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"