Wherever he was famishing ; And snatched him o er and o er again, From death he sought by fell and flood. * Sometimes, when wintry snows were deep, And game was scarce within our range, When near our camp twere death to keep, Yet lacked we strength our camp to change LAYS OF THE HUDSON. Compelled, in search of food, to creep Through smothering drift and snowy surge, We d starving sink in snow to sleep, Through sleet the morrow to emerge My arms around him I would bind, To shield him from the wintry wind , And still his hand close clutching, hold When through the morrow s whirling blast Our languid steps were tottering told, Where ice some dizzy ledge had glass d, And reeling neath the tempest s breath, Our pinch d-up limbs trod near to death. Then, lest his soul should slip away That night from his half-torpid clay, I d warm against my breast his feet, And constant wake to feel if heat Of life still in his pulses beat. xxxv. " And when spring thaws dissolved the snow, And, loosened from their ancient stay, In mass, dissevered at a blow, Old trees and root-inwoven ground With rocks and ice together bound, Would plunging crash their headlong way, And scatter waste and ruin wide Far down the mountain s riven side As then our wild- wood track would go Across the swollen torrent s flow, KACHESCO. 89 Often, ere this, my frail canoe Upon the freshet s foam has toss d, Where splintered ice would thunder through The roaring gulf which I have crossed To bridge for him the tide below. And ever then my voice has lent Fresh vigor to his trembling knee, As shrinking he before me went, Appalled to hear the surges hiss So close beneath the slippery tree, That tottering spanned the dread abyss. xxxvi. " When summer drought has parched the ground, And crisped the dusty leaves around, Encircled by the forest fire, And gasping in its blinding smoke, My bleeding way through walls of brier, Half stifled, I have desperate broke, And dragged him to some lonely peak, Where o er his prostrate form I stood, And watched the Flaming Spirit wreak His wrath each moment nigher nigher Have watched him whirling through the wood, Resistless in each angry coil, Now scorching up the brush beneath, Shrivelling alike both root and soil, Now fastening on some hoary pine, And vomiting his burning breath 90 LAYS OF THE HUDSON. On writhing limbs through which he d twine Darting aloft his crimson tongue The sharply crackling boughs among, Until the crag round which he swept, The crag where our last hold we kept, One blazing pyre of light became, An islet in a sea of flame. There, bending oft that faint wretch over His body with my own to cover There, while the moss whereon he lay In blistered flakes would peal away, Between him and the flames I cast My form, until the peril passed. XXXVII. " And thus as crowding seasons changed, When many a year was dead and gone, I round these lakes in manhood ranged, Where yet in age I wander on, And still o er that poor slave I ve kept A vigil that hath never slept ; And while upon this earth I stay, From her I ll still keep him away From her whom I at last shall see My own, my own eternally ! XXXVIII. " White man ! I say not that they lie Who preach a faith so dark and drear KA.CHESCO. 9] That wedded hearts in yon cold sky Meet not as they were mated here. But scorning not thy faith, thou must, Stranger, in mine have equal trust : The Red man s faith by Him implanted, Who souls to both our races granted. Thou know st in life we mingle not, Death cannot change our different lot ! He who hath placed the White man s heaven Where hymns on vapory clouds are chanted, To harps by angel fingers play d ; Not less on his Red children smiles To whom a land of souls is given, Where in the ruddy west array d Brighten our blessed hunting isles. " There souls again to youth are born, A youth that knows no withering ! There, blithe and bland the breeze of morn Fresheneth an eternal Spring Mid trees, and flowers, and waterfalls, And fountains bubbling from the moss, And leaves that quiver with delight, As from their shade the warbler calls, Or choiring, glances to the light On wings which never lose their gloss : There brooks that bear their buds away, 12 LAYS OF THE HUDSON. From branches that will bend above them, So closely they could not but love them, To the same bowers again will stray From which at first they murmuring sever, Still floating back their blossoms to them, Still with the same sweet music ever, Returning yet once more to woo them ; There love, like bird and brook and blossom, Is young forever in each bosom ! XL. " Those blissful ISLANDS OF THE WEST : I ve seen, myself, at sunset time, The golden lake in which they rest ; Seen too, the barks that bear The Blest Floating toward that fadeless clime : First dark, just as they leave our shore, Their sides then brightening more and more, Till in a flood of crimson light They melted from my straining sight. And she, who climb d the storm-swept steep, She who the foaming wave would dare, So oft love s vigil here to keep, Stanger, albeit thou think st I dote, I know, I know she watches there ! Watches upon that radiant strand, Watches to see her lo ver s boat Approach The Spirit-Land." THE BOB-0-LINKUM. THOU vocal sprite thou feather d troubadour ! In pilgrim weeds through many a clime a ranger, Com st thou to doff thy russet suit once more And play in foppish trim the masquing stranger 1 Philosophers may teach thy whereabouts and nature ; But wke, as all of us, perforce, must think em, The school-boy best hath fixed thy nomenclature, And poets, too, must call thee Bob-O-Linkum. Say ! art thou, long mid forest glooms benighted, So glad to skim our laughing meadows over With our gay orchards here so much delighted, It makes thee musical, thou airy rover ? Or are those buoyant notes the pilfer d treasure Of fairy isles, which thou hast learn d to ravish Of all their sweetest minstrelsy at pleasure, And, Ariel-like, again on men to lavish ? They tell sad stories of thy mad-cap freaks Wherever o er the land thy pathway ranges ; And even in a brace of wandering weeks, They say, alike thy song and plumage changes ; 94 LAYS OFTHE HUDSON. Here both are gay ; and when the buds put forth, And leafy June is shading rock and river, Thou art unmatch d, blithe warbler of the North, While through the balmy air thy clear notes quiver. Joyous, yet tender was that gush of song Caught from the brooks, where mid its wild flow ers smiling The silent prairie listens all day long, The only captive to such sweet beguiling ; Or didst thou, flitting through the verdurous halls And column d isles of western groves symphonious, Learn from the tuneful woods, rare madrigals, To make our flowering pastures here harmonious ? Caught st thou thy carol from Otawa maid, Where, through the liquid fields of wild rice plashing, Brushing the ears from off the burden d blade, Her birch canoe o er some lone lake is flashing ? Or did the reeds of some savannah south, Detain thee while thy northern flight pursuing, To place those melodies in thy sweet mouth, The spice-fed winds had taught them in their woo ing? Unthrifty prodigal ! is no thought of ill Thy ceaseless roundelay disturbing ever? Or doth each pulse in choiring cadence still Throb on in music till at rest for ever ? THEBOB-0-LINKUM. 95 Yet now in wilder d maze of concord floating, Twould seem that glorious hymning to prolong, Old Time in hearing thee might fall a-doting, And pause to listen to thy rapturous song ! FOREST MUSINGS. THE Hunt is up The merry woodland shout, That rung these echoing glades about An hour agone, Hath swept beyond the eastern hills, Where, pale and lone, The moon her mystic circle fills ; Awhile across her slowly reddening disk The dusky larch, As if to pierce the blue o erhanging arch, Lifts its tall obelisk. And now from thicket dark, And now from mist-wreathed river The fire-fly s spark Will fitful quiver And bubbles round the lily s cup From lurking trout come coursing up, Where stoops the wading fawn to drink : While scared by step so near, Uprising from the sedgy brink The clanging bittern s cry will sink FOREST MUSINGS. 97 Upon the hunter s ear ; Who, startled from his early sleep, Lists for some sound approaching nigher Half-dreaming, lists then turns to heap Another fagot on his fire, And then again, in dreams renewed, Pursues his quarry through the wood. And thus upon my dreaming youth, When boyhood s gambols pleased no more, And young Romance in guise of Truth, UsnrpM the heart all theirs before ; Thus broke Ambition s trumpet-note On visions wild, Yet blithesome as this river On which the smiling moonbeams float That thus have there for ages smiled, And will thus smile for ever. And now no more the fresh green-wood, The forest s fretted aisles, And leafy domes above them, bent, And solitude So eloquent ! Mocking the varied skill y -blent In Art s most gorgeous piles No more can soothe my soul to sleep Than they can awe the sounds that sweep To hunter s horn and merriment Their verdant passes through, LAYS OF THE HUDSON. When fresh the dun-deer leaves his scent Upon the morning dew. The game s afoot ! and let the chase Lead- on, whate er my destiny Though fate her funeral drum may brace Full soon for me ! And wave death s pageant o er me Yet now the new and untried world Like maiden banner first unfurl d, Is glancing bright before me ! The quarry soars ! and mine is now the sky, Where, "at what bird I please, my hawk shall fly !" Yet something whispers through the wood A voice like that perchance Which taught the haunter of Egeria s grove To tame the Roman s dominating mood, And lower, for awhile, his conquering lance Before the images of Law and Love Some mystic voice that ever since hath dwelt Along with Echo in her dim retreat, A voice whose influence all, at times, have felt By wood, or glen, or where on silver strand The clasping waves of Ocean s belt Will clashing meet Around the land : It whispers me that soon too soon The pulses which now beat so high, FORESTMUSINGS. 99 Impatient with the world to cope, Will, like the hues of autumn sky, Be changed and fallen ere life s noon Should tame its morning hope. Yet why, While Hope so jocund singeth And with her plumes the gray beard s arrow wing- eth. Should I Think only of the barb it bringeth ? Though every dream deceive That to my youth is dearest, Until my heart they leave Like forest leaf when searest Yet still, mid forest leaves, Where now Its tissue thus my idle fancy weaves, Still with heart new-blossoming While leaves, and buds, and wild flowers soring, At Nature s shrine I ll bow ; Nor seek in vain that truth in her She keeps for her idolater. INDIAN SUMMER, 1828. LIGHT as love s smile the silvery mist at morn Floats in loose flakes along the limpid river ; The blue-bird s notes upon the soft breeze borne, As high in air he carols, faintly quiver ; The weeping birch, like banners idly waving, Bends to the stream, its spicy branches laving ; Beaded with dew the witch-elm s tassels shiver ; The timid rabbit from the furze is peeping, And from the springy spray the squirrel gaily leaping. I love thee, Autumn, for thy scenery, ere The blasts of winter chase the varied dyes That richly deck the slow declining year ; I love the splendor of thy sunset skies, The gorgeous hues that tint each failing leaf Lovely as beauty s cheek, as woman s love too, brief; I love the note of each wild bird that flies, As on the wind he pours his parting lay, And wings his loitering flight to summer climes away. ~ g INDIAN SUMMER. 101 Oh Nature ! fondly I still turn to thee With feelings fresh as e er my childhood s were ; Though wild and passion-tost my youth may be, Toward thee I still the same devotion bear ; To thee to thee though health and hope no more Life s wasted verdure may to me restore Still still, childlikerl come, as when in prayer I bowed my head upon a mother s knee, And deem d the world like her, all truth and purity. WHAT IS SOLITUDE? NOT in the shadowy wood, Not in the crag-hung glen, Not where the echoes brood In caves untrod by men ; Not by the bleak seashore, Where barren surges break, Not on the mountain hoar, Not by the breezeless lake ; Not on the desert plain Where man hath never stood, Whether on isle or main Not there is solitude ! Birds are in woodland bowers ; Voices in lonely dells : Streams to the listening hours Talk in earth s secret cells ; Over the gray-ribb d sand Breathe Ocean s frothy lips ; Over the still lake s strand The wild flower toward it dips, WHAT IS SOLITUDE? 103 Pluming the mountain s crest Life tosses in its pines, Coursing the desert s breast Life in the steed s mane shines. Leave if thou wouldst be lonely Leave Nature for the crowd ; Seek there for one one only With kindred mind endow d ! There as with Nature erst Closely thou wouldst commune The deep soul-music nursed In either heart, attune ! Heart- wearied thou wilt own, Vainly that phantom woo d, That thou at last hast known What is true Solitude ! PRIMEVAL WOODS. YES ! even here, not less than in the crowd, Here, where yon vault in formal sweep seems piled Upon the pines, monotonously proud, Fit dome for fane, within whose hoary veil No ribald voice an echo hath defiled Where Silence seems articulate ; up-stealing Like a low anthem s heavenward wail : Oppressive on my bosom weighs the feeling Of thoughts that language cannot shape aloud ; For song too solemn, and for prayer too wild, Thoughts, winch beneath no human power could quail, For lack of utterance, in abasement bow d. The cavern d waves that struggle for revealing, Upon whose idle foam alone God s light hath smiled. n. Ere long thine every stream shall find a tongue, Land of the Many Waters ! But the sound Of human music, these wild hills among, Hath no one save the Indian mother flung PRIMEVAL WOODS. 105 Its spell of tenderness ? Oh, o er this ground So redolent of Beauty, hath there play d no breath Of human poesy none beside the word Of Love, as, murmur d these old boughs beneath, Some fierce and savage suitor it hath bound To gentle pleadings ? Have but these been heard 1 No mind, no soul here kindled but my own ? Doth not one hollow trunk about resound With the faint echoes of a song long flown, By shadows like itself now haply heard alone ? in. And Ye, with all this primal growth must go ! And loiterers beneath some lowly spreading shade, Where pasture-kissing breezes shall, ere then, have play d, A century hence, will doubt that there could grow From that meek land such Titans of the glade ! Yet wherefore primal ? when beneath my tread Are roots whose thrifty growth, perchance hath arm d The Anak spearman when his trump alarm d Roots that the Deluge wave hath plunged below ; Seeds that the Deluge wind hath scattered ; Berries that Eden s warblers may have fed ; In slime of earlier worlds preserved unharmed, Again to quicken, germinate, and blow, Again to charm the land as erst the land they charm d. THE LAUREL. BELIEVE him not, that rhyming, rakish Roman, Who swore so roundly that a lover s quarrel Between one Phoebus and some thick-shod woman, First caused to sprout the leaflets of the laurel ! Why, long ago, ere his Deucalion floated Upon that freshet, which was so surprising In that small world where every rill is noted, As if it were a Mississippi rising ; Yes, long ere then, on ALLEGHAN S bright moun tains, Na-nabozho had seen the laurel growing, With berries glassed in Adirondach fountains, Or cup mist-filled near Niagara s flowing : A crimped and dainty cup, whose timid flushing Tinted the creamy hue of lips so shrinking, He thought at first some sentient thing was blushing, To be thus caught from such a caldron drinking. O- THE LAUREL. 107 Plants then had tongues, if we believe old story, As told by red men under forest branches, (Who still insist they hear that language hoary, Ere mountain-woods descend in avalanches.*) Plants then had tongues, and in their caieless tattle, Each painted creature on its footstalk swaying, Beguiled the loitering hunter, with their prattle, Secrets of Nature and old Earth betraying. And once, they said, when Earth seemed fully freighted With pearly cup, and star, and tufted blossom, A Mohawk youth, with spirit all unmated, On old Ta-ha-wusj flung his weary bosom. He knew not, could not, comprehend the feeling That kept him mute oppressed with thought unut- tered, That wild, wild sense of loveliness o erstealing Which urged his pent soul forth on wing unfettered. * Forest Avalanches, or "Mountain Slides," are said to be preceded by a strange groaning of the trees. It is probable, however, only the grinding of the loosened ground beneath them. t The high peak of the Adirondachs, in whose side is the fountain-head of the Hudson. o 108 LAYS OF THE HUDSON. Despairing and bewildered in his sorrow, He pressed with quivering lip the hollow mountain, As he its giant hardihood would borrow, Its free-voiced rushing wind and chainless fountain. This for a savage to be sure was tender, Whose hottest passion chiefly for the chase is : And when his native soil refused to render Aught of response to her wild son s embraces, He breathed into the ground vague thoughts of power, The yearnings of a soul in silence hidden ; Beneath the midnight sky in that lone hour, Thought found a language by itself unbidden ! Then, with no human eye its birth beholding, No fostering plaudit human hands bestowing 1 , First to the dew its glossy leaves unfolding, Sprouted the Laurel, from its own heart growing. And still that type of native genius telleth, On barren rock, or lonely woodland bower, Not in approval, but in Utterance dwelleth The Poet s craving, and the Poet s power. anir aasional $ o SONGS AND OCCASIONAL POEMS. MONTEREY. " Pends toi Brave Crillon ! Nous avons combattu, et tu n y etois pas." Lettre de Henri IV. a. Crillon. WE were not many we who stood Before the iron sleet that day Yet many a gallant spirit would Give half his years if he then could Have been with us at Monterey. Now here, now there, the shot, it hailed In deadly drifts of fiery spray, Yet not a single soldier quailed When wounded comrades round them wailed Their dying shout at Monterey. 112 SONGS AND OCCASIONAL POEMS. And on still on our column kept Through walls of flame its withering way ; Where fell the dead, the living stept, Still charging on the guns which swept The slippery streets of Monterey. The foe himself recoiled aghast, When, striking where he strongest lay, We swooped his flanking batteries past, And braving full their murderous blast, Stormed home the towers of Monterey. Our banners on those turrets wave, And there our evening bugles play ; Where orange boughs above their grave Keep green the memory of the brave Who fought and fell at Monterey. We are not many we who press d Beside the brave who fell that day ; But who of us has not confess d He d rather share their warrior rest, Than not have been at Monterey ? o "BRUNT THE FIGHT." SUGGESTED BY AN EMBALMED INDIAN HEAD. NOT to the conflict, where those death wounds came That still discolor thine undaunted brow, Not to the wildwood, where thy soul of flame Found vent alone in deeds all nameless now, Though startled fancy first by these is caught Not, not to these dost thou enchain my thought ! The tuft of honor, streaming there unshorn,* The separate gashes, every one in front, Prove knightly crest was ne er more bravely borne By charging champion through the battle s brunt, While those old scars, from forays long since past. Bespeak the warrior s life from first to last Bespeak the man who acted out the whole The whole of all he knew of high and true, All that was vision d in his savage soul, All that his barbarous powers on earth could do ; * See " Vigil of Faith," stanza xxii. 114 SONGS AND OCCASIONAL POEMS. Bespeak the being perfect to the plan Of -Nature when she moulded such a man. His simple law of duty and of right Oneness of soul in action, thought and feeling ; His mind, disturb d by no conflicting light, His narrow faith, so clear in each revealing ; His will untramell d to act out the part So plainly graved on his untutor d heart : Envy I these ? Would I for these forego The broader scope of being that is mine ? His bond of sense with spirit once to know Would I the strife for truth and good resign ? How can I when, according to my light, My laio, like his, is still to BRUNT THE FIGHT ! O- LE FAINEANT. u Now arouse thee, Sir Knight, from thine indolent ease, Fling boldly thy banner abroad in the breeze, Strike home for thy lady strive hard for the prize, And thy guerdon shall beam from her love-lighted eyes!" " I shrink not the trial," that bluff knight replied " But I battle not 7 for an unwilling bride ; Where the boldest may venture to do and to dare, My pennon shall flutter my bugle peal there ! " I quail not at aught in the struggle of life, I m not all unproved even now in the strife, But the wreath that I win, all unaided alone, Round a faltering brow it shall never be thrown !" " Now fie on thy manhood, to deem it a sin That she loveth the glory thy falchion might win, Let them doubt of thy prowess and fortune no more ; Up ! Sir Knight, for thy Lady and do thy devoir !" 116 SONOS AND OCCASIONAL POEMS. " She hath shrunk from my side, she hath failed in her trust, Not relied on my blade, but remember d its rust ; It shall brighten once more in the field of its fame, But it is not for her I would now win a name." The knight rode away, and the lady she sigh d, When he featly as ever his steed would bestride, While the mould from the banner he shook to the wind Seem d to fall on the breast he left aching behind. Bat the rust on his glaive and the rust in his heart Had corroded too long and too deep to depart, And the brand only brighten d in honor once more, When the heart ceased to beat on the fray-trampled shore. SPARKLING AND BRIGHT. SPARKLING and bright in liquid light Does the wine our goblets gleam in, With hue as red as the rosy bed Which a bee would choose to dream in. Then fill to-night, with hearts as light, To loves as gay and fleeting As bubbles that swim on the beaker s brim, And break on the lips while meeting. Oh ! if Mirth might arrest the flight Of Time through Life s dominions, We here awhile would now beguile The gray-beard of his pinions, To drink to-night, with hearts as light, To loves as gay and fleeting As bubbles that swim on the beaker s brim, And break on the lips while meeting. But since delight can t tempt the wight, Nor fond regret delay him, 118 SONGS AND OCCASIONAL POEMS. Nor love himself can hold the elf, Nor sober Friendship stay him, We ll drink to-night, with hearts as light, To loves as gay and fleeting As bubbles that swim on the beaker s brim, And break on the lips while meeting. ROSALIE CLARE. WHO owns not she s peerless who calls her not fair Who questions the beauty of Rosalie Clare ? Let him saddle his courser and spur to the field, And though harness d in proof, he must perish or yield ; For no gallant can splinter no charger may dare The lance that is couch d^for young Rosalie Clare. When goblets are flowing, and wit at the board Sparkles high, while the blood of the red grape is pour d, And fond wishes for fair ones around offer d up From each lip that is wet with the dew of the cup, What name on the brimmer floats oftener there, Or is whisper d more warmly, than Rosalie Clare 1 They may talk of the land of the olive and vine Of the maids of the Ebro, the Arno, or Rhine ; Of the Houris that gladden the East with their smiles, Where the sea s studded over with green summer isles ; 120 SONGS AND OCCASIONAL POKMS. But what flower of far-away clime can compare With the blossom of ours bright Rosalie Clare ? Who owns not she s peerless who calls her not fair ? Let him meet but the glances of Rosalie Clare ! Let him list to her voice let him gaze on her form And if, hearing and seeing, his soul do not warm, Let him go breathe it out in some less happy air Than that which is bless d by sweet Rosalie Clare. THE MYRTLE AND STEEL. iv [jtvprov TO /cXaJi tyo$ (poprjaa) Callistratus. ONE bumper yet, gallants, at parting, One toast ere we arm for the fight : Fill round, each to her he loves dearest Tis the last he may pledge her, to-njght ! Think of those who of old at the banquet Did their weapons in garlands conceal, The patriot heroes who hallow d The entwining of Myrtle and Steel ! Then hey for the Myrtle and Steel ! Then ho for the Myrtle and Steel ! Let every true blade that e er loved a fair maid Fill a round to the Myrtle and Steel. Tis in moments like this, when each bosom With its highest-toned feeling is warm, Like the music that s said from the ocean To rise in the gathering storm,* * In Pascagoula Bay strange music is heard when certain winds prevail. Naturalists attribute the phe nomenon to the vibration of the horns of catfish, which at such times congregate in large schools. 3 122 SONGS AND OCCASIONAL POEMS. That her image around us should hover, Whose name, though our lips ne er reveal, We may breathe through the foam of a bumper, As we drink to the Myrtle and Steel. Then hey for the Myrtle and Steel ! Then ho for the Myrtle and Steel ! Let every true blade that e er loved a fair maid Fill a round to the Myrtle and Steel. Now mount, for our bugle is ringing To marshal the host for the fray, Where our flag to the firmament springing Flames over the battle array : Yet, gallants one moment remember, When your sabres the death-blow would deal, That MERCY wears her shape who s cherished By lads of the Myrtle and Steel. Then hey for the Myrtle and Steel ! Then ho for the Myrtle and Steel ! Let every true blade that e er loved a fair maid Fill a round to the Myrtle and Steel. ALGONQUIN WAR SONG. "PE NA SE-WUG." HEAR not ye their shrill-piping screams on the air ? Up ! Braves, for the conflict prepare ye prepare ! Aroused from the canebrake, far south, by your drum With beaks whet for carnage, the Battle Birds come. Oh God of my fathers, as swiftly as they, I ask but to swoop from the hills on my prey : Give this frame to the winds, on the Prairie below, But my soul, like thy bolt I would hurl on the foe ! On the forehead of Earth strikes the Sun in his might, 124 SONGS AND OCCASIONAL POEMS. Oh gift me with glances as searching as light, In the front of the onslaught, to single each crest, Till my hatchet grows red on their hravest and best. Why stand ye back idly, ye Sons of the Lake ? Who boast of the scalp-locks ye tremble to take. Fear-dreamers may linger, my skies are all bright On on to the War Path,* MY GOD AND MY RlGHT. * Hoh ! Nemonedo netaibuatum o win. ALGONQUIN DEATH SONG. "A BE TUH GE ZHIG." UNDER the hollow sky, Stretch d on the Prairie lone, Centre of glory, I Bleeding, disdain to groan, But like a battle cry Peal forth thy thunder moan, Baim-wa-wa!* Star Morning-Star, whose ray Still with the dawn I see, Quenchless through half the day, Gazing thou seest me ; Yon birds of carnage, they Fright not my gaze from thee !f Baim-wa-wa ! * Baim-wa-wa means " the sound of passing thun ders," a phrase which will convey a just idea of the violence of this figure, and the impossibility of ren dering it into English by any single word, t The battle-fields of our Mexican war have given a new and terrible interest to this bold figure of the 190 iONOH AND OCrANlONAI. POKMI. IMI.I. in thine .in \ mi" . Over tllP l. rni.-n . Him, \Vliy do thy Happing winjjs \.-.ii.-i in,- din . incline w.Miiuli d Indian warrior. Tho following paragraph, \vlu, -b :ip|Harod in a N.-u Y.uk joniu.-il :i \\-\\ ,l.i\s pNHwIing the nrrivnl of tl> RtWt of tho bloody I uOil of ItuiMiti \ i>t, lint nil tho Inttmtof whtt tho nowa- pn|H>w onll " curious coiucidonoo :" / Acwomfwow I M Natural lliatttry. Tho Mont* }jonory fAltlNURt) .lourual says "An iiucllijront :iu.i rolirvbl* oorrwpondnt t Mis souri, Tiko county, InfbflM us of ti Mu^ultir circuin- tnuco, \\liu-h h.ul MMI\C\\ II.K troul>lod nuvuy of tho worthy citi/ous of that section. Thi wns tho np- pcnrnuco >1 % nu iuuuouso tlisjht uf tho jjrcnt Auicri- enu vulluiv, of sovorul inil(>s in Icu^tli, nnd con- tniuiujj luillious of thoso noriul scnvtMi^crs. They wort> w loutf tiiuo in nnwiuy, nnd nt times !.ulv<-iK>.l tho wholo hori/on. Tuo writer sys they cmuo nearly iVoiu do no ilh nnd t>rtd ncnrly south ; somo flow so l\v ns to IH> within the hiuiis of tlu> houghs tf tho tnlleM titvs, nnd others so hijjh as scarcely to IM> wn. At ono timo the wholo canopy MVUU-.I t,> be dnikeiuvl with thv<*o birds fivin east t>> \\, M. mnili to south ; from the tojwof ti^^s to s lu^h as tlu- M-ht could ivach, was ono dark cloud. " Tho ouostiou o>v is one of interest to naturalists, wheiv such a vast number of those bii.U i-oul.l \\-.\\s i. and why thUpMMf*, M> nusii:l, (I.M\I Us known habits." Tlx> \lal>;unian is ovidcntly no pwt, or ho could vu t tail to ln\<> intcvprctiHl this " IMuMloiuonon " fta ALOOHQU1K DEATH HOMtt. 137 Blood of tho fJiiuriUwM bringt* Couratf*!, oh Bird, to Miirio ! Hark to Uio*> Hpirit- nota I Y: high Hi-ro< fliviriu, If yimiwl from your ol liki throat* T},.,I. HoMj of I raiMi kminol . . ,. , , , , , M,XH : O. H,.,:h a .a^rrtiliiin a, ihw, u Common .-irnofi" GUI Jii.li:i.r, tfiMf, who :;ill fh<TM5 hinbj "th5 bftttU hinl." " Arorjwrrl from (), <.;,,: ,-;;: . f., ; ,,,,}, i, y y ,,. jr With U;ik whet for carna^r th rtoBchoolcraft " OiwoU." JV. r. (7/z ipah-thtne, or "Th Danntl^n," j 4 a tjtlo ,:,;> :, lfi ,i-. ,f (I.- N,,,.}, ,;, .,, .j.,, (; 128 SONOS AND OCCASIONAL POEMS. Over the foeman s line ! Baim-wa-wa ! villages extend through the region of Lake Superior, and the utmost sources of the Mississippi." "RIO BRAVO." A MEXICAN LAMENT. Air Roncesvalles. Rio BRA.VO ! Rio Bravo ! saw men ever such a sight Since the field of Roncesvalles sealed the fate of many a knight. Dark is Palo Alto s story sad Resaca Palma s rout, Ah me ! upon those fields so gory how many a gal lant life went out. There our best and bravest lances shivered gainst the Northern steel, Left the valiant hearts that couch d them neath the Northern charger s heel. Rio Bravo ! Rio Bravo ! brave hearts ne er mourned such a sight, Since the noblest lost their life-blood in the Ronces valles fight. II. There Arista, best and bravest there Raguena, tried and true, On the fatal field thou lavest, nobly did all men could do; 130 SONGS AND OCCASIONAL POEMS. Vainly there those heroes rally, Castile on Montezu- ma s shore, Vainly there shone Aztec valor brightly as it shone of yore. Rio Bravo ! Rio Bravo ! saw men ever such a sight, Since the dews of Roncesvalles wept for Paladin and knight. III. Heard ye not the wounded coursers shrieking on yon trampled banks, As the Northern wing d artillery thundered on our shattered ranks ? On they came those Northern horsemen on like eagles toward the sun, Followed then the Northern bayonet, and the field was lost and won. Rio Bravo ! Rio Bravo ! minstrel ne er sung such a fight, Since the lay of Roncesvalles sang the fame of mar tyred knight. IV. Rio Bravo ! fatal river ! saw ye not, while red with gore, One cavalier all headless quiver, a nameless trunk upon thy shore 1 Other champions not less noted sleep beneath thy sullen wave. O- "RIO BRAVO." 131 Sullen water, thou hast floated armies to an ocean grave. Rio Bravo ! Rio Bravo ! lady ne er wept such a sight, Since the moon of Roncesvalles kiss d in death her own loved knight. Weepest thou, lorn Lady Inez, for thy lover mid the slain ? Brave La Vega s trenchant sabre cleft his slayer to the brain Brave La Vega who, all lonely, by a host of foes beset, Yielded up his falchion only, when his equal there he met. O, for Roland s horn to rally his Paladins by that sad shore ! Rio Bravo, Roncesvalles, ye are names linked ever more. VI. Sullen river I sullen river ! vultures drink thy gory wave, But they blur not those loved features, which not Love himself could save. Rio Bravo, thou wilt name not that lone corse upon thy shore, 132 SONGS AND OCCASIONAL POEMS. But in prayer sad Inez names him, names him pray ing evermore. Rio Bravo ! Rio Bravo ! lady ne er mourned such a knight, Since the fondest hearts were broken by the Ronces- valles fight. BUFF AND BLUE. Air " Old Dan Tucker." OH bold and true, In buff and blue, Is the soldier-lad that will fight for you. In fort or field, Untaught to yield, Though death may close his story In charge or storm, Tis woman s form That marshals him to glory. For bold and true, In buff and blue, Is the soldier-lad that will fight for you. In each fair fold His eyes behold When his country s flag waves o er him In each rosy stripe, Like her lip so ripe, J34 SONGS AND OCCASIONAL POEMS. His girl is still before him. For bold and true, In buff and blue, Is the soldier-lad that will fight for you. THE MEN OF CHURUBUSCO. THEY LL point them out in after years The men of Churubusco fight ! And tender hearts will name with tears The gallant spirits quenched in night, When each who under WINFIELD fought, And kept the field alive, Was equal, in the deeds he wrought, To any common five They ll point them out, those veterans then, As far beyond all common men, And each to each, with stern delight, Will name the Churubusco fight. They ll sing their praise, when they re no more The men of Churubusco fight ! And when their latest march is o er As one by one is lost to sight Then girls will beg his friends to spare, From off that hoary brow, A shred but of the scattered hair Which waves so richly now : 136 SONGS AND OCCASIONAL POEMS. And loiterers by the inn-side hearth Will pause amid their tavern mirth, And, filling, fear since he has pass d, They drink "to Churubusco s last!" They ll paint their deeds in statued hall The deeds of Churubusco fight : And on the smoke-dried cottage wall Will smile their pictures, brave and bright, Who fought with stalwart SCOTT of yore, That storied field to win- When every warrior bosom bore Five hero hearts within : They ll legends tell of heroes then, Far, far beyond all modern men, And still in song will grow more bright, The deeds of Churubusco fight THE MINT JULEP. rror iyevero Oeolvi. Tis said that the gods, on Olympus of old (And who the bright legend profanes with a doubt,) One night, mid their revels, by Bacchus were told That his last butt of nectar had somehow run out ! But determined to send round the goblet once more, They sued to the fairer immortals for aid In composing a draught, which, till drinking were o er, Should cast every wine ever drank in the shade. Grave Ceres herself blithely yielded her corn, And the spirit that lives in each amber-hued grain, And which first had its birth from the dew of the morn, Was taught to steal out in bright dew-drops again. Pomona, whose choicest of fruits on the board Were scatter d profusely in every one s reach, When call d on a tribute to cull from the hoard, Express d the mild juice of the delicate peach. 138 SONGS AND OCCASIONAL POEMS. The liquids were mingled while Venus look d on With glances so fraught with sweet magical power, That the honey of Hybla, e en when they were gone, Has never been miss d in the draught from that hour. Flora, then, from her bosom of fragrancy, shook, And with roseate fingers press d down in the bowl, All dripping and fresh as it came from the brook, The herb whose aroma should flavor the whole. The draught was delicious, and loud the acclaim, Though something seem d wanting for all to bewail, But JULEPS the drink of immortals became, When JOVE himself added a handful of hail. THE LOON UPON THE LAKE. FROM THE CHIPPKWAY. I LOOKED across the water, I bent over it and listened, I thought it was my lover, My true lover s paddle glistened. Joyous thus his light canoe would the silver ripples wake. But no ! it is the Loon alone the Loon upon the lake. Ah me ! it is the Loon alone the Loon upon the lake. I see the fallen maple Where he stood, his red sash waving, Though waters nearly bury Boughs they then were newly laving. I hear his last farewell, as it echoed from the brake. But no, it is the Loon alone the Loon upon the lake, Ah me ! it is the Loon alone the Loon upon the lake. ROOM, BOYS, ROOM. THERE was an old hunter camp d down by the rill, Who fish d in this water, and shot on that lull. The forest for him had no danger, nor gloom, For all that he wanted was plenty of room ! Says he, " The world s wide, there is room for us all ; Room enough in the green-wood, if not in the hall. Room, boys, room, by the light of the moon, For why shouldn t every man enjoy his own room ?" He wove his own nets, and his shanty was spread With the skins he had dress d and stretch d out over head ; Fresh branches of hemlock made fragrant the floor, For his bed, as he sung when the daylight was o er, " The world s wide enough, there is room for us all j Room enough in the green-wood, if not in the hall. Room, boys, room, by the light of the moon, For why shouldn t every man enjoy his own room ?" That spring now half choked by the dust of the road, Under boughs of old maples once Ihnpidly flow d ; O ROOM, BOYS, ROOM. 141 By the rock whence it bubbles his ket.tle was hung, Which their sap often fill d, while the hunter he sung, " The world s wide enough, there is room for us all ; Room enough in the green-wood, if not in the hall. Room, boys, room, by the light of the moon, For why shouldn t every man enjoy his own room ?" And still sung the hunter when one gloomy day, He saw in the forest what sadden d his lay, A heavy-wheel d wagon its black rut had made, Where fair grew the greensward in broad forest glade " The world s wide enough, there is room for us all ; Room enough in the green-wood, if not in the hall. Room, boys, room, by the light of the moon, For why shouldn t every man enjoy his own room ?" He whistled his dog, and says he, " We can t stay ; I must shoulder my rifle, up traps, and away." Next day, through those maples the settler s axe rung, While slowly the hunter trudged off as he sung, " The world s wide enough, there is room for us all ; Room enough in the green-wood, if not in the hall. Room, boys, room, by the light of the moon, For why shouldn t every man enjoy his own room ?" "FAR AWAY." Air " Long time ago." THE song the song that once could move m In life s glad day The song of her who used to love me Far far away It makes my sad heart, fonder fonder Wildly obey The spell that wins each thought to wander Far, fa away ! Once more upon my native river The moonbeams play, Once more the ripples shine as ever Far, far away But ah, the friends who smiled around me, Where where are they ? Where the sweet spell, that early bound me, Far far away ? I think of all that hope once taught me Too bright to stay FAR AWAY." 143 Of all that music fain had brought me, Far far away ! And weep to feel there s no returning Of that glad day, Ere all that brightened life s fresh morning Was far far away. THE SLEIGH BELLS. MERRILY, merrily sound the bells As o er the ground we roll, And the snow-drift breaks in silvery flakes Before our cariole. When wrapp d in buffalos soft and warm, With mantle and tippet dight, We cheerily cleave the fleecy storm, Or skim in the cold moonlight. Merrily, merrily ! Merrily, merrily ! Merrily sound the bells. Merrily, merrily sound the bells Upon the wind without, When the wine is mull d and the waffle cull d, And the song is passed about. While rosy lips and dimpled cheeks The welcome joke inspire, And mirth in many a bright eye speaks Around the hickory fire, Merrily, merrily ! Merrily, merrily ! Merrily sound the bells. MORNING HYMN " LET THERE BE LIGHT !" The Eternal spoke, And from the abyss where darkness rode The earliest dawn of nature broke, And light around creation flow d. The glad earth smiled to see the day, The first-born day come blushing in, The young day smiled to shed its ray Upon a world untouch d by sin. " Let there be light !" O er heaven and earth, The God who first the day-beam pour d, Utter d again his fiat forth, And shed the Gospel s light abroad. And, like the dawn, its cheering rays On rich and poor were meant to fall, Inspiring their Redeemer s praise In lowly cot and lordly hall. Then come, when in the orient first Flushes the signal light for prayer ; Come with the earliest beams that burst From God s bright throne of glory there. 6- 146 SONGS AND OCCASIONAL POEMS. Come kneel to him who through the night Hath watch d above thy sleeping soul, To Him, whose mercies, like his light, Are shed abroad from pole to pole. THE STREAMLET. How silently yon streamlet slides From out the twilight-shaded bowers ! How, soft as sleep, it onward glides In sunshine through its dreaming flowers. That tranquil wave, now turn d to gold Beneath the s-lowly westering sun, It is the same, far on the wold, Whose foam this morn we gazed upon. The leaden sky, the barren waste, The torrent we this morning knew, How changed are all ! as now we haste To bid them, with the day, adieu ! Ah ! thus should life and love at last Grow bright and sweet when death is near : May we, our course of trial pass d, Thus bathed in beauty glide from here ! ST. VALENTINE S DAY. THE snow yet in the hollow lies ; But, where by shelvy hill tis seen, In myriad rills it trickling flies, To lace the slope with threads of green, Down in the meadow glancing wings Flit in the sunshine round a tree, Where still a frosted apple clings, Regale for early Chickadee : And chestnut buds begin to swell, Where flying squirrels peep to know If from the tree- top, yet, twere well To sail on leathery wing below As gently shy and timorsome, Still holds she back who should be mine ; Come, Spring, to her coy bosom, come, And warm it toward her Valentine ! Come, Spring, and with the breeze that calls The wind-flower by the hill-side rill, The soft breeze that by orchard walls First dallies with the daffodil ST. VALENTINE S DAY. 149 Come lift the tresses from her cheek, And let me see the blush divine, That mantling there, those curls would seek To hide from her true Valentine. Come Spring, and with the Red-breast s note, That tells of bridal tenderness, Where on the breeze he ll warbling float Afar his nesting mate to bless Come, whisper tis not always Spring ! When birds may mate on every spray That April boughs cease blossoming ! With love it is not always May ! Come, touch her heart with thy soft tale, Of tears within the floweret s cup, Of fairest things that soonest fail, Of hopes we vainly garner up And while, that gentle heart to melt, Like mingled wreath, such tale you twine, Whisper what lasting bliss were felt In lot shared with her Valentine. THE BLUSH. I COULD not wish that in thy bosom aught Should e er one moment s transient pain awaken, Yet can t regret that thou forgive the thought As flowers when shaken Will yield their sweetest fragrance to the wind, Should, ruffled thus, betray thy heavenly mind. The lilies faintly to the roses yield, As on thy thoughtful cheek they struggling vie, (Who would not strive upon so sweet a field To win the mastery ?) And thoughts are in thy speaking eyes reveal d, Pure as the fount the prophet s rod unseal d. THY NAME. IT comes to me when healths go round, And o er the wine their garlands wreathing, The flowers of wit, with music wound, Are freshly from the goblet breathing ; From sparkling song and sally gay It comes to steal my heart away, And fill my soul, mid festal glee, With sad, sweet, silent thoughts of thee. It comes to me upon the mart, Where care in jostling crowds is rife ; Where Avarice goads the sordid heart, Or cold Ambition prompts the strife ; It comes to whisper if I m there, Tis but with thee each prize to share, For Fame were not success to me, Nor riches wealth, unshared with thee. It comes to me when smiles are bright On gentle lips that murmur round me, And kindling glances flash delight In eyes whose spell might once have bound me. 152 SONGS AND OCCASIONAL POEMS. It comes but comes to bring alone Remembrance of some look or tone, Dearer than aught I hear or see, Because twas worn or breathed by thee. It comes to me where cloister d boughs Their shadows cast upon the sod ; Awhile in Nature s fane my vows Are lifted from her shrine to God ; It comes to tell that all of worth, I dream in heaven, or know on earth, However bright or dear it be, Is blended with my thought of thee. THE LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS. TEACH thee their language ! sweet, I know no tongue, No mystic art those gentle things declare, I ne er could trace the schoolman s trick among Created things, so delicate and rare: Their language ? Prythee ! why they are themselves But bright thoughts syllabled to shape and hue, The tongue that erst was spoken by tlie elves, When tenderness as yet within the world was new. And oh, do not their soft and starry eyes Now bent to eaith, to heaven now meekly plead ing Their incense fainting as it seeks the skies, Yet still from earth with freshening hope receding Say, do not these to every heart declare, With all the silent eloquence of truth, The language that they speak is Nature s prayer, To give her back those spotless days of youth ? THE CALL OF SPRING. THOU wak st again, oh Earth ! From winter s sleep ! Bursting with voice of mirth From icy keep ; And laughing at the Sun, Who hath their freedom won, Thy waters leap ! Thou wak st again, oh Earth ! Freshly again, And who by fireside hearth Will now remain ? Come on the rosy hours Come on thy buds and flowers As when in Eden s bowers Spring first did reign. Birds on thy breezes chime Blithe as in that matin time Their choiring begun : Earth, thou hast many a prime- Man hath but one ! THE CALL OF SPRING. 155 Thou wak st anew, oh Earth Freshly anew ! As when at Spring s first birth First flow rets grew. Heart ! that to earth dost cling, While boughs are blossoming, Why wake not too ? Long thou in sloth hast lain, Listing to Love s soft strain Wilt thou sleep on ? Playing, thou sluggard heart, In life no manly part, Though youth be gone. Wake ! tis Spring s quickening breath Now o er thee blown ; Awake thee ! ere thou in death Pulselessly slumbereth, Pluck thou from Glory s wreath One leaf alone ! MONODY. WHEN the flowers of Friendship or Love have de- cay d, In the heart that has trusted and once been betray d, No sunshine of kindness their bloom can restore, For the verdure of feeling will quicken no more ! faope cheated too often when life s in its spring," 1 -, [From the bosom that nursed it/ojrevei;takes wing_?r And memory comes, as its promises fade, To brood o er the havoc that passion has made, As tis said that the swallow the tenement leaves Where ruin endangers her nest in the eaves, While the desolate owl takes her place on the wall, And builds in the mansion that nods to its fall. LOVE S MEMORIES. TO-NIGHT ! to-night ! what memories to-night Came thronging o er me as I stood near thee. Thy form of Loveliness, thy brow of light, Thy voice s thrilling flow, All, all were there ; to me to me as bright As when they claim d my soul s idolatry Years, long years ago ! That gulf of years ! Oh, God ! hadst thou been mine, Would all that s precious have been swallow d there ? Youth s meteor hope, and manhood s high design, Lost, lost, forever lost Lost with the love that with them all would twine, The love that left no harvest but despair Unwon at such a cost ! Was it ideal, that wild, wild love I bore thee ? Or thou thyself didst thou my soul enthral ? Such as thou art to-night did I adore thee ! 158 SONGS AND OCCASIONAL POEMS. Ay, idolize in vain ! Such as thou art to-night could time restore me That wealth of loving shouldst thou have it all, To waste perchance again ? No ! Thou didst break the coffers of my heart, And set so lightly by the hoard within, That / too learn d at last the squanderer s art, Went idly here and there, Filing my soul and lavishing a part On each, less cold than thou, who cared to win And seemed to prize a share. No ! Thou didst wither up my flowering youth. If blameless, still the bearer of a bli ht ! The unconscious agent of the deadliest ruth That human heart hath riven ! Teaching me scorn of my own spirit s truth ! Holding not me but that fond worship light Which link d my soul to Heaven ! No ! No ! For me the weakest heart before One so untonch d by tenderness as thine ! Angels have enter d through the frail tent door That pass the palace now And HE who spake the words, " Go sin no more," Mid human passions saw the spark divine, But not in such as THOU ! WRITTEN IN A LADY S PRAYER BOOK. THY thoughts are Heavenward ! and thy heart, they say, Which love, oh ! more than mortal, fail d to move, Now in its precious casket melts away, And owns the impress of a Saviour s love ! Many, in days gone by, full many a prayer, Pure, though impassion d, has been breathed for thee By one who once thy hallow d name would dare Prefer with his to the Divinity. Requite them now not with an earthly love But since with that his lot thou mayst not bless, Ask what he dare not pray for from above For him the mercy of Forgetfulness. ANACREONTIC. TO Ka\\t<rTov [jilv vdwp. Pindar. BLAME not the Bowl the fruitful Bowl ! Whence wit, and mirth, and music spring, And amber drops elysian roll, To bathe young Love s delighted wing. What, like the grape Osiris gave, Makes rigid age so lithe of limb ? Illumines memory s tearful wave, And teaches drowning hope to swim ? Did Ocean from his radiant arms To earth another Venus give, He ne er could match the mellow charms That in the breathing beaker live. Like burning thoughts which lovers hoard In characters that mock the sight, Till some kind liquid, o er them pour d, Brings all their hidden warmth to light Are feelings bright, which, in the cup Though graven deep, appear but dim, ANACREONTIC. 161 Till fill d with glowing Bacchus up, They sparkle on the foaming brim. Each drop upon the first you pour Brings some new tender thought to life, And as you fill it more and more, The last with fervid soul is rife. The island fount, that kept of old Its fabled path beneath the sea, And fresh, as first from earth it roll d, From earth again rose joyously ; Bore not beneath the bitter brine, Each flower upon its limpid tide, More faithfully than in bright wine, Our hearts will toward each other glide. Then drain the cup, and let thy soul Learn, as the draught delicious flies, Like pearls in the Egyptian s bowl, Truth beaming at the bottom lies. THE SONG OF THE DROWNED. DOWN, far down, in the waters deep, Where the booming surges above us sweep, Our revels from n ; ht till morn we keep : And though with us the cup goes round Upon every shore where the blue waves sound, Yet here, as it passes from lip to lip, Alone is found true fellowship ; For only the Dead, where er they range, "Tis the Dead alone who never change. What boots your pledges, ye sons of Earth ; Or to whom ye drink in your hours of mirth, When gather d around your festal hearth? Ye fill to love ! and the toast ye give Will hardly the fumes of your wine outlive ! To friendship fill ! and its tale is told, Almost ere the pledge on your lip grows cold ! For only the Dead, where er they range, Tis the Dead alone, who never change. Then come, when the bolt of death is hurl d, Come down to us from that bleak, bleak world, _ 6 THE SONG OF THE DROWNED. 163 Where the wings of sorrow are never furled : Come, and we ll drink to the shades of the past ; To the hopes that mock d in life to the last ; To the lips and the eyes we once would adore, And the loves that in death can delude no more ! For the Dead, the Dead, wherever they range, Tis only the Dead who never change. NO MORE NO MORE. No more no more of song to-night ; Oh, let no more thy music flow ! Those notes that once could wake delight, Come o er me like a spirit-blight, A breathing of the faded past, Whose freshest hopes to earth were cast Long, long ago. A livelier strain ! nay, play instead, That movement wild and low, That chanting for the early dead Which best beseems spring s blossoms fled, A requiem for each tender ray That from life s morning stole away Long, long ago. A HUNTER S MATIN. UP, comrades, up ! the morn s awake Uppn the mountain side, The curlew s wing hath swept the lake, And the deer has left the tangled brake, To drink from the limpid tide. Up, comrades, up ! the mead-lark s note And the plover s cry o er the prairie float, The squirrel he springs from his covert now To prank it away on the chestnut bough, Where the oriole s pendent nest high up, Is rock d on the swaying trees, While the humbird sips from the harebell s cup, As it bends to the morning breeze. Up, comrades, up ! our shallops grate Upon the pebbly strand, And our stalwart hounds impatient wait To spring from the huntsman s hand. MY BIRCHEN BARK NEGRO MELODY. MY birchen bark, my birchen bark ! When Fortune first made Love a rover, He shaped it for his own trim ark To float Care s deluge gayly over. Then leave the boasting pioneer To hew his skiff from yonder pine, And, dearest, with young Love to steer, Become a passenger in mine : In swan-like grace thy form resembling With joy beneath thy sweet limbs trembling For lightsome heart, oh, such a boat On summer wave did never float ! Think st thou, my love, that painted barge, With gaudy pennant flaunting o er her, Could kiss, like her, the flowery marge, Nor break the foam-bells formed before her ? Look, sweet, the very lotus-cup, Trembling as if with bliss o erbrimm d, MY BIRCHEN BARK. 167 Seemed now almost to buoy her up As o er the heart-shaped leaves we skimm d Those floating hearts, beside their flowers, Half bear the boat and both of ours ! For lightsome heart, oh, such a boat On summer wave did never float ! THE YACHTER. MY bark is my courser so gallant and brave ; Like a steed of the prairie she bounds o er the wave, And the breast of the billow, as onward I roam, Swelling proudly to meet her, is fleck d by her foam. Like the winds which her canvass exultingly fill, I float as I list, and I rove as I will ; The breeze cannot baffle, for with it I veer, Or in the wind s eye like the petrel I steer. O er the pages of story the student may pore, The trumpet the soldier may charm to the war, In the forest the hunter his heaven may see, But the bounding blue water and shallop for me. With no haven before me beneath me my home All heaven around me wherever I roam, I am free I am free as the shrill piping gale, That whistles its music as onward I sail. BOAT SONG. WE court no gale with wooing sail, We fear no squall a-brewing ; Seas smooth or rough, skies fair or bluff, Alike our course pursuing. For what to us are winds, when thus Our merry boat is flying, While, bold and free, with jocund glee, Stout hearts her oars are plying ! At twilight dun, when red the sun Far o er the water flashes, With buoyant song, our bark along His crimson pathway dashes. And when the night devours the light, And shadows thicken o er us, The stars steal out, the skies about, To dance to our bold chorus. Sometimes, near shore, we ease our oar, While beauty s sleep invading, To watch the beam through her casement gleam, As she wakes to our serenading ; 170 SONGS AND OCCASIONAL POEMS. Then, with the tide, we floating glide To music soft, receding, Or drain one cup, to her fill d up, For whom these notes are pleading. Thus, on and on, till the night is gone, And the garish dawn is breaking ; While landsmen sleep, we boatmen keep The soul of frolic waking. And though cheerless then our craft look, when To her moorings day hath brought her, By the moon amain she is launch d again, To dance o er the merry water. WHERE DOST THOU LOITER, SPRING ? WHERE dost thou loiter, Spring, Whilst it behoveth Thee to cease wandering Where thy breeze roveth, And to my lady bring The flowers she loveth. Come with thy melting skies, Like her cheek, blushing, Come with thy dewy eyes Where founts are gushing ; Come where the wild bee hies When dawn is flushing. Lead her where, by the brook, The first blossom keepeth, Where, in the shelter d nook, The callow bud sleepeth, Or with a timid look Through its leaves peepeth. 172 SONGS AND OCCASIONAL POEMS. Lead her whereon the spray Blithely carolling, First birds their roundelay For my lady sing But keep, where er she stray True love blossoming. CHANSONNET TE. IT haunts me yet ! that early dream Of first fond Love ! Like the ice that floats on a summer stream From frozen fount above, Through my river of life twill drifting gleam, Wherever its waves may flow ; Flashing athwart each sunny hour With a strangely bright but chilling power, Ever and ever to mock their tide With its illusive glow : A fragment of hopes that were petrified ^ Long long ago ! WAKE, LADY, WAKE! WRITTEN FOR AN AIR IN DER FREISCHUTZ. WAKE, Lady, wake ! the stars on high Are twinkling in the vaulted sky, The dew drops on the leafy spray Are trembling in the moon s cold ray ; But what to me are dewy skies And moon and stars, unless thine eyes Will waken, to rival the heaven s blue, And the stars and moon in their brightness too ? Wake, Lady, wake ! the murmuring breeze Is soft among the swaying trees ; And with the sound of brooks is heard The note of evening s lonely bird : But thy loved voice is sweeter far, Than whispering woods or breezes are, Or the silver sound of the tinkling rill, Or the plaintive call of the whippoorwill. Wake, Lady * or my heart alone Will, like a lute that s lost its tone, WAKE, LADY, WAKE! 175 To nature s touch refuse to sound, While all her works rejoice around : How can I prize the brightest spot, If I am there, but thou art not ? Then while through thy lattice the moonbeams break, Tis thy lover that calls thee, wake, Lady, wake ! SERENADE. SLEEPING ! why now sleeping ? The moon herself looks gay, While through thy lattice peeping ; Wilt not her call obey 1 Wake, love, each star is keeping For thee its brightest ray ; And languishes the gleaming From fire-flies now streaming Athwart the dewy spray. Awake, the skies are weeping Because thou art away, But if of me thou rt dreaming, Sleep, loved one, while you may ! And music s wings shall hover Softly thy sweet dreams over, Fanning dark thoughts away, While, dearest, tis thy lover Who ll bid each bright one stay. THE BROOK AND THE PINE. TELL me, fair Brook, that long hast sung, To yonder Pine hast sung so sweetly Are its wild arms more near thee flung, When night their motion veils completely ? Or, for the morn s caressing rays Still eager, will it toss its boughs, Like hearts that only beat for praise, All heedless of affection s vows ? I never pause the Brook replied To know how near it bends above me, I cannot help, whate er betide, To sing for one I fain would love me ; My song flows on, and still must flow, My chosen Pine with truth to bless, Though rippling pebbles sometimes show The brook athirst with tenderness : Nay more when thus, while troublous, oft My wavelets flash some ray redeeming, I think but of the Pine aloft, Which first will proudly hail its beaming ! ]78 SONGS AND OCCASIONAL POEMS. And, wasted thus, a joy it is To know my pine, refresh d and bright, While t distill d each dewy kiss Is worthy of all glorious light ! THINK OF ME, DEAREST. THINK of me, dearest, when day is breaking Away from the sable chains of night, When the sun, his ocean-couch forsaking, Like a giant first in his strength awaking, Is flinging abroad his limbs of light ; As the breeze that first travels with morning forth, Giving life to her steps o er the quickening earth As the dream that has cheated thy soul through the night, Let me come fresh in thy thoughts with the light. Think of me, dearest, when day is sinking In the soft embrace of twilight gray, When the starry eyes of heaven are winking, And the weary flowers their tears are drinking, As they start like gems on the star-lit spray. Let me come warm in thy thoughts at eve, As the glowing track which the sunbeams leave, When they, blushing, tremble along the deep While stealing away to their place of sleep. 180 SONGS AND OCCASIONAL POEMS Think of me, dearest, when round thee smiling Are eyes that melt while they gaze on thee ; When words are winning and looks are wiling, And those words and looks, of others, beguiling Thy fluttering heart from love and me. Let me come, true in thy thoughts in that hour ; Let my trust and my faith my devotion have power, When all that can lu*e to thy young soul is nearest, To summon each truant thought back to me, dearest. Q AWAY TO THE FOREST. AWAY to the forest, away, love, away ! My foam-champing courser reproves thy delay, And the brooks are all calling, Away, love, away ! Away to the forest, my own love, with me ! Away where thro checker d glade sports the wind free, Where in the bosky dell Watching young leaflets sM^ll, Spring on each floral bell Counteth for thee Away to the forest, away ! Away to the forest, away, love, away ! Each breath of the morning reproves thy delay ; Each shadow retiring beckons away ! Hark ! how the blue-bird s throat caroling^p er us Chimes with the thrush s note floating before us ! Away then, my gentle one, Thy voice is miss d alone. Away let love s whisper d tone Swell the bright chorus, Away to the forest, away ! THE WAXEN ROSE.* Go, mocking flower, Thou plastic child of art, Back to thy lady s bower; Go and ask if thou, False rose, art proven now An emblem of her heart ? Tell her, that like thee That heart s of little worth, However kind it be, Which any hand with skill May mould unto its will : Too pliant from its birth. Go, cheating blossom, Scentless as morning dew, Go ask if in her bosom, Although love s bud may be In brightness like to thee, It owns no fragrance too. * " Go, lovely rose." WALLE. THE WAXEN ROSE. 183 But if fadeless, yet Still, still her love blooms on ; Tell her oh, ne er forget To tell her, from my heart Affection will not part When all life s flowers are gone. MYNE HEARTTE. I SOMMETYMES thinnke thye womannes artte Hathe fromme mye bosomme whytchd my heartte, Yt dothe soe oftenne feele to mee Lyke caskette where no jewelles be, Or, oceanne shelle wilk breathes dystresse I ween fromme verye emptynesse ; And thenne I wishe sic faythlesse heartte Of mee hadde never been a parte. And sommetymes doe I thynnke yts tyde Is bye thye coldness petryfyd ; Or, thatte thyne eyne scorche uppe ye sayme Fromme healthfulle boundynges through mye fraym Yt laggs soe in its course lyke staynes, Wilk blushynge creepe through cowardes veynes ; And thenne I thynke that sic an heartte Of manne hadde bettere notte be parte. And sommetymes doe I thynke twere welle Thys heartte shouldde breake beneathe thye spelle, Since lonnge yt onlye thoughtes of payne Hathe sentte untoe my wearye brainne. MYNE HKARTTE. 183 Soe manaye that ye sabel suite Dothe crowde mye reasonne fromme her seatte, And mayke me thynnke I d rayther parte Wythe lyfe in sic an faythelesse heartte. THE LOVER S STAR. DANISH AIR. OH, when, mid thy wild fancy s dreaming Life s meteors around the are streaming, Thy tears still belie the false beaming That fain would thy spirit control Look, look to that lone light above thee, The star that seems set there to love thee, Look there, and I am with thee in soul ! Look, look, &c. And if, when thus wilder d, thou turnest, To lean on the true and the earnest The friend for whom vainly thou yearn-est Has pass d like a mist from life s strand. Oh, come, come again to me, dearest ! Thou still to my soul shalt be nearest, All mine in that bright spirit-land ! Oh ! come, come again, &c. THE INVITATION. WEND, love, with me, to the deep woods wend, Where far in the forest the wild flowers keep, Where no watching eye shall over us bend, Save the blossoms that into thy bower may peep. Thou shalt gather from buds of the oriole s hue, Whose flaming wings round our pathway flit, From the saffron orchis and lupin blue, And those like the foam on my courser s bit. One steed and one saddle us both shall bear, One hand of each on the bridle meet ; And beneath the wrist that entwines me there, An answering pulse from my heart shall beat. I will sing thee many a joyous lay, As we chase the deer by the blue lake-side, While the winds that over the prairie play Shall fan the cheek of my woodland bride. Our home shall be by the cool, bright streams, Where the beaver chooses her safe retreat, And our hearth shall smile like the sun s warm gleams Through the branches around our lodge that meet. 188 SONGS AND OCCASIONAL POEMS. Then wend with me, to the deep woods wend, Where far in the forest the wild flowers keep, Where no watching eye shall over us bend, Save the blossoms that into thy bower may peep . THE LOVE TEST. I THOUGHT she was wayward inconstant in part, But thought not the weakness e er reached to her heart ; Twas a lightness of mood which but tempted a lover The more the true way to that heait to discover. What changeful seem d there, was the play of the wave Which veileth the depth of the firm ocean cave ; I cared not how fitful that light wave might flow, I would dive for the pearl of affection below. I won it, methought ! and now welcome the strife, The burthen, the toil, the worst struggles of life ; Come trouble come sorrow come pain and despair, We divide ills, that each for the other would bear ! I believed I could SWEAR there was that in her breast, That soul of wild feeling, which needs but the test, 190 SONGS AND OCCASIONAL POEMS. To leap like a falchion bright, glowing, and true, To the hand which its worth and its temper best knew. And what was the struggle which tested love s power ? What fortune, so soon, could bring trial s dark hour ? Did some shadow of evil first make her heart quail 1 Or the WORST prove at once that her truth could ne er fail ? I painted it sternly, the lot she might share ! I took from LOVE S wing all the gloss it may bear ; I told her how often his comrade is CARE ! I appeal d to her heart and her heart it was WHERE ? AFTERTHOUGHT. WHAT though I sigh to think that after all Twas half some erring fancy of the mind, Half that illusion which they * love miscall Whose sense dreams not of sentiment refined : They to whom ne er that gush of soul was given Which melts the heart to mould it but for Heaven- What though to think it was but this perchance Prompts the half-wistful half-disdainful sigh ; Makes the fond tone the tear the tender glance Seem less than valueless in memory : Still would I rather my love ran to waste Than she I love love s bitterness * should taste. SEEK NOT TO UNDERSTAND HER. WHY seek her heart to understand, If bat enough thou knowest To prove that all thy love, like sand, Upon the wind thou throwest ? The ill thou raakest out at last Doth but reflect the bitter past, While all the good thou learnest yet But makes her harder to forget. What matters all the nobleness Which in her breast resideth, And what the warmth of tenderness Her mien of coldness hideth, If but ungenerous thoughts prevail When thou her bosom wouldst assail, While tenderness and warmth doth ne er By any chance toward thee appear 1 Sum up each token thou hast won Of kindred feeling there How few for Hope to build upon, How many for Despair ! SEEK NOT TO UNDERSTAND HER. 393 And if e er word or look declareth Love or aversion which she beareth, While of the first no proof thou hast How many are there of the last ! Then strive no more to understand Her heart, of which thou knowest Enough to prove thy love, like sand, Upon the wind thou throwest : The ill thou makest out at last Doth but reflect the bitter past, While all the good thou learnest yet But makes her harder to forget. WITHERING, WITHERING. WITHERING withering all are withering .All of hope s flowers that youth hath nursed ; Flowers of love too early blossoming ; Buds of ambition, too frail to burst. Faintily faintily ah ! how faintily I feel life s pulses ebb and flow : Yet, sorrow, I know thou dealest daintily With one who should not wish to live raoe. Nay ! why, young heart, thus timidly shrinking ? Why doth thy upward wing thus tire ? Why are thy pinions so droopingly sinking, When they should only waft thee higher ? Upward upward, let them be waving, Lifting thy soul toward her place of birth : There are guerdons there more worth thy having, Far more than any these lures of earth. A PLACE FOR ME. A PLACE for me one place for me, Within that young wild heart be kept ; Howe er Affection s chords may there By other hands than mine be swept : However unto Love s mad thrill Their music may responsive be, As now let sober Friendship still Preserve one note one place for me. When thy bright spirit, grave or gay, Some other chains delighted near, To catch thy features varying play, And watch each lightning thought appear, However thou his soul mayst touch, Let him not wholly thine enthrall From one who ever loved so much To chase its meteor windings all. When in some scene where Nature flings Her loveliest enchantments round, And in thy kindling soul upsprings Thoughts which no mortal breast can bound ; 196 SONQS AND OCCASIONAL POEMS. Or when upon some deathless page Thy mind communes with kindred mind, Still let me there one thought engage, And round thy soaring spirit wind. When first the bride-like dawn is blushing Within the arms of joyous day, Or when the twilight dews are hushing His footsteps o er the hills away ; When from the fretted vault above, God s ever burning lamps are hung, And when in dreams of Heaven and love, His mercies are around thee flung ; A place for me one place for me, Within thy memory live enshrined, Whatever idols Time may raise Upon the altars of thy mind. And while youth s hopes before me sweep, Like bubbles on a freshening sea My bark of life shall ever keep One sacred berth for thee for thee "OUR FRIENDSHIP." IT will endure ! It hath the seal upon it That once alone in life is ever set ; It will endure ! we both by suffering won it ! It will endure for neither can forget. It must endure ! for is not Truth immortal ? And those same tears which saw our hopes depart, Brought her, the comforter, from Heaven s bright portal, In rainbow radiance spanning heart to heart ! MY DOG. AN ear that caught my slightest tone, In kindness or in anger spoken ; An eye that ever watch d my own, In vigils death alone has broken ; Its changeless, ceaseless, and unbought Affection to the last revealing ; Beaming almost with human thought, And more far more than human feeling ! Can such in endless sleep be chill d, And mortal pride disdain to sorrow, Because the pulse that here was still d May wake to no immortal morrow ! Can faith, devotedness, and love, That seem to humbler creatures given To tell us what we owe above, The types of what is due to Heaven, Can these be with the things that were, Things cherish d but no more returning, And leave behind no trace of care, No shade that speaks a moment s mourning ? ...j MY D O . 199 Alas ! my, friend, of all of worth That years have stolen or years yet leave me, I ve never known so much on earth, But that the loss of thine must grieve me. A PORTRAIT. NOT hers the charms which Laura s lover drew, Or Titian s pencil on the canvass threw ; No soul enkindled beneath southern skies Glow d on her cheek and sparkled in her eyes ; No prurient charms set off her slender form With swell voluptuous and with contour warm ; While each proportion was by Nature told In maiden beauty s most bewitching mould. High on her peerless brow a radiant throne Unmix d with aught of earth pale genius sat alone And yet at times, within her eye there dwelt Softness that would the sternest bosom melt, A depth of tenderness which show d, when woke, That woman there as well as angel spoke. Yet well that eye could flash resentment s rays, Or, proudly scornful, check the boldest gaze ; Chill burning passion with a calm disdain, Or with one glance rekindle it again. Her mouth O ! never fascination met Near woman s lips half so alluring yet : For round her mouth there play d, at times, a smile, Such as did man from Paradise beguile ; * A PORTRAIT. 201 Such, could it light him through this world of pain, As he d not barter Eden to regain. What though that smile might beam alike on all ; What though that glance on each as kindly fall ; What though you knew, while worshipping their power, Your homage but the pastime of the hour, Still they, however guarded were the heart, Could every feeling from its fastness start Deceive one still, howe er deceived before, And make him wish thus to be cheated more, Till, grown at last in such illusions gray, Faith follow d Hope and stole with Love away. Such was Alinda ; such in her combined Those charms which round our very nature wind ; Which, when together they in one conspire, He who admires must love who sees, admire. Variably perilous ; upon the sight Now beam d her beauty in resistless light, And subtly now into the heart it stole, And, ere it startled, occupied the whole. Twas well for her, that lovely mischief, well That she could not the pangs it waken d tell ; That, like the princess in the fairy tale, No soft emotions could her soul assail ; For Nature, that Alinda should not feel The wounds her eyes might make, but never heal, In mercy, while she did each gift impart Of rarest excellence, withheld a heart ! BUENA VISTA. [Supposed to be written by a Mexican Prisoner within the American lines at Saltillo.J WE saw their watch-fires through the night, Light up the far horizon s verge ; We heard at dawn the gathering fight, Swell like the distant ocean surge The thunder-tramp of mountain hordes From distance sweeps a boding sound, As Aztec s twenty thousand swords And clanking chargers shake the ground. A gun ! now all is hushed again How strange that lull before the storm, That fearful silence o er the plain Halt they their battle line to form ? It booms it booms it booms again, And through each thick and thunderous shock The war-scream seems to pierce the brain, As charging squadrons interlock. BUKNA VISTA. 203 Columbia s sons of different race Proud Aztec and bold Alleghan, Are giappled there in death embrace, To rend each other, man to man ! The storm-clouds lift,* and through the haze, Dissolving in the noon-tide light, I see the sun of Aztec blaze Upon her banner broad and bright ! And on : still on, her ensigns wave, Flinging abroad each glorious fold ; While drooping round each sullen stave Cling Alleghan s but half unrolled. But stay ! that shout has stirred the air ; I see the stripes I see the stars God ! who leads the phalanx there, Beneath those fearful meteor bars ? 1 OLD ZACK OLD ZACK the war-cry rattles Amid those men of iron tread, * " While the battle was going on, there came up a thick black cloud, which extended itself across the valley immediately over the two armies, entirely con cealing them from my view, from which I could hear peal after peal of heavy thunder, and see the sharp lightning descend. At the same time I could hear the roar of the canon of both armies, then engaged in deadly conflict ; as though Heaven s artillery was contending against that of feeble man." Letter from an Officer, in the Knickerbocker. 204 SONGS AND OCCASIONAL POEMS. As rung Old Fritz, in Europe s battles, When thus his host great Frederick led ! Like Cordellieras snow-fed flood Its torrent-track through forests rending, Like Santiago s crashing wood Through which it whirls, in foam descending, So Taylor s power in that wild hour Upon our central might is thrown, So round his dread resistless tread Our bleeding ranks are rent and strewn. Oh ! hardly from that carnage dire We drag our patriot chief away Who, crushed by famine, steel and fire, Yet claims as his the desperate day ! That day whose sinking light is shed O er Buena Vista s field, to tell, Where round the sleeping and the dead, Stalks conquering TAYLOR S sentinel. on NOTES ON KACHESCO. Those peaks where fresh the Hudson takes His tribute from an hundred lakes. The lakes, which form the sources of the Hudson in the Adirondac wilderness, are supposed to exceed this number. For a Topographical account of this >y to the Legislature of the State of New- York, 1838-9. These mountains, when first visited by the present writer, in his college vacations, were much frequented by roving Indian hunters, who often showed a hunt er s friendliness to his youngsterhood, and more than one of whom has since met with a violent death amid these solitudes. The country seemed, at that time, about to be settled by white people as a grazing dis trict. But the opening of the Erie Canal soon after ward, diverted emigration westward ; and the Chief Engineer of the Upper Hudson speaks, in his first Report, of former " clearings " and old roads being 208 NOTES ON KACHKSCO. rendered impassable by a young and thick forest growth, and wild animals making their lair in the cabins of former settlers, who had migrated to the prairies. Within the last five years, however, the publication of the Geological Survey of the State has again brought the whole Sacandaga and Adirondac region into fresh and favorable notice ; and its rich mineral resources, not less than its magnificent scenery, are now the frequent themes of correspondence in our periodicals, alike by scientific and sporting tourists. These, since the first edition of this poem was pub lished, have made its attractions pretty generally known ; still the following summing up of its charac teristics, which is copied here from the " Ithaca Chro nicle," maybe acceptable to the summer tourist, from the memorandum of different routes it offers to those who would penetrate the "little Switzerland" de scribed in the text : " An immense plateau of land, elevated more than fourteen hundred feet above tide, occupies a cen tral position between the Canada line on the north, and Mohawk river on the south the Champlain valley on the east, and Lake Ontario on the west. It covers an area of 8000 square miles, equal to the whole of Massachusetts and a corner of Rhode Island. The Adirondac mountains are the crowning summits of the great uplift, and Tahawus or Marcy, the monarch of the whole, his brow of rock just on the boundary of Eternal Frost. You enter this savage region by Lake Champlain to Westport or Kees- ville or from the south more readily by Caldwell to Schroon Lake and Portersville, thence to Long Lake (Incapahco) , or the Iron Works or, lastly, from Saratoga, by the way of the Sacandaga and Lake NOTES ON KACHESCO. 209 Pleasant to Raquet lake. In this uninhabited terri tory are a hundred lakes of from one to twenty miles in length some reposing in the perpetual shade of interlocking mountains, others flashing like silver mirrors in quiet valleys ; and all of them alive with the finest fish. Streams unnumbered leap from the rocky flanks of lofty heights, and dash off ocean ward beneath the foliage of a primeval forest. In these the speckled trout dart in shoals, and bound to the surface toward evening, as if in a perfect frolic. Through the mountain gorges stray the sullen bear and tawny moose, while the beautiful deer feeds along the margin of the solitary waters, and the pan ther screams in the tangled thicket. From Tahawus and Whiteface you can sweep a circle of 500 miles in circumference, and all an ocean of mountains, holding in their embrace nearly thirty visible lakes." STANZA XIV. And much he told of Metai lore, Of fVabenos we call enchanters, &c. ALGONQUIN MYTHOLOGY is rich in its native in terpreters. Sorcery, as practised bv the Metai, Wa- beno, or Jossakeed of our aborigines, keeps them in many tribes, more or less in bondage to a class of men who seem to officiate as conjurers, priests, and sooth sayers. Our Indians, although worshipping one Great Spirit, believe in the existence of a fanvl.ar spirit or Saifjiwv in all things (Lafitau, James, Schoolcraft) * and in their lodge lore we have an interminable cal endar of demi-gods and minor divinities, who keep the woods from being lonely (see Discourse on Indian Mythology, Coll. N. "X. Hist. Soc.). Of these divi- 210 NOTES ON KACIIESCO. nities, Nabozhoo, Manabozhoo or Nanaboshe, (for all these names apply to the same mythological per sonage,) and Pa-puckwis are the favorites among their story tellers. The writer has given the principal le gend of the former in his " Wild Scenes of the Forest and Prairie" (Bentley, London, 1838). It is more curious than poetic. With regard to PA-PUCKWIS, the red elf who figures in many a pleasant tale preserved in Schoolcraft s valuable " Algic Researches" he is always repre sented as very small, and as frequently being invisi ble ; vanishing and reappearing to those whom he visits with his pranks. It is as the leader of the PUCKWUDJEES, however, that this godikin is most entitled to consideration. These elvish beings are described as inhabiting and loving rocky heights, caves, crevices, or rural and romantic points of land, upon the lakes, bays, and rivers, particularly if they be crowned with pine trees. They are depicted in the oral legends of the Algonquins, as flitting among thickets, or running, with a whoop, up the sides of mountains and over plains. The following explana tion, by our most distinguished Algonquin scholar, of the etymology of the term, may interest the philo logical reader. " The term puck, as heard in Puckwudj, is found in a number of compound phrases in the Odjibiwa dialect of the Algonquins. It assumes an adjective, a verbal, !>r a substantive form, according to the ad juncts whicn either precede or follow it, for the vo cabulary of the language, although founded on roots, which are generally monosyllables, is exceedingly compound in its structure. Thus, if the term puck be thrust in between the particles pa and ewa, it means a grasshopper ; if between pa and ewiss, it is NOTES ON KACHESCO. 211 the name of a mythological personage, who, in the lodge legends of the Algonquins, is a roving, jump ing, dancing, adventure-hunting character ; a kind of harum-scarum or merry-andrew, who performs all sorts of feats and pranks. If followed by the ver bal particle eta, it means to strike, to beat, to belabor. If put between the vowel a and wa, it denotes a nod ding flag or cat-tail. If followed by the substantive term emik, it denotes a rampant beaver. Prefixed to the particle wudj, the result is an adjective phrase meaning wild, roving, unfixed, changing. Ininec is the diminutive form of the term for man. The most common interpretation of the word Puck-wudj-ininee is the little wild man of the woods that vanishes. " Extract of a letter to the author, from H. R. Schoolcraft, Esq., Dec. 2, 1844. With regard to "the Path of Spirits," and other matters relating to disembodied souls in the subse quent stanza, that excellent Indian authority, Dr. Edwin James, formerly of the army, gives us an Algonquin term for the milky way, which term he translates " the path of ghosts." The early French writers also set down the name of the galaxy in Iro- quois as Ennoniawa, or " the path of souls." "An Indian (says James) of whom I made some inquiries respecting a friend of his that had recently died, re plied to me in a very earnest manner, kunkotow naiponit otachuk, at no time will die his shadow." The same writer, when on duty at Prairie Du Chien, heard some Indians reproving one of their tribe, who had been ill, for what they considered im prudent exertion and exposure during his recovery, telling him that " his shadow was not yet well set tled. 1 Among the Chippewas, a covering of cedar bark is put over the top of the grave to shed the rain. 212 NOTES ON KACHESCO. wa why this was done. " To allow the soul to pass out and in," said the Indian. " I thought (said Mr. S.) that you believed that the soul went up from the body, at the time of death, to a land of happiness ! How, then, can it remain in the body?" "There are two souls," answered the Indian philosopher. "How can that be?" "It is easily explained," continued the Chippewa. "You know that in dreams we pass over wide countries, and see hills, which time, our bodies do not stir, and there is a soul left with the body else it would be dead ! So you per ceive it must be another soul that accompanies us !" Oneota. Lafitau I think has several authorities to show that this belief was shared by the Iroquois ; and Le Pere de Brebceuf, writing nearly 200 years ago, tells that, having asked an old Huron why they called bodies which had been long dead by the name of E-kenn (a plural word signifying souls), was an swered that they believed all men to possess two souls, both divisible and material, yet both rational. That one separates itself from the body at death, yet remains in the cemetery until " the feast of the dead," when it was changed into a turtle-dove, or as is more commonly believed, went directly to tha place of spirits. The other soul is as it were attached to the body, and still possesses the corpse, remaining always in the grave, unless some one should reproduce it as an infant ; and the proof of this last metamorphosis is found in the extraordinary resemblance which ex- NOTES ON KACHKSCO. 213 ists often between young persons and those who have long been dead. The catalogue of our aboriginal metamorphosis seems to be inexhaustible. (See Schoolcraft s writings, passim.) One of the most beautiful is that of Ojeeg, " the Summer Maker," who sprang from the top of a mountain against the sky, and after making a hole large enough to let the warm airs of summer rush through, for the benefit of his friends below, was himself changed into a constellation. More touching, however, are the trans formations which follow death caused by the religious fast which public opinion compels the young warrior to keep when he first comes of age. This fast is often maintained by the pious aspirant who is unfa vored with any visitation either from this world or the other, until death closes the torture he endures without complaining ; and many a fragile youth thus perishing from inanition, in this treble trial of his firmness, his faith, and his fancy, has passed away, less gracefully than Opee-chee ; "that gentle and fam ished boy whom his Manito changed into a robin, as he sank exhausted when he had just half-covered his bosom with the red war paint. Gilmari s " Life on the Lakes," 1837. With regard to the worship of our aborigines, whether the Manitou of the Algonquin, the Neo, Owaneo or Havvaneyu of the Iroquois, or the Wacon- dah of the Prairie tribes be its object, their priests seem to have little agency in ministering at the In dian s adoration of The Great Spirit. There are no witnesses save from the invisible world of his lonely act of forest worship, and his piety is the spontane ous, and as we might say, the involuntary tribute of his feelings (James). The recognition of the Sun as at once the Emblem and the Eye of the Eternal, 214 NOTES ON KACHESCO. often dwelt upon by early Canadian travellers among our northern tribes (Lafitau), is but seldom alluded to by modern observers, but the traditionary belief is still traceable in the usage of each pious smoker of fering the first incense of his calumet to the Sun, whence it was originally lighted (Picard). Tobacco, which those not reclaimed from heathen usages still insist is the choicest offering a devout Indian can make, either to the great Father of all or to his own special tutelary divinity is believed in its human use to induce chastity and sober all the sensual appetites, and by thus purifying the soul to prepare it for visions of the spiritual world, and at the same time impel the seer to communicate with those around him (La fitau). Yet often will the hunter in his tribulation part with the last morsel of this specific for spirituality in himself in order to propitiate some testy spirit among the Manitoag, that dulls his flint or damps his priming, or blows his canoe upon some rough headland he is trying to double in the tempest (School- craft;. Among the Algonquins, Kitchi Manitou is the great good Spirit of all, while MACHINETO (or Matchi Manito) represents the opposing Evil Spirit (James). Among the Iroquois we have NEO and KLTJNEOLUX, corresponding in character with those divinities (Schoolcraft). But we find no tradition nor doctrine showing that the Fiend can torment the Red Man s spirit in another world. He passes through many trials on his way to paradise, but his only durable punishment is that of transformation into an inferior animal. Before the newly departed shadow can reach those blessed islands, amid which lie embowered the villages of the dead, many obsta cles are to be encountered, and many difficulties NOTES ON KACHESCO. 215 overcome. The disembodied shades must cross a river, too deep and rapid to be forded, in a stone ca noe ; they must next traverse a bottomless chasm, bridged only by an enormous snake, on whose slimy back they walk ; and finally pass over a still more boisterous torrent than the preceding, upon a single tottering log, which spans the roaring gulf below. This log is constantly vibrating upwards and down wards, with such violence, that many, alike children and adults, are precipitated into the gulf, when they are changed into fish and turtles, and other cold blooded animals (Coll. N. Y. Hist. Soc.). There are many traditions of once departed spirits having repassed this perilous bridge and come back to earth. Dr. James has collected several legends of this kind ; and in Picard s Ceremonies Religieuses is preserved an account nearly identical with the fol lowing story of an Iroquois Orpheus : Driven almost to despair by the death of his sister, Sayadyio resolved to seek her in the world of spirits. His journey, long and painful, might have proved bootless throughout, if he had not met with an aged man, who encouraged his search, and at the same time gave him an empty calabash, in which he might enclose the soul of his sister, should he succeed in finding it. The same accommodating old gentleman likewise promised Sayadyio that he would give him also the maiden s brains, which he had in his posses sion, he being the appointed keeper of that portion of the dead. The young man arrived at last in the place of souls. The spirits were astonished to see him, and eagerly fled his presence. Tharonhiawagou, the master of the ceremonies in phantom good society, received him well, however, and became instantly his friend. At the moment of Sayadyio s arrival, 216 NOTES ON KACHESCO. the souls were all gathered for a dance, according to their custom at that hour. He recognised his sister floating through the phantom corps de ballet, and rushed to embrace her, but she vanished like a dream of the night. Tharonhiawagou, however, kindly furnished our adventurer with a mystical rattle of strange musical power ; and when the sound of the spirit-drum, which marks the time for the choral dance of those blessed shades, had summoned them back to their places, and the Indian flute poured the enchanting notes that lift them along, upon a tide of melody, the magic rattle of Sayadyio, a stronger " medicine " than either, charmed the soul of the Indian maiden within the reach of her brother. Cluick as light, Sayadyio dipped up the entranced spirit, and shut it securely in his calabash ; then, de spite the entreaties and artifices of the captive soul, who only thought of being delivered from her present prison, this Iroquois Orpheus made the best of his way back to earth, and arrived in safety with his precious charge in his native village. His own and his sister s friends were now called together, and the body of the damsel was disinterred, and prepared to receive the soul which should re-animate it. Every thing was ready to complete the resurrection, when the impatience of -one of the female attendants utterly foiled the success of the attempt. Some red sister of Eve who wW among the lookers on, could not restrain her curiosity. She had loved the deceased maiden, and she must needs peep into the calabash to see how the soul looked divested of all drapery. Whereon, precisely as Eros of old spread his pinions and flew from prying Psyche, so the soul took wing on the instant, and fled from prying love. As the flying shade casts no shadow in its movements through our O- NOTES ON KACHESCO. 217 atmosphere, Sayadyio could not trace it even for a moment in its flight, and abandoning all pursuit, he was obliged to sit down disconsolate, with the con viction that he had derived no other benefit from his journey, than that of having been in the place of souls, and having it in his power to relate certain true things which would not fail of reaching pos terity. STAtfZA XVI. Of portages and lakes whose name ./2s uttered in his native speech, Jf memory could have hoarded each A portage-labor twere to carry. It is very difficult, even with the aid of the strag gling Indians, who still haunt the wilderness around the sources of the Hudson, to recover the aboriginal Terminology. The Hurons, the Adirondacs, the Otawas, and Iroquois, had probably there, for centu ries, their common hunting ground ; and the geograph ical names, therefore, often traceable to at least four different languages, are necessarily much confused ; while, from occasional similarity of physical feature in lake and mountain, none but our habitual dwellers in these solitudes could properly identify the Indian terms with the localities to which they refer. Still, the explanation of those which occur in the succeed ing stanzas may, perhaps, interest the idle tourist who wanders to the wild region described in the text : Reuna (or A-rey-una) , Green-rocks. Paskungemah, better known, perhaps, as Tupper s Lake. Onegora, " wampum strewn," equivalent to the Seneca Tunes- sa-sah, " a place of pebbles." Towarloondah (Mohawk), "Hill of Storms;" supposed to be the 218 NOTES ON KACIIESCO. "Mount Emmons" of the Geological Survey. Ou- korlah (Mohawk), " The Big Eye," from a singular white spot near the summit. It is named " Mount Seward" in the Geological Survey. Ounowarlah (Mohawk), "Scalp Mountain." Nodoneyo, " Hill of the Wind, Spirit." Wahopartenie, known also as "White Face Mountain." Yowhayle, "Dead- ground." Tioratie (Mohawk), " The Sky, or Sky- like." Kurloonah, " Place of the Death Song," Cahogaronta, " Torrent in the Woods." Tahawus means literally, "He splits the Sky:" it is called " Mount Marcy in the Geological Survey. Metauk, "The Enchanted Wood," evidently from Metai and Awuk. Sandanona, a mountain near Lake Hen derson. Owiendaugua, a cascade, like " A Hanging Spear." Twenungasko, a double voice. STANZA XVII. Yes, INCA-PAH-CO / though thy name Has never flowed in poet 1 s numbers. " Inca-pah-co," (anglice, Lindenmere) is so called by the Indians from its forests of Bass-wood, or American Linden. It is better known, perhaps, by the insipid name of "Long Lake;" and is one of that chain of mountain lakes which, though closely interlacing with the sources of the Hudson, discharge themselves through Racket river into the St. Law rence. They lie on the borders of Essex, in Hamilton county, New- York. Inca-pah-co, where the scene of our story is chiefly laid, is about eighteen miles in length ; but though a noble lake, it is, perhaps, not so picturesque in character as some of those referred to in the previous note. The finest of all, perhaps, NOTES ON KACHKSCO. 219 Killoquore (Mohawk), rayed, like the sun, is some times called " Ragged Lake." STANZA XXVI. " .... that gorge s quaking throat, Reft by Otneyarh s giant band, Where splinters of the mountain vast, Though lashed by cable roots, aghast, Toppling, amid their ruin, stand" The Giant s Pass, near Lake Henderson, is one of the finest scenes of the Adirondac mountains, if not one of the most extraordinary upon the continent. The writer has attempted a description of it in his " Wild Scenes of the Forest and Prairie," where a particular version of the Iroquois legend of Otneyarh, or the band of Stonish Giants, is also given. These fabled monsters were walking quarries of flint, in the shape of men, who could stride through your com mon granite as if it were cheese. They certainly dashed the crags to the right and left after a most ex traordinary fashion in that colossal "Notch" near the Adirondac Iron Works. See the testimony of Cusick, an Indian, about these ancient folk, in Schoolcraft s " Notes on the Iroquois. * PART I. STANZA!. Bright Nulkah, doe-eyed forest girl! Nulkah, or " Noolka," means " doe-eyed," in one of our Indian dialects. 220 NOTES ON KACHESCO. STANZA VIII. The Red Bird s nest above it swung ; There often the Ma-ma-twa sung ; And Moning-gwuna 1 s quills of gold Through leaves like flickering sunshine told. The Red Bird, Baltimore Oriole, or "hanging bird, as he is often called, from the mode of building his nest, is very brief in his visits to this mountain region. The Ma-ma-twa, or Cat-bird, the finest of our north ern songsters, save the Bob-o-linkum, exercises his mocking freakishness there upon sounds which he can rarely find to imitate in the woods elsewhere ; and this may make him linger longer with the short summer. But the Moning-gwuna, " High-Hold," " Golden Winged Woodpecker," and " Flicker," as he is severally called, seems to make this his favor ite region ; and wherever there is an opening in the forest, his rich orange-colored wing will be seen play ing, like bright-hned flowers, around some old gray stumo. STANZA XXII. To wander thus where er he may, Of woman and of man the scorn. In some tribes, when the penalty of death is thus changed foi that of degradation, the criminal who so regains his forfeited life is considered as unsezed. He then becomes the menial slave of the first person who chooses to take possession of him, and is obliged to submit to tasks of exposure the most toilsome, and domestic offices the most humiliating ; his master or ovner (or husband, as he is whimsically called,) be- NOTES ON KACIIESCO 231 ing permitted to exercise every species of tyrannical cruelty upon him, provided he shed not the blood of the poor wretch who is thus subjected to his caprices. See Tanner s Narrative : see also " The Equawish," in "Life on the Lakes," by the author of "Le gends of a Log Cabin"