UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 AT LOS ANGELES
 
 /^
 
 THE WORKS OF 
 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER 
 
 ILLUSTRATED WITH STEEL PORTRAITS 
 AND PHOTOGRAVURES 
 
 IN SEVEN VOLUMES 
 VOLUME I
 
 Mr. WTuttitr in 1836
 
 THE POETICAL WORKS 
 
 OF 
 
 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER 
 
 IN FOUR VOLUMES 
 VOLUME I. 
 
 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 
 Cfje firticrsi&e
 
 Copyright, 1848, 1850, 1?53, 1856, 1857, 1860, 1863, 1866, 1867, 1868. 1870, 1872, 
 
 1874, 1875, 1876, 1878, 1881, 1833, 1884, 1886, 1888, 1890, and 1891, 
 
 BT JOHN GREKNLEAF WHITTIER, TICKNOR & FIELDS, JAMES R. 
 
 OSGOOD & CO., AMD HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. 
 
 Copyright, 1892, 
 BT HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
 The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. 8. A. 
 Hectrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Company.
 
 - 32,5-0 
 
 PUBLISHERS' ADVERTISEMENT 
 
 THE Standard Library Edition of Mr. Whittier's 
 j writings comprises his poetical and prose works as 
 j 1 re-arranged and thoroughly revised by himself or 
 with his cooperation. Mr. Whittier has supplied 
 such additional information regarding the subject 
 and occasion of certain poems as may be stated in 
 * brief head-notes, and this edition has been much 
 ^ enriched by the poet's personal comment. So far 
 <M as practicable the dates of publication of the vari- 
 5 ous articles have been given, and since these were 
 1 originally published soon after composition, the 
 dates of their first appearance have been taken as 
 determining the time at which they were written. 
 A At the request of the Publishers, Mr. Whittier 
 %) has allowed his early poems, discarded from pre- 
 ^ vious collections, to be placed, in the general order 
 V of their appearance, in an appendix to the final vol- 
 SQ ume of poems. By this means the present edition 
 .Js made so complete and retrospective that students 
 j OT the poet's career will always find the most abun- 
 dant material for their purpose. The Publishers 
 congratulate themselves and the public that the 
 , ^ careful attention which Mr. Whittier has been able 
 to give to this revision of his works has resulted in 
 so comprehensive and well-adjusted a collection. 
 
 262525
 
 6 PUBLISHERS 1 ADVERTISEMENT 
 
 The portraits prefixed to the several volumes 
 have been chosen with a view to illustrating suc- 
 cessive periods in the poet's life. The original 
 sources and dates are indicated in each case.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 EfUH 
 
 PROEM 11 
 
 INTRODUCTION 13 
 
 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS. 
 
 THE VAUDOIS TEACHEB 17 
 
 THE FEMALE MARTYR 19 
 
 EXTRACT FROM "A NEW ENGLAND LEGEND". . 23 
 
 THE DEMON OF THE STUDY 25 
 
 THE FOUNTAIN 29 
 
 PENTUCKET 33 
 
 THE NORSEMEN . . . 37 
 
 FUNERAL TREE OF THE SOKOKIS .... 41 
 
 ST. JOHN . . . 45 
 
 THE CYPRESS-TREE OF CEYLON .... 50 
 
 THE EXILES 53 
 
 THE KNIGHT OF ST. JOHN 62 
 
 CASSANDRA SOUTHWICK . . . . . .65 
 
 THE NEW WIFE AND THE OLD .... 75 
 
 THE BRIDAL OF PENNACOOK . . . '. . 79 
 
 L THE MERRIMAC ...... 86 
 
 II. THE BASHABA 88 
 
 III. THE DAUGHTER. . . . . . < 01 
 
 IV. THE WEDDING 95 
 
 V. THE NEW HOME .-...: . 98 
 
 VI. AT PENNACOOK 101 
 
 VII. THE DEPARTURE . . ;.,.. . . . 104 
 
 VIII. SONG OF INDIAN WOMEN . . 106
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 BARCLAY OF UBY . . '. 10 ^ 
 
 THE ANGELS OF BUENA VISTA 112 
 
 THE LEGEND OF ST. MARK 117 
 
 KATHLEEN 120 
 
 THE WELL OF LOCH MABEE 124 
 
 THE CHAPEL OF THE HEKMITS 126 
 
 TAULBB . . . . . . . . . 141 
 
 THE HERMIT OF THE THEBAID .... 144 
 
 MAUD MULLER 148 
 
 MARY GARVIN 154 
 
 THE RANGER 160 
 
 THE GARRISON OF CAPE ANN 166 
 
 THE GIFT OF TRITEMIUS 172 
 
 SKIPPER IRESON'S RIDE 174 
 
 THE SYCAMORES 178 
 
 THE PIPES AT LUCKNOW 183 
 
 TELLING THE BEES 186 
 
 THE SWAN SONG OF PARSON AVERY, . . . 188 
 
 THE DOUBLE-HEADED SNAKE OF NEWBURY . 192 
 
 MABEL MARTIN: A HARVEST IDYL .... 195 
 
 PROEM 196 
 
 I. THE RIVER VALLEY 197 
 
 II. THE HUSKING 199 
 
 III. THE WITCH'S DAUGHTER . . . .201 
 
 IV. THE CHAMPION 204 
 
 V. IN THE SHADOW 205 
 
 VI. THE BETROTHAL 208 
 
 THE PROPHECY OF SAMUEL SEWALL . . . 210 
 
 THE RED RIVER VOYAGEUR 215 
 
 THE PREACHER 217 
 
 THE TRUCE OF PISCATAQUA 230 
 
 MY PLAYMATE 238 
 
 COBBLER KEEZ Ait's VISION 241 
 
 AMY WENTWORTH . . 248 
 
 THE COUNTESS 253
 
 CONTENTS 9 
 
 AMONG THE HILLS. 
 
 PRELUDE 260 
 
 AMONG THE HILLS 265 
 
 THE DOLE OF JARL THOKKELL .... 277 
 
 THE Two RABBINS 282 
 
 NOREMBEGA 285 
 
 MIRIAM 289 
 
 NAUHAUGHT, THE DEACON 304 
 
 THE SISTERS 308 
 
 MARGUERITE 311 
 
 THE ROBIN 314 
 
 THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY NOTE 316 
 
 PRELUDE 322 
 
 THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM .... 322 
 
 KING VOLMER AND ELSIE 345 
 
 THE THREE BELLS 352 
 
 JOHN UNDERBILL 354 
 
 CONDUCTOR BRADLEY 359 
 
 THE WITCH OF WENHAM 360 
 
 KING SOLOMON AND THE ANTS 369 
 
 IN THE "OLD SOUTH" 371 
 
 THE HENCHMAN 373 
 
 THE DEAD FEAST OF THE KOL-FOLK ... 375 
 
 THE KHAN'S DEVIL 378 
 
 THE KING'S MISSIVE 381 
 
 VALUATION 386 
 
 RABBI ISHMAEL 387 
 
 THE ROCK-TOMB OF BRADORE 388 
 
 THE BAY OF SEVEN ISLANDS 390 
 
 To H. P. S . .391 
 
 THE BAY OF SEVEN ISLANDS .... 392 
 
 THE WISHING BRIDGE ...... 398 
 
 How THE WOMEN WENT FROM DOVER . . 400 
 
 ST. GREGORY'S GUEST 405
 
 10 CONTENTS 
 
 BIKCHBBOOK MILL . . . . . . 407 
 THE Two ELIZABETHS . . . . . .409 
 
 REQUITAL 413 
 
 THE HOMESTEAD 413 
 
 How THE ROBIN CAME 416 
 
 BANISHED FROM MASSACHUSETTS .... 419 
 
 THE BROWN DWARF OF RUGEN .... 421 
 
 NOTES 429 
 
 NOTE. The portrait prefixed to this volume was etched by 
 S. A. Schoff, in 1888, after a painting by Bass Otis, a pupil of 
 Gilbert Stuart, made in the winter of 1836-1837.
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER AT THE AGE OF 29. Etched 
 by S. A. Schoff after a painting by Bass Otis, a pupil of 
 
 Gilbert Stuart Frontispiece 
 
 FAC-SIMILE OF MR. WHITTIER' s WRITING (from " My 
 
 Triumph") . . . . , 12 
 
 THE NORSEMEN M. J. Burns .... 38 
 
 THE SACHEM'S DAUGHTER . . . Howard Pyle .... 104 
 
 MAUD MULLER Mary Hallock Foote . 150 
 
 TELLING THE BEES I. H. Caliga .... 186 
 
 MABEL MARTIN C. S. Reinhart ... 206 
 
 AMY WENTWORTH W. L. Sheppard . . .250 
 
 CHOCORUA Chas. H. Woodbury . 266 
 
 THE WITCH OF WENHAM . . Frank T. Merrill . . 368
 
 PROEM 
 
 I LOVE the old melodious lays 
 
 Which softly melt the ages through, 
 
 The songs of Spenser's golden days, 
 Arcadian Sidney's silvery phrase. 
 
 Sprinkling our noon of time with freshest morning 
 dew. 
 
 Yet, vainly in my quiet hours 
 To breathe their marvellous notes I try ; 
 
 I feel them, as the leaves and flowers 
 In silence feel the dewy showers, 
 And drink with glad, still lips the blessing of the 
 
 The rigor of a frozen clime, 
 
 The harshness of an untaught ear, 
 
 The jarring words of one whose rhyme 
 Beat often Labor's hurried time, 
 
 Or Duty's rugged march through storm and strife, 
 are here. 
 
 Of mystic beauty, dreamy grace, 
 
 No rounded art the lack supplies ; 
 
 Unskilled the subtle lines to trace, 
 Or softer shades of Nature's face, 
 
 I view her common forms with unanointed eyes.
 
 12 PROEM 
 
 Nor mine the seer-like power to show 
 
 The secrets of the heart and mind ; 
 
 To drop the plummet-line below 
 Our common world of joy and woe, 
 
 A more intense despair or brighter hope to find. 
 
 Yet here at least an earnest sense 
 Of human right and weal is shown ; 
 
 A hate of tyranny intense, 
 
 And hearty in its vehemence, 
 As if my brother's pain and sorrow were my own. 
 
 O Freedom ! if to me belong 
 Nor mighty Milton's gift divine, 
 
 Nor Marvell's wit and graceful song, 
 
 Still with a love as deep and strong 
 
 As theirs, I lay, like them, my best gifts on thy 
 
 shrine ! 
 AMESBUBT, llth mo., 1847.
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 THE edition of my poems published in 1857 con- 
 tained the following note by way of preface : 
 
 " In these volumes, for the first time, a complete 
 collection of my poetical writings has been made. 
 While it is satisfactory to know that these scattered 
 children of my brain have found a home, I cannot 
 but regret that I have been unable, by reason of 
 illness, to give that attention to their revision and 
 arrangement, which respect for the opinions of 
 others and my own afterthought and experience 
 demand. 
 
 " That there are pieces in this collection which 
 I would ' willingly let die,' 1 am free to confess. 
 But it is now too late to disown them, and I must 
 submit to the inevitable penalty of poetical as well 
 as other sins. There are others, intimately con- 
 nected with the author's life and times, which owe 
 their tenacity of vitality to the circumstances under 
 which they were written, and the events by which 
 they were suggested. 
 
 " The long poem of Mogg Megone was in a 
 great measure composed in early life; and it is 
 scarcely necessary to say that its subject is not such 
 as the writer would have chosen at any subsequent 
 period." 
 
 After a lapse of thirty years since the above 
 was written, I have been requested by my pub-
 
 14 INTR OD UC TION 
 
 lishers to make some preparation for a new and 
 revised edition of my poems. I cannot flatter my- 
 self that I have added much to the interest of the 
 work beyond the correction of my own errors and 
 those of the press, with the addition of a few here- 
 tofore unpublished pieces, and occasional notes of 
 explanation which seemed necessary. I have made 
 an attempt to classify the poems under a few gen- 
 eral heads, and have transferred the long poem of 
 Mogg Megone to the Appendix, with other speci- 
 mens of my earlier writings. I have endeavored to 
 affix the dates of composition or publication as far 
 
 In looking over these poems I have not been 
 unmindful of occasional prosaic lines and verbal 
 infelicities, but at this late day I have neither 
 strength nor patience to undertake their correc- 
 tion. 
 
 Perhaps a word of explanation may be needed 
 in regard to a class of poems written between the 
 years 1832 and 1865. Of their defects from an 
 artistic point of view it is not necessary to speak. 
 They were the earnest and often vehement ex- 
 pression of the writer's thought and feeling at crit- 
 ical periods in the great conflict between Freedom 
 and Slavery. They were written with no expec- 
 tation that they would survive the occasions which 
 called them forth : they were protests, alarm sig- 
 nals, trumpet-calls to action, words wrung from 
 the writer's heart, forged at white heat, and of 
 course lacking the finish and careful word-selection 
 which reflection and patient brooding over them 
 might have given. Such as they are, they belong
 
 INTRODUCTION 15 
 
 to the history of the Anti-Slavery movement, and 
 may serve as way-marks of its progress. If their 
 language at times seems severe and harsh, the mon- 
 strous wrong of Slavery which provoked it must 
 be its excuse, if any is needed. In attacking it, 
 we did not measure our words. " It is," said Gar- 
 rison, " a waste of politeness to be courteous to the 
 devil." But in truth the contest was, in a great 
 measure, an impersonal one, hatred of slavery 
 and not of slave-masters. 
 
 "No common wrong provoked our zeal, 
 The silken gauntlet which is thrown 
 In such a quarrel rings like steel. ' ' 
 
 Even Thomas Jefferson, in his terrible denuncia- 
 tion of Slavery in the Notes on Virginia, says : 
 " It is impossible to be temperate and pursue the 
 subject of Slavery." 
 
 After the great contest was over, no class of the 
 American people were more ready, with kind words 
 and deprecation of harsh retaliation, to welcome 
 back the revolted States than the Abolitionists ; 
 and none have since more heartily rejoiced at the 
 fast increasing prosperity of the South. 
 
 Grateful for the measure of favor which has 
 been accorded to my writings, I leave this edition 
 with the public. It contains all that I care to re- 
 publish, and some things which, had the matter of 
 choice been left solely to myself, I should have 
 omitted. 
 
 J. G. W
 
 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY 
 POEMS 
 
 THE VAUDOIS TEACHER. 
 
 This poem was suggested by the account given of the manner 
 in which the Waldenses disseminated their principles among the 
 Catholic gentry. They gained access to the house through their 
 occupation as peddlers of silks, jewels, and trinkets. "Having 
 disposed of some of their goods," it is said by a writer who 
 quotes the inquisitor Rainerus Sacco, ' ' they cautiously intimated 
 that they had commodities far more valuable than these, inesti- 
 mable jewels, which they would show if they could be protected 
 from the clergy. They would then give their purchasers a Bible 
 or Testament; and thereby many were deluded into heresy." 
 
 The poem, under the title Le Colporteur Vaudois, was translated 
 into French by Professor G. de Felice, of Montauban, and further 
 naturalized by Professor Alexandre Rodolphe Vinet, who quoted 
 it in his lectures on French literature, afterwards published. It 
 became familiar in this form to the Waldenses, who adopted it 
 as a household poem. An American clergyman, J. C. Fletcher, 
 frequently heard it when he was a student, about the year 1850, 
 in the theological seminary at Geneva, Switzerland, but the au- 
 thorship of the poem was unknown to those who used it. Twenty- 
 five years later, Mr. Fletcher, learning the name of the author, 
 wrote to the moderator of the Waldensian synod at La Tour, giv- 
 ing the information. At the banquet which closed the meeting 
 of the synod, the moderator announced the fact, and was in- 
 structed in the name of the Waldensian church to write to me a 
 letter of thanks. My letter, written in reply, was translated into 
 Italian and printed throughout Italy. 
 
 " O LADY fair, these silks of mine are beautiful 
 
 and rare, 
 The richest web of the Indian loom, which beauty's 
 
 queen might wear; 
 
 VOL. I. 2
 
 18 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 And my pearls are pure as thy own fair neck, with 
 
 whose radiant light they vie ; 
 I have brought them with me a weary way, will 
 
 my gentle lady buy ? " 
 
 The lady smiled on the worn old man through the 
 
 dark and clustering curls 
 Which veiled her brow, as she bent to view his 
 
 silks and glittering pearls ; 
 And she placed their price in the old man's hand 
 
 and lightly turned away, 
 But she paused at the wanderer's earnest call, 
 
 " My gentle lady, stay ! 
 
 " O lady fair, I have yet a gem which a purer 
 lustre flings, 
 
 Than the diamond flash of the jewelled crown on 
 the lofty brow of kings ; 
 
 A wonderful pearl of exceeding price, whose virtue 
 shall not decay, 
 
 Whose light shall be as a spell to thee and a bless- 
 ing on thy way ! " 
 
 The lady glanced at the mirroring steel where her 
 
 form of grace was seen, 
 Where her eye shone clear, and her dark locks 
 
 waved their clasping pearls between ; 
 " Bring forth thy pearl of exceeding worth, thou 
 
 traveller gray and old, 
 And name the price of thy precious gem, and my 
 
 page shall count thy gold." 
 
 The cloud went off from the pilgrim's brow, as a 
 small and meagre book,
 
 THE FEMALE MARTYR 19 
 
 Unchased with gold or gem of cost, from his fold- 
 ing robe he took ! 
 
 " Here, lady fair, is the pearl of price, may it prove 
 as such to thee ! 
 
 Nay, keep thy gold I ask it not, for the word of 
 God is free ! " 
 
 The hoary traveller went his way, but the gift he 
 left behind 
 
 Hath had its pure and perfect work on that high- 
 born maiden's mind, 
 
 And she hath turned from the pride of sin to the 
 lowliness of truth, 
 
 And given her human heart to God in its beauti- 
 ful hour of youth ! 
 
 And she hath left the gray old halls, where an evil 
 
 faith had power, 
 The courtly knights of her father's train, and the 
 
 maidens of her bower ; 
 And she hath gone to the Vaudois vales by lordly 
 
 feet untrod, 
 Where the poor and needy of earth are rich in the 
 
 perfect love of God ! 
 1830. 
 
 THE FEMALE MARTYR. 
 
 Mary G , aged eighteen, a "Sister of Charity," died in one 
 
 of our Atlantic cities, during the prevalence of the Indian chol- 
 era, while in voluntary attendance upon the sick. 
 
 " BRING out your dead ! " The midnight street 
 Heard and gave back the hoarse, low call ;
 
 20 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 Harsh fell the tread of hasty feet, 
 
 Glanced through the dark the coarse white sheet, 
 
 Her coffin and her pall. 
 
 " What only one ! " the brutal hack-man said, 
 As, with an oath, he spurned away the dead. 
 
 How sunk the inmost hearts of all, 
 
 As rolled that dead-cart slowly by, 
 With creaking wheel and harsh hoof-fall! 
 The dying turned him to the wall, 
 
 To hear it and to die ! 
 
 Onward it rolled ; while oft its driver stayed, 
 And hoarsely clamored, "Ho! bring out your 
 dead." 
 
 It paused beside the burial-place ; 
 
 " Toss in your load ! " and it was done. 
 With quick hand and averted face, 
 Hastily to the grave's embrace 
 
 They cast them, one by one, 
 Stranger and friend, the evil and the just, 
 Together trodden in the churchyard dust ! 
 
 And thou, young martyr ! thou wast there ; 
 
 No white-robed sisters round thee trod, 
 Nor holy hymn, nor funeral prayer 
 Rose through the damp and noisome air, 
 
 Giving thee to thy God ; 
 Nor flower, nor cross, nor hallowed taper gave 
 Grace to the dead, and beauty to the grave ! 
 
 Yet, gentle sufferer ! there shall be, 
 In every heart of kindly feeling,
 
 THE FEMALE MARTYR 21 
 
 A rite as holy paid to thee 
 As if beneath the convent-tree 
 
 Thy sisterhood were kneeling, 
 At vesper hours, like sorrowing angels, keeping 
 Their tearful watch around thy place of sleeping. 
 
 For thou wast one in whom the light 
 
 Of Heaven's own love was kindled well ; 
 Enduring with a martyr's might, 
 Through weary day and wakeful night, 
 
 Far more than words may tell : 
 Gentle, and meek, and lowly, and unknown, 
 Thy mercies measured by thy God alone ! 
 
 Where manly hearts were failing, where 
 The throngful street grew foul with death, 
 
 O high-souled martyr ! thou wast there, 
 
 Inhaling, from the loathsome air, 
 Poison with every breath. 
 
 Yet shrinking not from offices of dread 
 
 For the wrung dying, and the unconscious dead. 
 
 And, where the sickly taper shed 
 
 Its light through vapors, damp, confined, 
 
 Hushed as a seraph's fell thy tread, 
 
 A new Electra by the bed 
 Of suffering human-kind ! 
 
 Pointing the spirit, in its dark dismay, 
 
 To that pure hope which fadeth not away. 
 
 Innocent teacher of the high 
 
 And holy mysteries of Heaven ! 
 How turned to thee each glazing eye,
 
 22 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 In mute and awful sympathy, 
 
 As thy low prayers were given ; 
 And the o'er-hovering Spoiler wore, the while, 
 An angel's features, a deliverer's smile ! 
 
 A blessed task ! and worthy one 
 
 Who, turning from the world, as thou, 
 Before life's pathway had begun 
 To leave its spring-time flower and sun, 
 
 Had sealed her early vow ; 
 Giving to God her beauty and her youth, 
 Her pure affections and her guileless truth. 
 
 Earth may not claim thee. Nothing here 
 Could be for thee a meet reward ; 
 
 Thine is a treasure far more dear : 
 
 Eye hath not seen it, nor the ear 
 Of living mortal heard 
 
 The joys prepared, the promised bliss above, 
 
 The holy presence of Eternal Love ! 
 
 Sleep on in peace. The earth has not 
 A nobler name than thine shall be. 
 
 The deeds by martial manhood wrought, 
 
 The lofty energies of thought, 
 The fire of poesy, 
 
 These have but frail and fading honors ; thine 
 
 Shall Time unto Eternity consign. 
 
 Yea, and when thrones shall crumble down, 
 
 And human pride and grandeur fall, 
 The herald's line of long renown, 
 The mitre and the kingly crown, 
 Perishing glories all !
 
 "A NEW ENGLAND LEGEND" 23 
 
 The pure devotion of thy generous heart 
 Shall live in Heaven, of which it was a part. 
 
 1833. 
 
 EXTRACT FROM "A NEW ENGLAND 
 LEGEND." 
 
 Originally a part of the author's Mott Pitcher. 
 
 How has New England's romance fled, 
 
 Even as a vision of the morning ! 
 Its rites foredone, its guardians dead, 
 Its priestesses, bereft of dread, 
 
 Waking the veriest urchin's scorning ! 
 Gone like the Indian wizard's yell 
 
 And fire-dance round the magic rock, 
 Forgotten like the Druid's spell 
 
 At moonrise by his holy oak ! 
 No more along the shadowy glen 
 Glide the dim ghosts of murdered men ; 
 No more the unquiet churchyard dead 
 Glimpse upward from their turfy bed, 
 
 Startling the traveller, late and lone ; 
 As, on some night of starless weather, 
 They silently commune together, 
 
 Each sitting on his own head-stone ! 
 The roofless house, decayed, deserted, 
 Its living tenants all departed, 
 No longer rings with midnight revel 
 Of witch, or ghost, or goblin evil ; 
 No pale blue flame sends out its flashes 
 Through creviced roof and shattered sashes ! 
 The witch-grass round the hazel spring 
 May sharply to the night-air sing,
 
 24 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 But there no more shall withered hags 
 Refresh at ease their broomstick nags, 
 Or taste those hazel-shadowed waters 
 As beverage meet for Satan's daughters ; 
 No more their mimic tones be heard, 
 The mew of cat, the chirp of bird, 
 Shrill blending with the hoarser laughter 
 Of the fell demon following after ! 
 The cautious goodman nails no more 
 A horseshoe on his outer door, 
 Lest some unseemly hag should fit 
 To his own mouth her bridle-bit ; 
 The goodwife's churn no more refuses 
 Its wonted culinary uses 
 Until, with heated needle burned, 
 The witch has to her place returned ! 
 Our witches are no longer old 
 And wrinkled beldames, Satan-sold, 
 But young and gay and laughing creatures. 
 With the heart's sunshine on their features ; 
 Their sorcery the light which dances 
 Where the raised lid unveils its glances ; 
 Or that low-breathed and gentle tone, 
 
 The music of Love's twilight hours, 
 Soft, dream-like, as a fairy's moan 
 
 Above her nightly closing flowers, 
 Sweeter than that which sighed of yore 
 Along the charmed Ausonian shore ! 
 Even she, our own weird heroine, 
 Sole Pythoness of ancient Lynn, 1 
 
 Sleeps calmly where the living laid her ; 
 And the wide realm of sorcery, 
 Left by its latest mistress free, 
 
 Hath found no gray and skilled invader.
 
 THE DEMON OF THE STUDY 25 
 
 So perished Albion's " glammarye," 
 
 With him in Melrose Abbey sleeping, 
 His charme'd torch beside his knee, 
 That even the dead himself might see 
 
 The magic scroll within his keeping. 
 And now our modern Yankee sees 
 Nor omens, spells, nor mysteries ; 
 And naught above, below, around, 
 Of life or death, of sight or sound, 
 
 Whate'er its nature, form, or look, 
 Excites his terror or surprise, 
 All seeming to his knowing eyes 
 Familiar as his " catechise," 
 
 Or Webster's Spelling-Book." 
 1833. 
 
 THE DEMON OF THE STUDY. 
 
 THE Brownie sits in the Scotchman's room, 
 And eats his meat and drinks his ale, 
 
 And beats the maid with her unused broom, 
 And the lazy lout with his idle flail ; 
 
 But he sweeps the floor and threshes the corn, 
 
 And hies him away ere the break of dawn. 
 
 The shade of Denmark fled from the sun, 
 
 And the Cocklane ghost from the barn-loft cheer, 
 
 The fiend of Faust was a faithful one, 
 Agrippa's demon wrought in fear, 
 
 And the devil of Martin Luther sat 
 
 By the stout monk's side in social chat.
 
 26 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 The Old Man of the Sea, on the neck of him 
 Who seven times crossed the deep, 
 
 Twined closely each lean and withered limb, 
 Like the nightmare in one's sleep. 
 
 But he drank of the wine, and Sindbad cast 
 
 The evil weight from his back at last. 
 
 But the demon that cometh day by day 
 To my quiet room and fireside nook, 
 
 Where the casement light falls dim and gray 
 On faded painting and ancient book, 
 
 Is a sorrier one than any whose names 
 
 Are chronicled well by good King James. 
 
 No bearer of burdens like Caliban, 
 
 No runner of errands like Ariel, 
 He comes in the shape of a fat old man, 
 
 Without rap of knuckle or pull of bell ; 
 And whence he comes, or whither he goes, 
 I know as I do of the wind which blows. 
 
 A stout old man with a greasy hat 
 
 Slouched heavily down to his dark, red nose, 
 And two gray eyes enveloped in fat, 
 
 Looking through glasses with iron bows. 
 Read ye, and heed ye, and ye who can, 
 Guard well your doors from that old man ! 
 
 He comes with a careless " How d' ye do ? " 
 And seats himself in my elbow-chair ; 
 
 And my morning paper and pamphlet new 
 Fall forthwith under his special care, 
 
 And he wipes his glasses and clears his throat, 
 
 And, button by button, unfolds his coat.
 
 THE DEMON OF THE STUDY 27 
 
 And then he reads from paper and book, 
 
 In a low and husky asthmatic tone, 
 With the stolid sameness of posture and look 
 
 Of one who reads to himself alone ; 
 And hour after hour on my senses come 
 That husky wheeze and that dolorous hum. 
 
 The price of stocks, the auction sales, 
 The poet's song and the lover's glee, 
 
 The horrible murders, the seaboard gales, 
 The marriage list, and thejeu d 1 esprit, 
 
 All reach my ear in the self-same tone, 
 
 I shudder at each, but the fiend reads on ! 
 
 Oh, sweet as the lapse of water at noon 
 O'er the mossy roots of some forest tree, 
 
 The sigh of the wind in the woods of June, 
 Or sound of flutes o'er a moonlight sea, 
 
 Or the low soft music, perchance, which seems 
 
 To float through the slumbering singer's dreams, 
 
 So sweet, so dear is the silvery tone, 
 
 Of her in whose features I sometimes look, 
 
 As I sit at eve by her side alone, 
 
 And we read by turns, from the self -same book, 
 
 Some tale perhaps of the olden time, 
 
 Some lover's romance or quaint old rhyme. 
 
 Then when the story is one of woe, 
 
 Some prisoner's plaint through his dungeon-bar, 
 
 Her blue eye glistens with tears, and low 
 Her voice sinks down like a moan afar ; 
 
 And I seem to hear that prisoner's wail, 
 
 And his face looks on me worn and pale.
 
 28 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 And when she reads some merrier song, 
 Her Toice is glad as an April bird's, 
 
 And when the tale is of war and wrong, 
 A trumpet's summons is in her words, 
 
 And the rush of the hosts I seem to hear, 
 
 And see the tossing of plume and spear ! 
 
 Oh, pity me then, when, day by day, 
 The stout fiend darkens my parlor door ; 
 
 And reads me perchance the self-same lay 
 Which melted in music, the night before, 
 
 From lips as the lips of Hylas sweet, 
 
 And moved like twin roses which zephyrs meet ! 
 
 I cross my floor with a nervous tread, 
 I whistle and laugh and sing and shout, 
 
 I flourish my cane above his head, 
 And stir up the fire to roast him out ; 
 
 I topple the chairs, and drum on the pane, 
 
 And press my hands on my ears, in vain ! 
 
 I 've studied Glanville and James the wise, 
 And wizard black-letter tomes which treat 
 
 Of demons of every name and size 
 
 Which a Christian man is presumed to meet, 
 
 But never a hint and never a line 
 
 Can I find of a reading fiend like mine. 
 
 I 've crossed the Psalter with Brady and Tate, 
 And laid the Primer above them all, 
 
 I 've nailed a horseshoe over the grate, 
 And hung a wig to my parlor wall 
 
 Once worn by a learned Judge, they say, 
 
 At Salem court in the witchcraft day !
 
 THE FOUNTAIN 29 
 
 " Conjuro te, sceleratissime, 
 
 Abire ad tuum locum ! " still 
 Like a visible nightmare he sits by me, 
 
 The exorcism has lost its skill ; 
 And I hear again in my haunted room 
 The husky wheeze and the dolorous hum ! 
 
 Ah ! commend me to Mary Magdalen 
 
 With her sevenfold plagues, to the wandering 
 
 Jew, 
 To the terrors which haunted Orestes when 
 
 The furies his midnight curtains drew, 
 But charm him off, ye who charm him can, 
 That reading demon, that fat old man 1 
 
 1835. 
 
 THE FOUNTAIN. 
 
 On the declivity of a hill in Salisbury, Essex County, is a foun- 
 tain of clear water, gushing from the very roots of a venerable oak. 
 It is about two miles from the junction of the Powow River with 
 the Merrimac. 
 
 TRAVELLEE ! on thy journey toiling 
 
 By the swift Powow, 
 With the summer sunshine falling 
 
 On thy heated brow, 
 Listen, while all else is still, 
 To the brooklet from the hill. 
 
 Wild and sweet the flowers are blowing 
 
 By that streamlet's side, 
 And a greener verdure showing 
 
 Where its waters glide,
 
 30 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 Down the hill-slope murmuring on, 
 Over root and mossy stone. 
 
 Where yon oak his broad arms flingeth 
 
 O'er the sloping hill, 
 Beautiful and freshly springeth 
 
 That soft-flowing rill, 
 
 Through its dark roots wreathed and bare, 
 Gushing up to sun and air. 
 
 Brighter waters sparkled never 
 
 In that magic well, 
 Of whose gift of life forever 
 
 Ancient legends tell, 
 In the lonely desert wasted, 
 And by mortal lip untasted. 
 
 Waters which the proud Castilian 
 
 Sought with longing eyes, 
 Underneath the bright pavilion 
 
 Of the Indian skies, 
 Where his forest pathway lay 
 Through the blooms of Florida. 
 
 Years ago a lonely stranger, 
 
 With the dusky brow 
 Of the outcast forest-ranger, 
 
 Crossed the swift Powow, 
 And betook him to the rill 
 And the oak upon the hill. 
 
 O'er his face of moody sadness 
 For an instant shone
 
 THE FOUNTAIN 31 
 
 Something like a gleam of gladness, 
 
 As he stooped him down 
 To the fountain's grassy side, 
 And his eager thirst supplied. 
 
 "With the oak its shadow throwing 
 
 O'er his mossy seat, 
 And the cool, sweet waters flowing 
 
 Softly at his feet, 
 Closely by the fountain's rim 
 That lone Indian seated him. 
 
 Autumn's earliest frost had given 
 
 To the woods below 
 Hues of beauty, such as heaven 
 
 Lendeth to its bow ; 
 And the soft breeze from the west 
 Scarcely broke their dreamy rest. 
 
 Far behind was Ocean striving 
 
 With his chains of sand ; 
 Southward, sunny glimpses giving, 
 
 'Twixt the swells of land, 
 Of its calm and silvery track, 
 Rolled the tranquil Merrimac. 
 
 Over village, wood, and meadow 
 
 Gazed that stranger man, 
 Sadly, till the twilight shadow 
 
 Over all things ran, 
 Save where spire and westward pane 
 Flashed the sunset back again.
 
 32 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 Gazing thus upon the dwelling 
 
 Of his warrior sires, 
 Where no lingering trace was telling 
 
 Of their wigwam fires, 
 Who the gloomy thoughts might know 
 Of that wandering child of woe ? 
 
 Naked lay, in sunshine glowing, 
 
 Hills that once had stood 
 Down their sides the shadows throwing 
 
 Of a mighty wood, 
 Where the deer his covert kept, 
 And the eagle's pinion swept ! 
 
 Where the birch canoe had glided 
 
 Down the swift Powow, 
 Dark and gloomy bridges strided 
 
 Those clear waters now ; 
 And where once the beaver swam, 
 Jarred the wheel and frowned the dam. 
 
 For the wood-bird's merry singing, 
 
 And the hunter's cheer, 
 Iron clang and hammer's ringing 
 
 Smote upon his ear ; 
 And the thick and sullen smoke 
 From the blackened forges broke. 
 
 Could it be his fathers ever 
 
 Loved to linger here ? 
 These bare hills, this conquered river, 
 
 Could they hold them dear, 
 With their native loveliness 
 Tamed and tortured into this ?
 
 PEN TUCKET 33 
 
 Sadly, as the shades of even 
 
 Gathered o'er the hill, 
 While the western half of heaven 
 
 Blushed with sunset still, 
 From the fountain's mossy seat 
 Turned the Indian's weary feet. 
 
 Year on year hath flown forever, 
 
 But he came no more 
 To the hillside on the river 
 
 Where he came before. 
 But the villager can tell 
 Of that strange man's visit well. 
 
 And the merry children, laden 
 With their fruits or flowers, 
 
 Roving boy and laughing maiden, 
 In their school-day hours, 
 
 Love the simple tale to tell 
 
 Of the Indian and his well. 
 1837. 
 
 PENTUCKET. 
 
 The village of Haverhill, on the Merrimac, called by the In- 
 dians Pentucket, was for nearly seventeen years a frontier town, 
 and during thirty years endured all the horrors of savage war- 
 fare. In the year 1708, a combined body of French and Indians, 
 under the command of De Chaillons, and Hertel de Eouville, the 
 infamous and bloody sacker of Deerfield, made an attack upon 
 the village, which at that time contained only thirty houses. 
 Sixteen of the villagers were massacred, and a still larger num- 
 ber made prisoners. About thirty of the enemy also fell, 
 and among them Hertel de Rouville. The minister of the place, 
 Benjamin Rolfe, was killed by a shot through his own door.
 
 34 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 In a paper entitled The Border War of 1708, published in my 
 collection of Eecreations and Miscellanies, I have given a prose 
 narrative of the surprise of Haverhill. 
 
 How sweetly on the wood-girt town 
 The mellow light of sunset shone ! 
 Each small, bright lake, whose waters still 
 Mirror the forest and the hill, 
 Reflected from its waveless breast 
 The beauty of a cloudless west, 
 Glorious as if a glimpse were given 
 Within the western gates of heaven, 
 Left, by the spirit of the star 
 Of sunset's holy hour, ajar ! 
 
 Beside the river's tranquil flood 
 The dark and low-walled dwellings stood, 
 Where many a rood of open land 
 Stretched up and down on either hand, 
 With corn-leaves waving freshly green 
 The thick and blackened stumps between. 
 Behind, unbroken, deep and dread, 
 The wild, untravelled forest spread, 
 Back to those mountains, white and cold, 
 Of which the Indian trapper told, 
 Upon whose summits never yet 
 Was mortal foot in safety set. 
 
 Quiet and calm without a fear, 
 Of danger darkly lurking near, 
 The weary laborer left his plough, 
 The milkmaid carolled by her cow ; 
 From cottage door and household hearth 
 Rose songs of praise, or tones of mirth.
 
 PENTUCKET 35 
 
 At length the murmur died away, 
 
 And silence on that village lay. 
 
 So slept Pompeii, tower and hall, 
 
 Ere the quick earthquake swallowed all, 
 
 Undreaming of the fiery fate 
 
 Which made its dwellings desolate ! 
 
 Hours passed away. By moonlight sped 
 The Merrimac along his bed. 
 Bathed in the pallid lustre, stood 
 Dark cottage-wall and rock and wood, 
 Silent, beneath that tranquil beam, 
 As the hushed grouping of a dream. 
 Yet on the still air crept a sound, 
 No bark of fox, nor rabbit's bound, 
 Nor stir of wings, nor waters flowing, 
 Nor leaves in midnight breezes blowing. 
 
 "Was that the tread of many feet, 
 Which downward from the hillside beat ? 
 What forms were those which darkly stood 
 Just on the margin of the wood ? 
 Charred tree-stumps in the moonlight dim, 
 Or paling rude, or leafless limb ? 
 No, through the trees fierce eyeballs glowed, 
 Dark human forms in moonshine showed, 
 Wild from their native wilderness, 
 With painted limbs and battle-dress ! 
 
 A yell the dead might wake to hear 
 Swelled on the night air, far and clear ; 
 Then smote the Indian tomahawk 
 On crashing door and shattering lock ;
 
 36 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 Then rang the rifle-shot, and then 
 The shrill death-scream of stricken men, 
 Sank the red axe in woman's brain, 
 And childhood's cry arose in vain. 
 Bursting through roof and window came, 
 Red, fast, and fierce, the kindled flame, 
 And blended fire and moonlight glared 
 On still dead men and scalp-knives bared. 
 
 The morning sun looked brightly through 
 The river willows, wet with dew. 
 No sound of combat filled the air, 
 No shout was heard, nor gunshot there ; 
 Yet still the thick and sullen smoke 
 From smouldering ruins slowly broke ; 
 And on the greensward many a stain, 
 And, here and there, the mangled slain, 
 Told how that midnight bolt had sped 
 Pentucket, on thy fated head ! 
 
 Even now the villager can tell 
 Where Rolfe beside his hearthstone fell, 
 Still show the door of wasting oak, 
 Through which the fatal death-shot broke, 
 And point the curious stranger where 
 De Rouville's corse lay grim and bare ; 
 Whose hideous head, in death still feared, 
 Bore not a trace of hair or beard ; 
 And still, within the churchyard ground, 
 Heaves darkly up the ancient mound, 
 Whose grass-grown surface overlies 
 The victims of that sacrifice.
 
 THE NORSEMEN 37 
 
 THE NORSEMEN. 
 
 In the early part of the present century, a fragment of a statue, 
 rudely chiselled from dark gray stone, was found in the town of 
 Bradford, on the Merrimac. Its origin must be left entirely to 
 conjecture. The fact that the ancient Northmen visited the north- 
 east coast of North America and probahly New England, some cen- 
 turies before the discovery of the western world by Columbus, is 
 now very generally admitted. 
 
 GIFT from the cold and silent Past ! 
 
 A relic to the present cast, 
 
 Left on the ever-changing strand 
 
 Of shifting and unstable sand, 
 
 Which wastes beneath the steady chime 
 
 And beating of the waves of Time ! 
 
 Who from its bed of primal rock 
 
 First wrenched thy dark, unshapely block ? 
 
 Whose hand, of curious skill untaught, 
 
 Thy rude and savage outline wrought ? 
 
 The waters of my native stream 
 
 Are glancing in the sun's warm beam ; 
 
 From sail-urged keel and flashing oar 
 
 The circles widen to its shore ; 
 
 And cultured field and peopled town 
 
 Slope to its willowed margin down. 
 
 Yet, while this morning breeze is bringing 
 
 The home-life sound of school-bells ringing, 
 
 And rolling wheel, and rapid jar 
 
 Of the fire-winged and steedless car, 
 
 And voices from the wayside near 
 
 Come quick and blended on my ear, 
 
 A spell is in this old gray stone, 
 
 My thoughts are with the Past alone ! 
 
 262525
 
 38 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 A change ! The steepled town no more 
 
 Stretches along the sail-thronged shore ; 
 
 Like palace-domes in sunset's cloud, 
 
 Fade sun-gilt spire and mansion proud : 
 
 Spectrally rising where they stood, 
 
 I see the old, primeval wood ; 
 
 Dark, shadow-like, on either hand 
 
 I see its solemn waste expand ; 
 
 It climbs the green and cultured hill, 
 
 It arches o'er the valley's rill, 
 
 And leans from cliff and crag to throw 
 
 Its wild arms o'er the stream below. 
 
 Unchanged, alone, the same bright river 
 
 Flows on, as it will flow forever ! 
 
 I listen, and I hear the low 
 
 Soft ripple where its waters go ; 
 
 I hear behind the panther's cry, 
 
 The wild-bird's scream goes thrilling by, 
 
 And shyly on the river's brink 
 
 The deer is stooping down to drink. 
 
 But hark ! from wood and rock flung back, 
 What sound comes up the Merrimac ? 
 What sea-worn barks are those which throw 
 The light spray from each rushing prow ? 
 Have they not in the North Sea's blast 
 Bowed to the waves the straining mast ? 
 Their frozen sails the low, pale sun 
 Of Thule's night has shone upon ; 
 Flapped by the sea-wind's gusty sweep 
 Round icy drift, and headland steep. 
 Wild Jutland's wives and Lochlin's daughters 
 Have watched them fading o'er the waters,
 
 The Norsemen
 
 THE NORSEMEN 39 
 
 Lessening through driving mist and spray, 
 Like white-winged sea-birds on their way ! 
 
 Onward they glide, and now I view 
 Their iron-armed and stalwart crew ; 
 Joy glistens in each wild blue eye, 
 Turned to green earth and summer sky. 
 Each broad, seamed breast has cast aside 
 Its cumbering vest of shaggy hide ; 
 Bared to the sun and soft warm air, 
 Streams back the Norsemen's yellow hair. 
 I see the gleam of axe and spear, 
 The sound of smitten shields I hear, 
 Keeping a harsh and fitting time 
 To Saga's chant, and Runic rhyme ; 
 Such lays as Zetland's Scald has sung, 
 His gray and naked isles among ; 
 Or muttered low at midnight hour 
 Round Odin's mossy stone of power. 
 The wolf beneath the Arctic moon 
 Has answered to that startling rune ; 
 The Gael has heard its stormy swell, 
 The light Frank knows its summons well ; 
 lona's sable-stoled Culdee 
 Has heard it sounding o'er the sea, 
 And swept, with hoary beard and hair, 
 His altar's foot in trembling prayer ! 
 
 'T is past, the 'wildering vision dies 
 In darkness on my dreaming eyes ! 
 The forest vanishes in air, 
 Hill-slope and vale lie starkly bare ; 
 I hear the common tread of men, 
 And hum of work-day life again ;
 
 40 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 The mystic relic seems alone 
 A broken mass of common stone ; 
 And if it be the chiselled limb 
 Of Berserker or idol grim, 
 A fragment of Valhalla's Thor, 
 The stormy Viking's god of War, 
 Or Praga of the Kunic lay, 
 Or love-awakening Siona, 
 I know not, for no graven line, 
 Nor Druid mark, nor Runic sign, 
 Is left me here, by which to trace 
 Its name, or origin, or place. 
 Yet, for this vision of the Past, 
 This glance upon its darkness cast, 
 My spirit bows in gratitude 
 Before the Giver of all good, 
 Who fashioned so the human mind, 
 That, from the waste of Time behind, 
 A simple stone, or mound of earth, 
 Can summon the departed forth; 
 Quicken the Past to life again, 
 The Present lose in what hath been, 
 And in their primal freshness show 
 The buried forms of long ago. 
 As if a portion of that Thought 
 By which the Eternal will is wrought, 
 Whose impulse fills anew with breath 
 The frozen solitude of Death, 
 To mortal mind were sometimes lent, 
 To mortal musings sometimes sent, 
 To whisper even when it seems 
 But Memory's fantasy of dreams 
 Through the mind's waste of woe and sin, 
 Of an immortal origin ! 
 1841.
 
 FUNERAL TREE OF THE SOKOKIS 41 
 
 FUNERAL TREE OF THE SOKOKIS. 
 
 Polan, chief of the Sokokis Indians of the country between 
 Agamenticus and Casco Bay, was killed at Windham on Sebago 
 Lake in the spring of 1756. After the whites had retired, the 
 surviving Indians " swayed " or bent down a young tree until its 
 roots were upturned, placed the body of their chief beneath it, 
 and then released the tree, which, in springing back to its old 
 position, covered the grave. The Sokokis were early converts to 
 the Catholic faith. Most of them, prior to the year 1756, had 
 removed to the French settlements on the St. Francois. 
 
 AROUND Sebago's lonely lake 
 There lingers not a breeze to break 
 The mirror which its waters make. 
 
 The solemn pines along its shore, 
 
 The firs which hang its gray rocks o'er, 
 
 Are painted on its glassy floor. 
 
 The sun looks o'er, with hazy eye, 
 The snowy mountain-tops which lie 
 Piled coldly up against the sky. 
 
 Dazzling and white ! save where the bleak, 
 Wild winds have bared some splintering peak, 
 Or snow-slide left its dusky streak. 
 
 Yet green are Saco's banks below, 
 And belts of spruce and cedar show, 
 Dark fringing round those cones of snow. 
 
 The earth hath felt the breath of spring, 
 Though yet on her deliverer's wing 
 The lingering frosts of winter cling.
 
 42 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 Fresh grasses fringe the meadow-brooks, 
 And mildly from its sunny nooks 
 The blue eye of the violet looks. 
 
 And odors from the springing grass, 
 The sweet birch and the sassafras, 
 Upon the scarce-felt breezes pass. 
 
 Her tokens of renewing care 
 Hath Nature scattered everywhere, 
 In bud and flower, and warmer air. 
 
 But in their hour of bitterness, 
 What reck the broken Sokokis, 
 Beside their slaughtered chief, of this ? 
 
 The turf's red stain is yet undried, 
 Scarce have the death-shot echoes died 
 Along Sebago's wooded side ; 
 
 And silent now the hunters stand, 
 Grouped darkly, where a swell of land 
 Slopes upward from the lake's white sand. 
 
 Fire and the axe have swept it bare, 
 Save one lone beech, unclosing there 
 Its light leaves in the vernal air. 
 
 With grave, cold looks, all sternly mute, 
 They break the damp turf at its foot, 
 And bare its coiled and twisted root.
 
 FUNERAL TREE OF THE SOKOKIS 43 
 
 They heave the stubborn trunk aside, 
 The firm roots from the earth divide, 
 The rent beneath yawns dark and wide. 
 
 And there the fallen chief is laid, 
 In tasselled garb of skins arrayed, 
 And girded with his wampum-braid. 
 
 The silver cross he loved is pressed 
 Beneath the heavy arms, which rest 
 Upon his scarred and naked breast. 
 
 'T is done : the roots are backward sent, 
 The beechen-tree stands up unbent, 
 The Indian's fitting monument ! 
 
 When of that sleeper's broken race 
 Their green and pleasant dwelling-place, 
 Which knew them once, retains no trace ; 
 
 Oh, long may sunset's light be shed 
 As now upon that beech's head, 
 A green memorial of the dead ! 
 
 There shall his fitting requiem be, 
 
 In northern winds, that, cold and free, 
 
 Howl nightly in that funeral tree. 
 
 To their wild wail the waves which break 
 Forever round that lonely lake 
 A solemn undertone shall make 1
 
 44 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 And who shall deem the spot unblest, 
 Where Nature's younger children rest, 
 Lulled on their sorrowing mother's breast ? 
 
 Deem ye that mother loveth less 
 These bronzed forms of the wilderness 
 She foldeth in her long caress ? 
 
 As sweet o'er them her wild-flowers blow, 
 As if with fairer hair and brow 
 The blue-eyed Saxon slept below. 
 
 What though the places of their rest 
 No priestly knee hath ever pressed, 
 No funeral rite nor prayer hath blessed ? 
 
 What though the bigot's ban be there, 
 And thoughts of wailing and despair, 
 And cursing in the place of prayer ! 
 
 Yet Heaven hath angels watching round 
 The Indian's lowliest forest-mound, 
 And they have made it holy ground. 
 
 There ceases man's frail judgment ; all 
 His powerless bolts of cursing fall 
 Unheeded on that grassy pall. 
 
 O peeled and hunted and reviled, 
 Sleep on, dark tenant of the wild ! 
 Great Nature owns her simple child !
 
 ST. JOHN 45 
 
 And Nature's God, to whom alone 
 The secret of the heart is known, 
 The hidden language traced thereon ; 
 
 Who from its many cumberings 
 
 Of form and creed, and outward things, 
 
 To light the naked spirit brings ; 
 
 Not with our partial eye shall scan, 
 Not with our pride and scorn shall ban, 
 The spirit of our brother man 1 
 
 1841. 
 
 ST. JOHN. 
 
 The fierce rivalry between Charles de La Tour, a Protestant, 
 and D'Aulnay Charnasy, a Catholic, for the possession of Aca- 
 dia, forms one of the most romantic passages in the history of the 
 New World. La Tour received aid in several instances from the 
 Puritan colony of Massachusetts. During one of his voyages for 
 the purpose of obtaining arms and provisions for his establish- 
 ment at St. John, his castle was attacked by D'Aulnay, and suc- 
 cessfully defended by its high-spirited mistress. A second at- 
 tack however followed in the fourth month, 1647, when D'Auhiay 
 was successful, and the garrison was put to the sword. Lady La 
 Tour languished a few days in the hands of her enemy, and then 
 died of grief. 
 
 " To the winds give our banner ! 
 
 Bear homeward again ! " 
 Cried the Lord of Acadia, 
 
 Cried Charles of Estienne ; 
 From the prow of his shallop 
 
 He gazed, as the sun, 
 From its bed in the ocean, 
 
 Streamed up the St. John.
 
 46 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 O'er the blue western waters 
 
 That shallop had passed, 
 Where the mists of Penobscot 
 
 Clung damp on her mast. 
 St. Saviour had looked 
 
 On the heretic sail, 
 As the songs of the Huguenot 
 
 Rose on the gale. 
 
 The pale, ghostly fathers 
 
 Remembered her well, 
 And had cursed her while passing, 
 
 With taper and bell ; 
 But the men of Monhegan, 
 
 Of Papists abhorred, 
 Had welcomed and feasted 
 
 The heretic Lord. 
 
 They had loaded his shallop 
 
 With dun-fish and ball, 
 With stores for his larder, 
 
 And steel for his wall. 
 Pemaquid, from her bastions 
 
 And turrets of stone, 
 Had welcomed his coming 
 
 With banner and gun. 
 
 And the prayers of the elders 
 
 Had followed his way, 
 As homeward he glided, 
 
 Down Pentecost Bay. 
 Oh, well sped La Tour ! 
 
 For, in peril and pain,
 
 ST. JOHN 47 
 
 His lady kept watch, 
 For his coming again. 
 
 O'er the Isle of the Pheasant 
 
 The morning sun shone, 
 On the plane-trees which shaded 
 
 The shores of St. John. 
 " Now, why from yon battlements 
 
 Speaks not my love ! 
 Why waves there no banner 
 
 My fortress above?" 
 
 Dark and wild, from his deck 
 
 St. Estienne gazed about, 
 On fire-wasted dwellings, 
 
 And silent redoubt ; 
 From the low, shattered walls 
 
 Which the flame had o'errun, 
 There floated no banner, 
 
 There thundered no gun ! 
 
 But beneath the low arch 
 
 Of its doorway there stood 
 A pale priest of Rome, 
 
 In his cloak and his hood. 
 With the bound of a lion, 
 
 La Tour sprang to land, 
 On the throat of the Papist 
 
 He fastened his hand. 
 
 ' 5 Speak, son of the Woman 
 
 Of scarlet and sin ! 
 What wolf has been prowling 
 My castle within? "
 
 48 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 From the grasp of the soldier 
 
 The Jesuit broke, 
 Half in scorn, half in sorrow, 
 
 He smiled as he spoke : 
 
 " No wolf, Lord of Estienne, 
 
 Has ravaged thy hall, 
 But thy red-handed rival, 
 
 With fire, steel, and ball ! 
 On an errand of mercy 
 
 I hitherward came, 
 While the walls of thy castle 
 
 Yet spouted with flame. 
 
 " Pentagoet's dark vessels 
 
 Were moored in the bay, 
 Grim sea-lions, roaring 
 
 Aloud for their prey." 
 " But what of my lady ? " 
 
 Cried Charles of Estienne. 
 " On the shot-crumbled turret 
 
 Thy lady was seen : 
 
 " Half-veiled in the smoke-cloud, 
 
 Her hand grasped thy pennon, 
 While her dark tresses swayed 
 
 In the hot breath of cannon ! 
 But woe to the heretic, 
 
 Evermore woe ! 
 When the son of the church 
 
 And the cross is his foe ! 
 
 "In the track of the shell, 
 In the path of the ball,
 
 ST. JOHN 49 
 
 Pentagoet swept over 
 
 The breach of the wall ! 
 Steel to steel, gun to gun, 
 
 One moment, and then 
 Alone stood the victor, 
 
 Alone with his men ! 
 
 " Of its sturdy defenders, 
 
 Thy lady alone 
 Saw the cross-blazoned banner 
 
 Float over St. John." 
 " Let the dastard look to it ! " 
 
 Cried fiery Estienne, 
 " Were D'Aulnay King Louis, 
 
 I 'd free her again ! " 
 
 Alas for thy lady ! 
 
 No service from thee 
 Is needed by her 
 
 Whom the Lord hath set free ; 
 Nine days, in stern silence, 
 
 Her thraldom she bore, 
 But the tenth morning came, 
 
 And Death opened her door ! " 
 
 As if suddenly smitten 
 
 La Tour staggered back ; 
 His hand grasped his sword-hilt, 
 
 His forehead grew black. 
 He sprang on the deck 
 
 Of his shallop again. 
 " We cruise now for vengeance ! 
 
 Give way ! " cried Estienne.
 
 50 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 " Massachusetts shall hear 
 
 Of the Huguenot's wrong, 
 And from island and creekside 
 
 Her fishers shall throng ! 
 Pentagoet shall rue 
 
 What his Papists have done, 
 When his palisades echo 
 
 The Puritan's gun ! " 
 
 Oh, the loveliest of heavens 
 
 Hung tenderly o'er him, 
 There were waves in the sunshine, 
 
 And green isles before him : 
 But a pale hand was beckoning 
 
 The Huguenot on ; 
 And in blackness and ashes 
 
 Behind was St. John ! 
 1841. 
 
 THE CYPRESS-TREE OF CEYLON. 
 
 Ibn Batuta, the celebrated Mussulman traveller of the four- 
 teenth century, speaks of a cypress-tree in Ceylon, universally 
 held sacred by the natives, the leaves of which were said to fall 
 only at certain intervals, and he who had the happiness to find 
 and eat one of them was restored, at once, to youth and vigor. 
 The traveller saw several venerable Jogees, or saints, sitting silent 
 and motionless under the tree, patiently awaiting the falling of a 
 leaf. 
 
 THEY sat in silent watchfulness 
 
 The sacred cypress-tree about, 
 And, from beneath old wrinkled brows, 
 
 Their failing eyes looked out.
 
 THE CYPRESS-TREE OF CEYLON 51 
 
 Gray Age and Sickness waiting there 
 
 Through weary night and lingering day, 
 
 Grim as the idols at their side, 
 And motionless as they. 
 
 Unheeded in the boughs above 
 
 The song of Ceylon's birds was sweet; 
 
 Unseen of them the island flowers 
 Bloomed brightly at their feet. 
 
 O'er them the tropic night-storm swept, 
 The thunder crashed on rock and hill ; 
 
 The cloud-fire on their eyeballs blazed, 
 Yet there they waited still ! 
 
 "What was the world without to them ? 
 
 The Moslem's sunset-call, the dance 
 Of Ceylon's maids, the passing gleam 
 
 Of battle-flag and lance ? 
 
 They waited for that falling leaf 
 
 Of which the wandering Jogees sing : 
 
 Which lends once more to wintry age 
 The greenness of its spring. 
 
 Oh, if these poor and blinded ones 
 
 In trustful patience wait to feel 
 O'er torpid pulse and failing limb 
 
 A youthful freshness steal ; 
 
 Shall we, who sit beneath that Tree 
 Whose healing leaves of life are shed, 
 
 In answer to the breath of prayer, 
 Upon the waiting head
 
 52 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 Not to restore our failing forms, 
 
 And build the spirit's broken shrine, 
 
 But on the fainting- soul to shed 
 A light and life divine 
 
 Shall we grow weary in our watch, 
 
 And murmur at the long delay? 
 Impatient of our Father's time 
 
 And His appointed way? 
 
 Or shall the stir of outward things 
 Allure and claim the Christian's eye, 
 
 When on the heathen watcher's ear 
 Their powerless murmurs die ? 
 
 Alas ! a deeper test of faith 
 
 Than prison cell or martyr's stake, 
 
 The self-abasing watchfulness 
 Of silent prayer may make. 
 
 We gird us bravely to rebuke 
 
 Our erring brother in the wrong, 
 
 And in the ear of Pride and Power 
 Our warning voice is strong. 
 
 Easier to smite with Peter's sword 
 
 Than " watch one hour " in humbling prayer. 
 Life's " great things," like the Syrian lord, 
 
 Our hearts can do and dare. 
 
 But oh! we shrink from Jordan's side, 
 From waters which alone can save ;
 
 THE EXILES 53 
 
 And murmur for Abana's banks 
 And Pharpar's brighter wave. 
 
 O Thou, who in the garden's shade 
 Didst wake Thy weary ones again, 
 
 Who slumbered at that fearful hour 
 Forgetful of Thy pain ; 
 
 Bend o'er us now, as over them, 
 
 And set our sleep-bound spirits free, 
 
 Nor leave us slumbering in the watch 
 Our souls should keep with Thee ! 
 1841. 
 
 THE EXILES. 
 
 The incidents upon which the following ballad has its founda- 
 tion occurred about the year 1660. Thomas Macy was one of 
 the first, if not the first white settler of Nantucket. The career 
 of Macy is briefly but carefully outlined in James S. Pike's The 
 New Puritan. 
 
 THE goodman sat beside his door 
 
 One sultry afternoon, 
 With his young wife singing at his side 
 
 An old and goodly tune. 
 
 A glimmer of heat was in the air, 
 The dark green woods were still ; 
 
 And the skirts of a heavy thunder-cloud 
 Hung over the western hill. 
 
 Black, thick, and vast arose that cloud 
 Above the wilderness,
 
 54 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 As some dark world from upper air 
 Were stooping over this. 
 
 At times the solemn thunder pealed, 
 
 And all was still again, 
 Save a low murmur in the air 
 
 Of coming wind and rain. 
 
 Just as the first big rain-drop fell, 
 
 A weary stranger came, 
 And stood before the farmer's door, 
 
 With travel soiled and lame. 
 
 Sad seemed he, yet sustaining hope 
 
 Was in his quiet glance, 
 And peace, like autumn's moonlight, clothed 
 
 His tranquil countenance, 
 
 A look, like that his Master wore 
 
 In Pilate's council-hall : 
 It told of wrongs, but of a love 
 
 Meekly forgiving all. 
 
 " Friend ! wilt thou give me shelter here ? " 
 
 The stranger meekly said ; 
 And, leaning on his oaken staff, 
 The goodman's features read. 
 
 " My life is hunted, evil men 
 Are following in my track ; 
 The traces of the torturer's whip 
 Are on my aged back ;
 
 THE EXILES 55 
 
 And much, I fear, 't will peril thee 
 
 Within thy doors to take 
 A hunted seeker of the Truth, 
 
 Oppressed for conscience' sake." 
 
 Oh, kindly spoke the goodman's wife, 
 
 " Come in, old man ! " quoth she, 
 We will not leave thee to the storm, 
 Whoever thou inayst be." 
 
 Then came the aged wanderer in, 
 
 And silent sat him down ; 
 While all within grew dark as night 
 
 Beneath the storm-cloud's frown. 
 
 But while the sudden lightning's blaze 
 
 Filled every cottage nook, 
 And with the jarring thunder-roll 
 
 The loosened casements shook, 
 
 A heavy tramp of horses' feet 
 
 Came sounding up the lane, 
 And half a score of horse, or more, 
 
 Came plunging through the rain. 
 
 ' Now, Goodman Macy, ope thy door, 
 
 We would not be house-breakers ; 
 A rueful deed thou 'st done this day, 
 In harboring banished Quakers." 
 
 Out looked the cautious goodman then, 
 
 With much of fear and awe, 
 For there, with broad wig drenched with rain, 
 
 The parish priest he saw.
 
 56 NARRATIVE AND .LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 " Open thy door, thou wicked man, 
 
 And let thy pastor in, 
 And give God thanks, if forty stripes 
 Repay thy deadly sin." 
 
 41 What seek ye ? " quoth the goodman; 
 
 " The stranger is my guest ; 
 He is worn with toil and grievous wrong, 
 Pray let the old man rest." 
 
 " Now, out upon thee, canting knave ! " 
 And strong hands shook the door. 
 
 " Believe me, Macy," quoth the priest, 
 " Thou 'It rue thy conduct sore." 
 
 Then kindled Macy's eye of fire : 
 " No priest who walks the earth, 
 
 Shall pluck away the stranger-guest 
 Made welcome to my hearth." 
 
 Down from his cottage wall he caught 
 
 The matchlock, hotly tried 
 At Preston-pans and Marston-moor, 
 
 By fiery Ireton's side ; 
 
 Where Puritan, and Cavalier, 
 
 With shout and psalm contended ; 
 
 And Rupert's oath, and Cromwell's prayer, 
 With battle-thunder blended. 
 
 Up rose the ancient stranger then : 
 
 " My spirit is not free 
 To bring the wrath and violence 
 
 Of evil men on thee ;
 
 THE EXILES 57 
 
 " And for thyself, I pray forbear, 
 
 Bethink thee of thy Lord, 
 Who healed again the smitten ear, 
 And sheathed His follower's sword. 
 
 " I go, as to the slaughter led. 
 
 Friends of the poor, farewell ! " 
 Beneath his hand the oaken door 
 Back on its hinges fell. 
 
 " Come forth, old graybeard, yea and nay," 
 
 The reckless scoffers cried, 
 As to a horseman's saddle-bow 
 The old man's arms were tied. 
 
 And of his bondage hard and long 
 
 In Boston's crowded jail, 
 Where suffering woman's prayer was heard, 
 
 With sickening childhood's wail, 
 
 It suits not with our tale to tell ; 
 
 Those scenes have passed away ; 
 Let the dim shadows of the past 
 
 Brood o'er that evil day. 
 
 " Ho, sheriff ! " quoth the ardent priest, 
 
 " Take Goodman Macy too ; 
 The sin of this day's heresy 
 His back or purse shall rue." 
 
 " Now,, goodwife, haste thee ! " Macy cried. 
 
 She caught his manly arm ; 
 Behind, the parson urged pursuit, 
 With outcry and alarm.
 
 58 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 Ho ! speed the Macys, neck or naught, 
 
 The river-course was near ; 
 The plashing on its pebbled shore 
 
 Was music to their ear. 
 
 A gray rock, tasselled o'er with birch, 
 
 Above the waters hung, 
 And at its base, with every wave, 
 
 A small light wherry swung. 
 
 A leap they gain the boat and there 
 
 The goodman wields his oar ; 
 " 111 luck betide them all," he cried, 
 " The laggards on the shore." 
 
 Down through the crashing underwood, 
 
 The burly sheriff came : 
 " Stand, Goodman Macy, yield thyself ; 
 Yield in the King's own name." 
 
 " Now out upon thy hangman's face ! " 
 
 Bold Macy answered then, 
 " Whip women, on the village green, 
 
 But meddle not with men." 
 
 The priest came panting to the shore, 
 His grave cocked hat was gone ; 
 
 Behind him, like some owl's nest, hung 
 His wig upon a thorn. 
 
 " Come back, come back ! " the parson cried, 
 
 "The church's curse beware." 
 " Curse, an' thou wilt," said Macy, " but 
 Thy blessing prithee spare."
 
 THE EXILES 59 
 
 "Vile scoffer! " cried the baffled priest, 
 
 " Thou 'It yet the gallows see." 
 " Who 's born to be hanged will not be drowned," 
 
 Quoth Macy, merrily ; 
 
 " And so, sir sheriff and priest, good-by ! " 
 
 He bent him to his oar, 
 And the small boat glided quietly 
 From the twain upon the shore. 
 
 Now in the west, the heavy clouds 
 
 Scattered and fell asunder, 
 While feebler came the rush of rain, 
 
 And fainter growled the thunder. 
 
 And through the broken clouds, the sun 
 
 Looked out serene and warm, 
 Painting its holy symbol-light 
 
 Upon the passing storm. 
 
 Oh, beautiful ! that rainbow span, 
 O'er dim Crane-neck was bended ; 
 
 One bright foot touched the eastern hills, 
 And one with ocean blended. 
 
 By green Pentucket's southern slope 
 
 The small boat glided fast ; 
 The watchers of the Block-house saw 
 
 The strangers as they passed. 
 
 That night a stalwart garrison 
 
 Sat shaking in their shoes, 
 To hear the dip of Indian oars, 
 
 The glide of birch canoes.
 
 60 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 The fisher-wives of Salisbury 
 
 The men were all away 
 Looked out to see the stranger oar 
 
 Upon their waters play. 
 
 Deer-Island's rocks and fir-trees threw 
 
 Their sunset- shadows o'er them, 
 And Newbury's spire and weathercock 
 
 Peered o'er the pines before them. 
 
 Around the Black Rocks, on their left, 
 
 The marsh lay broad and green ; 
 And on their right, with dwarf shrubs crowned, 
 
 Plum Island's hills were seen. 
 
 With skilful hand and wary eye 
 
 The harbor-bar was crossed ; 
 A plaything of the restless wave, 
 
 The boat on ocean tossed. 
 
 The glory of the sunset heaven 
 
 On land and water lay ; 
 On the steep hills of Agawam, 
 
 On cape, and bluff, and bay. 
 
 They passed the gray rocks of Cape Ann, 
 
 And Gloucester's harbor-bar ; 
 The watch-fire of the garrison 
 
 Shone like a setting star. 
 
 How brightly broke the morning 
 
 On Massachusetts Bay ! 
 Blue wave, and bright green island, 
 
 Rejoicing in the day.
 
 THE EXILES 61 
 
 On passed the bark in safety 
 
 Round isle and headland steep ; 
 No tempest broke above them, 
 No fog-cloud veiled the deep. 
 
 Far round the bleak and stormy Cape 
 
 The venturous Macy passed, 
 And on Nantucket's naked isle 
 
 Drew up his boat at last. 
 
 And how, in log-built cabin, 
 
 They braved the rough sea- weather ; 
 And there, in peace and quietness, 
 
 Went down life's vale together ; 
 
 How others drew around them, 
 
 And how their fishing sped, 
 Until to every wind of heaven 
 
 Nantucket's sails were spread ; 
 
 How pale Want alternated 
 
 With Plenty's golden smile ; 
 Behold, is it not written 
 
 In the annals of the isle ? 
 
 And yet that isle remaineth 
 
 A refuge of the free, 
 As when true-hearted Macy 
 
 Beheld it from the sea. 
 
 Free as the winds that winnow 
 
 Her shrubless hills of sand, 
 Free as the waves that batter 
 
 Along her yielding land.
 
 62 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 Than hers, at duty's summons, 
 
 No loftier spirit stirs, 
 Nor falls o'er human suffering 
 
 A readier tear then hers. 
 
 God bless the sea-beat island ! 
 
 And grant forevermore, 
 That charity and freedom dwell 
 
 As now upon her shore ! 
 1841. 
 
 THE KNIGHT OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 ERE down yon blue Carpathian hills 
 
 The sun shall sink again, 
 Farewell to life and all its ills, 
 
 Farewell to cell and chain ! 
 
 These prison shades are dark and cold, 
 
 But, darker far than they, 
 The shadow of a sorrow old 
 
 Is on my heart alway. 
 
 For since the day when Wark worth wood 
 
 Closed o'er my steed, and I, 
 An alien from my name and blood, 
 
 A weed cast out to die, 
 
 When, looking back in sunset light, 
 
 I saw her turret gleam, 
 And from its casement, far and white, 
 
 Her sign of farewell stream,
 
 THE KNIGHT OF ST. JOHN 68 
 
 Like cue who, from some desert shore, 
 
 Doth home's green isles descry, 
 And, vainly longing, gazes o'er 
 
 The waste of wave and sky ; 
 
 So from the desert of my fate 
 
 I gaze across the past ; 
 Forever on life's dial-plate 
 
 The shade is backward cast ! 
 
 I 've wandered wide from shore to shore, 
 
 I 've knelt at many a shrine ; 
 And bowed me to the rocky floor 
 
 Where Bethlehem's tapers shine ; 
 
 And by the Holy Sepulchre 
 
 I 've pledged my knightly sword 
 
 To Christ, His blessed Church, and her, 
 The Mother of our Lord. 
 
 Oh, vain the vow, and vain the strife ! 
 
 How vain do all things seem ! 
 My soul is in the past, and life 
 
 To-day is but a dream ! 
 
 In vain the penance strange and long, 
 
 And hard for flesh to bear ; 
 The prayer, the fasting, and the thong, 
 
 And sackcloth shirt of. hair. 
 
 The eyes of memory will not sleep, 
 
 Its ears are open still ; 
 And vigils with the past they keep 
 
 Against my feeble will.
 
 64 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 And still the loves and joys of old 
 
 Do evermore uprise ; 
 I see the flow of locks of gold, 
 
 The shine of loving eyes ! 
 
 Ah me ! upon another's breast 
 
 Those golden locks recline ; 
 I see upon another rest 
 
 The glance that once was mine. 
 
 " O faithless priest ! O perjured knight ! " 
 
 I hear the Master cry ; 
 " Shut out the vision from thy sight, 
 
 Let Earth and Nature die. 
 
 " The Church of God is now thy spouse, 
 
 And thou the bridegroom art ; 
 Then let the burden of thy vows 
 Crush down thy human heart ! " 
 
 w 
 
 In vain ! This heart its grief must know, 
 
 Till life itself hath ceased, 
 And falls beneath the self-same blow 
 
 The lover and the priest ! 
 
 O pitying Mother ! souls of light, 
 
 And saints and martyrs old ! 
 Pray for a weak and sinful knight, 
 
 A suffering man uphold. 
 
 Then let the Paynim work his will, 
 And death unbind my chain,
 
 CASSANDRA SOUTH WICK 65 
 
 Ere down yon blue Carpathian hill 
 
 The sun shall fall again. 
 1843. 
 
 CASSANDRA SOUTHWICK. 
 
 In 1658 two young persons, son and daughter of Lawrence 
 Southwick of Salem, who had himself been imprisoned and 
 deprived of nearly all his property for having entertained Qua- 
 kers at his house, were fined for non-attendance at church. They 
 being unable to pay the fine, the General Court issued an order 
 empowering " the Treasurer of the County to sell the said persons 
 to any of the English nation of Virginia or Barbadoes, to answer 
 said fines." An attempt was made to carry this order into exe- 
 cution, but no shipmaster was found willing to convey them to 
 the West Indies. 
 
 To the God of all sure mercies let my blessing rise 
 to-day, 
 
 From the scoffer and the cruel He hath plucked 
 the spoil away ; 
 
 Yea, He who cooled the furnace around the faith- 
 ful three, 
 
 And tamed the Chaldean lions, hath set His hand- 
 maid free ! 
 
 Last night I saw the sunset melt through my prison 
 
 bars, 
 Last night across my damp earth-floor fell the pale 
 
 gleam of stars ; 
 In the coldness and the darkness all through the 
 
 long night-time, 
 My grated casement whitened with autumn's early 
 
 rime. 
 
 VOL. I. 5
 
 66 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 Alone, in that dark sorrow, hour after hour crept 
 
 by; 
 Star after star looked palely in and sank adown 
 
 the sky ; 
 No sound amid night's stillness, save that which 
 
 seemed to be 
 The dull and heavy beating of the pulses of the sea ; 
 
 All night I sat unsleeping, for I knew that on the 
 
 morrow 
 The ruler and the cruel priest would mock me in , 
 
 my sorrow, 
 Dragged to their place of market, and bargained 
 
 for and sold, 
 Like a lamb before the shambles, like a heifer 
 
 from the fold ! 
 
 Oh, the weakness of the flesh was there, the 
 
 shrinking and the shame ; 
 And the low voice of the Tempter like whispers to 
 
 me came : 
 "Why sit'st thou thus forlornly," the wicked 
 
 murmur said, 
 " Damp walls thy bower of beauty, cold earth thy 
 
 maiden bed ? 
 
 " Where be the smiling faces, and voices soft and 
 
 sweet, 
 Seen in thy father's dwelling, heard in the pleasant 
 
 street ? 
 Where be the youths whose glances, the summer 
 
 Sabbath through, 
 Turned tenderly and timidly unto thy father's pew ?
 
 CASSANDRA SOUTH WICK 67 
 
 " Why sit'st tliou here, Cassandra ? Bethink 
 
 thee with what mirth 
 Thy happy schoolmates gather around the warm 
 
 bright hearth ; 
 How the crimson shadows tremble on foreheads 
 
 white and fair, 
 On eyes of merry girlhood, half hid in golden hair. 
 
 "Not for thee the hearth-fire brightens, not for 
 thee kind words are spoken, 
 
 Not for thee the nuts of Wenham woods by laugh- 
 ing boys are broken ; 
 
 No first-fruits of the orchard within thy lap are 
 laid, 
 
 For thee no flowers of autumn the youthful hun- 
 ters braid. 
 
 " O weak, deluded maiden ! by crazy fancies 
 
 led, 
 
 With wild and raving railers an evil path to tread ; 
 To leave a wholesome worship, and teaching pure 
 
 and sound, 
 And mate with maniac women, loose-haired and 
 
 sackcloth bound, 
 
 "Mad scoffers of the priesthood, who mock at 
 
 things divine, 
 Who rail against the pulpit, and holy bread and 
 
 wine ; 
 Sore from their cart-tail scourgings, and from the 
 
 pillory lame, 
 Rejoicing in their wretchedness, and glorying in 
 
 their shame.
 
 68 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 " And what a fate awaits thee ! a sadly toiling 
 
 slave, 
 Dragging the slowly lengthening chain of bondage 
 
 to the grave ! 
 Think of thy woman's nature, subdued in hopeless 
 
 thrall, 
 The easy prey of any, the scoff and scorn of all ! " 
 
 Oh, ever as the Tempter spoke, and feeble Nature's 
 fears 
 
 Wrung drop by drop the scalding flow of unavail- 
 ing tears, 
 
 I wrestled down the evil thoughts, and strove in 
 silent prayer, 
 
 To feel, O Helper of the weak! that Thou indeed 
 wert there ! 
 
 I thought of Paul and Silas, within Philippi's cell, 
 And how from Peter's sleeping limbs the prison 
 
 shackles fell, 
 Till I seemed to hear the trailing of an angel's 
 
 robe of white, 
 And to feel a blessed presence invisible to sight. 
 
 Bless the Lord for all his mercies ! for the peace 
 and love I felt, 
 
 Like dew of Hermon's holy hill, upon my spirit 
 melt ; 
 
 When "Get behind me, Satan!" was the lan- 
 guage of my heart, 
 
 And I felt the Evil Tempter with all his doubts 
 depart.
 
 CASSANDRA SOUTHW1CK 69 
 
 Slow broke the gray cold morning ; again the sun- 
 shine fell, 
 
 Flecked with the shade of bar and grate within 
 my lonely cell ; 
 
 The hoar-frost melted on the wall, and upward 
 from the street 
 
 Came careless laugh and idle word, and tread of 
 passing feet. 
 
 At length the heavy bolts fell back, my door was 
 
 open cast, 
 And slowly at the sheriff's side, up the long street 
 
 I passed ; 
 I heard the murmur round me, and felt, but dared 
 
 not see, 
 How, from every door and window, the people 
 
 gazed on me. 
 
 And doubt and fear fell on me, shame burned upon 
 my cheek, 
 
 Swam earth and sky around me, my trembling 
 limbs grew weak : 
 
 " Lord ! support thy handmaid ; and from her 
 soul cast out 
 
 The fear of man, which brings a snare, the weak- 
 ness and the doubt." 
 
 Then the dreary shadows scattered, like a cloud in 
 morning's breeze, 
 
 And a low deep voice within me seemed whisper- 
 ing words like these :
 
 70 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 " Though thy earth be as the iron, and thy heaven 
 
 a brazen wall, 
 Trust still His loving-kindness whose power is over 
 
 all." 
 
 We paused at length, where at my feet the sunlit 
 
 waters broke 
 On glaring reach of shining beach, and shingly 
 
 wall of rock ; 
 The merchant-ships lay idly there, in hard clear 
 
 lines on high, 
 Tracing with rope and slender spar their network 
 
 on the sky. 
 
 And there were ancient citizens, cloak-wrapped 
 
 and grave and cold, 
 And grim and stout sea-captains with faces bronzed 
 
 and old, 
 And on his horse, with Rawson, his cruel clerk at 
 
 hand, 
 Sat dark and haughty Endicott, the ruler of the 
 
 land. 
 
 And poisoning with his evil words the ruler's ready 
 
 ear, 
 The priest leaned o'er his saddle, with laugh and 
 
 scoff and jeer ; 
 It stirred my soul, and from my lips the seal of 
 
 silence broke, 
 As if through woman's weakness a warning spirit 
 
 spoke. 
 
 I cried, " The Lord rebuke thee, thou smiter of the 
 meek,
 
 CASSANDRA SOUTH WICK 71 
 
 Thou robber of the righteous, thou trampler of 
 
 the weak ! 
 Go light the dark, cold hearth-stones, go turn 
 
 the prison lock 
 Of the poor hearts thou hast hunted, thou wolf 
 
 amid the flock ! " 
 
 Dark lowered the brows of Endicott, and with a 
 
 deeper red 
 O'er Rawson's wine-empurpled cheek the flush of 
 
 anger spread ; 
 "Good people," quoth the white-lipped priest, 
 
 " heed not her words so wild, 
 Her Master speaks within her, the Devil owns 
 
 his child ! " 
 
 But gray heads shook, and young brows knit, the 
 while the sheriff read 
 
 That law the wicked rulers against the poor have 
 made, 
 
 Who to their house of Rimmon and idol priest- 
 hood bring 
 
 No bended knee of worship, nor gainful offer- 
 ing. 
 
 Then to the stout sea-captains the sheriff, turning, 
 
 said, 
 *' Which of ye, worthy seamen, will take this 
 
 Quaker maid ? 
 In the Isle of fair Barbadoes, or on Virginia's 
 
 shore, 
 You may hold her at a higher price than Indian 
 
 girl or Moor."
 
 72 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 Grim and silent stood the captains ; and when 
 
 again he cried, 
 " Speak out, my worthy seamen ! " no voice, no 
 
 sign replied ; 
 But I felt a hard hand press my own, and kind 
 
 words met my ear, 
 " God bless thee, and preserve thee, my gentle girl 
 
 and dear ! " 
 
 A weight seemed lifted from my heart, a pitying 
 
 friend was nigh, 
 I felt it in his hard, rough hand, and saw it in his 
 
 eye; 
 And when again the sheriff spoke, that voice, so 
 
 kind to me, 
 Growled back its stormy answer like the roaring 
 
 of the sea, 
 
 " Pile my ship with bars of silver, pack with coins 
 
 of Spanish gold, 
 From keel-piece up to deck-plank, the roomage of 
 
 her hold, 
 By the living God who made me ! I would sooner 
 
 in your bay 
 Sink ship and crew and cargo, than bear this child 
 
 away ! " 
 
 " Well answered, worthy captain, shame on their 
 cruel laws ! " 
 
 Ran through the crowd in murmurs loud the peo- 
 ple's just applause.
 
 CASSANDRA SOUTHWICK 73 
 
 " Like the herdsman of Tekoa, in Israel of old, 
 Shall we see the poor and righteous again for sil- 
 ver sold?" 
 
 I looked on haughty Endicott ; with weapon half- 
 way drawn, 
 
 Swept round the throng his lion glare of bitter hate 
 and scorn ; 
 
 Fiercely he drew his bridle-rein, and turned in 
 silence back, 
 
 And sneering priest and baffled clerk rode mur- 
 muring in his track. 
 
 Hard after them the sheriff looked, in bitterness of 
 
 soul; 
 Thrice smote his staff upon the ground, and 
 
 crushed his parchment roll. 
 " Good friends," he said, " since both have fled, 
 
 the ruler and the priest, 
 Judge ye, if from their further work I be not well 
 
 released." 
 
 Loud was the cheer which, full and clear, swept 
 
 round the silent bay, 
 As, with kind words and kinder looks, he bade me 
 
 go my way ; 
 For He who turns the courses of the streamlet of 
 
 the glen, 
 And the river of great waters, had turned the 
 
 hearts of men. 
 
 Oh, at that hour the very earth seemed changed 
 beneath my eye,
 
 74 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 A holier wonder round me rose the blue walls of 
 
 the sky, 
 A lovelier light on rock and hill and stream and 
 
 woodland lay, 
 And softer lapsed on sunnier sands the waters of 
 
 the bay. 
 
 Thanksgiving to the Lord of life ! to Him all 
 praises be, 
 
 Who from the hands of evil men hath set his hand- 
 maid free ; 
 
 All praise to Him before whose power the mighty 
 are afraid, 
 
 Who takes the crafty in the snare which for the 
 poor is laid ! 
 
 Sing, O my soul, rejoicingly, on evening's twilight 
 
 calm 
 
 . Uplift the loud thanksgiving, pour forth the grate- 
 ful psalm ; 
 
 Let all dear hearts with me rejoice, as did the 
 saints of old, 
 
 When of the Lord's good angel the rescued Peter 
 told. 
 
 And weep and howl, ye evil priests and mighty 
 
 men of wrong, 
 The Lord shall smite the proud, and lay His hand 
 
 upon the strong. 
 
 Woe to the wicked rulers in His avenging hour ! 
 Woe to the wolves who seek the flocks to raven 
 
 and devour !
 
 THE NEW WIFE AND THE OLD 75 
 
 But let the humble ones arise, the poor in heart 
 
 be glad, 
 And let the mourning ones again with robes of 
 
 praise be clad. 
 For He who cooled the furnace, and smoothed the 
 
 stormy wave, 
 And tamed the Chaldean lions, is mighty still to 
 
 save ! 
 1843. 
 
 THE NEW WIFE AND THE OLD. 
 
 The following ballad is founded upon one of the marvellous 
 
 legends connected with the famous General M , of Hampton, 
 
 New Hampshire, who was regarded by his neighbors as a Yankee 
 Faust, in league with the adversary. I give the story, as I heard 
 it when a child, from a venerable family visitant. 
 
 DARK the halls, and cold the feast, 
 Gone the bridemaids, gone the priest. 
 All is over, all is done, 
 Twain of yesterday are one ! 
 Blooming girl and manhood gray, 
 Autumn in the arms of May ! 
 
 Hushed within and hushed without, 
 Dancing feet and wrestlers' shout ; 
 Dies the bonfire on the hill ; 
 All is dark and all is still, 
 Save the starlight, save the breeze 
 Moaning through the graveyard trees ; 
 And the great sea-waves below, 
 Pulse of the midnight beating slow.
 
 76 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 From the brief dream of a bride 
 
 She hath wakened, at his side. 
 
 With half -uttered shriek and start, 
 
 Feels she not his beating heart ? 
 
 And the pressure of his arm, 
 
 And his breathing near and warm ? 
 
 Lightly from the bridal bed 
 Springs that fair dishevelled head, 
 And a feeling, new, intense, 
 Half of shame, half innocence, 
 Maiden fear and wonder speaks 
 Through her lips and changing cheeks. 
 
 From the oaken mantel glowing, 
 Faintest light the lamp is throwing 
 On the mirror's antique mould, 
 High-backed chair, and wainscot old, 
 And, through faded curtains stealing, 
 His dark sleeping face revealing. 
 
 Listless lies the strong man there, 
 Silver-streaked his careless hair ; 
 Lips of love have left no trace 
 On that hard and haughty face ; 
 And that forehead's knitted thought 
 Love's soft hand hath not unwrought. 
 
 " Yet," she sighs, " he loves me well, 
 More than these calm lips will tell. 
 Stooping to my lowly state, 
 He hath made me rich and great, 
 And I bless him, though he be 
 Hard and stern to all save me ! "
 
 THE NEW WIFE AND THE OLD 77 
 
 While she speaketh, falls the light 
 O'er her fingers small and white ; 
 Gold and gem, and costly ring 
 Back the timid lustre fling, 
 Love's selectest gifts, and rare, 
 His proud hand had fastened there. 
 
 Gratefully she marks the glow 
 From those tapering lines of snow ; 
 Fondly o'er the sleeper bending 
 His black hair with golden blending, 
 In her soft and light caress, 
 Cheek and lip together press. 
 
 Ha ! that start of horror ! why 
 That wild stare and wilder cry, 
 Full of terror, full of pain ? 
 Is there madness in her brain ? 
 Ha- JL \ that gasping, hoarse and low, 
 " Spare me, spare me, let me go ! " 
 
 God have mercy ! icy cold 
 Spectral hands her own enfold, 
 Drawing silently from them 
 Love's fair gifts of gold and gem. 
 " Waken ! save me ! " still as death 
 At her side he slumbereth. 
 
 Ring and bracelet all are gone, 
 And that ice-cold hand withdrawn ; 
 But she hears a murmur low, 
 Full of sweetness, full of woe, 
 Half a sigh and half a moan : 
 " Fear not ! give the dead her own ! "
 
 78 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 Ah ! the dead wife's voice she knows ! 
 That cold hand whose pressure froze, 
 Once in warmest life had borne 
 Gem and band her own hath worn. 
 " Wake thee ! wake thee ! " Lo, his eyes 
 Open with a dull surprise. 
 
 In his arms the strong man folds her, 
 Closer to his breast he holds her ; 
 Trembling limbs his own are meeting, 
 And he feels her heart's quick beating : 
 " Nay, my dearest, why this fear ? " 
 " Hush ! " she saith, " the dead is here ! " 
 
 "Nay, a dream, an idle dream." 
 But before the lamp's pale gleam 
 Tremblingly her hand she raises. 
 There no more the diamond blazes, 
 Clasp of pearl, or ring of gold, 
 
 " Ah ! " she sighs, " her hand was cold ! " 
 
 Broken words of cheer he saith, 
 
 But his dark lip quivereth, 
 
 And as o'er the past he thinketh, 
 
 From his young wife's arms he shrinketh ; 
 
 Can those soft arms round him lie, 
 
 Underneath his dead wife's eye? 
 
 She her fair young head can rest 
 
 Soothed and childlike on his breast, 
 
 And in trustful innocence 
 
 Draw new strength and courage thence ; 
 
 He, the proud man, feels within 
 
 But the cowardice of sin !
 
 THE BRIDAL OF PENNACOOK 79 
 
 She can murmur in her thought 
 Simple prayers her mother taught, 
 And His blessed angels call, 
 Whose great love is over all ; 
 He, alone, in prayerless pride, 
 Meets the dark Past at her side ! 
 
 One, who living shrank with dread 
 From his look, or word, or tread, 
 Unto whom her early grave 
 Was as freedom to the slave, 
 Moves him at this midnight hour, 
 With the dead's unconscious power ! 
 
 Ah, the dead, the unforgot ! 
 
 From their solemn homes of thought, 
 
 Where the cypress shadows blend 
 
 Darkly over foe and friend, 
 
 Or in love or sad rebuke, 
 
 Back upon the living look. 
 
 And the tenderest ones and weakest, 
 Who their wrongs have borne the meekest. 
 Lifting from those dark, still places, 
 Sweet and sad-remembered faces, 
 O'er the guilty hearts behind 
 An unwitting triumph find. 
 1843. 
 
 THE BRIDAL OF PENNACOOK. 
 
 Winnepurkit, otherwise called George, Sachem of Sangns, mar- 
 ried a daughter of Passaconaway, the great Pennacook chieftain, 
 The wedding took place at Pennacook (now Concord,
 
 80 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 N. H.), and the ceremonies closed with a great feast. According 
 to the usages of the chiefs, Passaconaway ordered a select num- 
 ber of his men to accompany the newly-married couple to the 
 dwelling of the hushand, where in turn there was another great 
 feast. Some time after, the wife of Winnepurkit expressing a de- 
 sire to visit her father's house was permitted to go, accompanied 
 by a brave escort of her husband's chief men. But when she 
 wished to return, her father sent a messenger to Saugus, inform- 
 ing her husband, and asking him to come and take her away. 
 He returned for answer that he had escorted his wife to her fa- 
 ther's house in a style that became a chief, and that now if she 
 wished to return, her father must send her back, in the same way. 
 This Passaconaway refused to do, and it is said that here termi- 
 nated the connection of his daughter with the Saugus chief. 
 Vide MORTON'S New Canaan. 
 
 WE had been wandering for many days 
 
 Through the rough northern country. We had 
 
 seen 
 
 The sunset, with its bars of purple cloud, 
 Like a new heaven, shine upward from the lake 
 Of Winnepiseogee ; and had felt 
 The sunrise breezes, midst the leafy isles 
 Which stoop their summer beauty to the lips 
 Of the bright waters. We had checked our steeds, 
 Silent with wonder, where the mountain wall 
 Is piled to heaven ; and, through the narrow rift 
 Of the vast rocks, against whose rugged feet 
 Beats the mad torrent with perpetual roar, 
 Where noonday is as twilight, and the wind 
 Comes burdened with the everlasting moan 
 Of forests and of far-off waterfalls, 
 We had looked upward where the summer sky, 
 Tasselled with clouds light-woven by the sun, 
 Sprung its blue arch above the abutting crags 
 O'er-roofing the vast portal of the land 
 Beyond the wall of mountains. We had passed
 
 THE BRIDAL OF PENNACOOK 81 
 
 The high source of the Saco ; and bewildered 
 In the dwarf spruce-belts of the Crystal Hills, 
 Had heard above us, like a voice in the cloud, 
 The horn of Fabyan sounding ; and atop 
 Of old Agioochook had seen the mountains' 
 Piled to the northward, shagged with wood, and 
 
 thick 
 
 As meadow mole-hills, the far sea of Casco, 
 A white gleam on the horizon of the east ; 
 Fair lakes, embosomed in the woods and hills ; 
 Moosehi Hock's mountain range, and Kearsarge 
 Lifting his granite forehead to the sun ! 
 
 And we had rested underneath the oaks 
 Shadowing the bank, whose grassy spires are 
 
 shaken 
 
 By the perpetual beating of the falls 
 Of the wild Ammonoosuc. We had tracked 
 The winding Pemigewasset, overhung 
 By beechen shadows, whitening down its rocks, 
 Or lazily gliding through its intervals, 
 From waving rye-fields sending up the gleam 
 Of sunlit waters. We had seen the moon 
 Rising behind Umbagog's eastern pines, 
 Like a great Indian camp-fire ; and its beams 
 At midnight spanning with a bridge of silver 
 The Merrimac by Uncanoonuc's falls. 
 
 There were five souls of us whom travel's chance 
 Had thrown together in these wild north hills : 
 A city lawyer, for a month escaping 
 From his dull office, where the weary eye 
 Saw only hot brick walls and close thronged 
 streets ; 
 
 VOL. I. 6
 
 82 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 Briefless as yet, but with an eye to see 
 
 Life's sunniest side, and with a heart to take 
 
 Its chances all as godsends ; and his brother, 
 
 Pale from long pulpit studies, yet retaining 
 
 The warmth and freshness of a genial heart, 
 
 Whose mirror of the beautiful and true, 
 
 In Man and Nature, was as yet undimmed 
 
 By dust of theologic strife, or breath 
 
 Of sect, or cobwebs of scholastic lore ; 
 
 Like a clear crystal calm of water, taking 
 
 The hue and image of o'erleaning flowers, 
 
 Sweet human faces, white clouds of the noon, 
 
 Slant starlight glimpses through the dewy leaves, 
 
 And tenderest moonrise. 'T was, in truth, a study, 
 
 To mark his spirit, alternating between 
 
 A decent and professional gravity 
 
 And an irreverent mirthfulness, which often 
 
 Laughed in the face of his divinity, 
 
 Plucked off the sacred ephod, quite unshrined 
 
 The oracle, and for the pattern priest 
 
 Left us the man. A shrewd, sagacious merchant, 
 
 To whom the soiled sheet found in Crawford's inn, 
 
 Giving the latest news of city stocks 
 
 And sales of cotton, had a deeper meaning 
 
 Than the great presence of the awful mountains 
 
 Glorified by the sunset ; and his daughter, 
 
 A delicate flower on whom had blown too long 
 
 Those evil winds, which, sweeping from the ice 
 
 And winnowing the fogs of Labrador, 
 
 Shed their cold blight round Massachusetts Bay, 
 
 With the same breath which stirs Spring's opening 
 
 And lifts her half-formed flower-bell on its stem, 
 Poisoning our seaside atmosphere.
 
 THE BRIDAL OF PEN N A CO OK 83 
 
 It chanced 
 
 That as we turned upon our homeward way, 
 A drear northeastern storm came howling up 
 The valley of the Saco ; and that girl 
 Who had stood with us upon Mount Washington, 
 Her brown locks ruffled by the wind which whirled 
 In gusts around its sharp, cold pinnacle, 
 Who had joined our gay trout-fishing in the streams 
 Which lave that giant's feet; whose laugh was 
 
 heard 
 
 Like a bird's carol on the sunrise breeze 
 Which swelled our sail amidst the lake's green 
 
 islands, 
 Shrank from its harsh, chill breath, and visibly 
 
 drooped 
 
 Like a flower in the frost. So, in that quiet inn 
 Which looks from Con way on the mountains piled 
 Heavily against the horizon of the north, 
 Like summer thunder-clouds, we made our home : 
 And while the mist hung over dripping hills, 
 And the cold wind-driven rain-drops all day long 
 Beat their sad music upon roof and pane, 
 We strove to cheer our gentle invalid. 
 
 The lawyer in the pauses of the storm 
 
 W^ent angling down the Saco, and, returning, 
 
 Recounted his adventures and mishaps ; 
 
 Gave us the history of his scaly clients, 
 
 Mingling with ludicrous yet apt citations 
 
 Of barbarous law Latin, passages 
 
 From Izaak Walton's Angler, sweet and fresh 
 
 As the flower-skirted streams of Staffordshire, 
 
 Where, under aged trees, the southwest wind 
 
 Of soft June mornings fanned the thin, white hair
 
 84 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 Of the sage fisher. And, if truth be told, 
 
 Our youthful candidate forsook his sermons, 
 
 His commentaries, articles and creeds, 
 
 For the fair page of human loveliness, 
 
 The missal of young hearts, whose sacred text 
 
 Is music, its illumining, sweet smiles. 
 
 He sang the songs she loved ; and in his low, 
 
 Deep, earnest voice, recited many a page 
 
 Of poetry, the holiest, tenderest lines 
 
 Of the sad bard of Olney, the sweet songs, 
 
 Simple and beautiful as Truth and Nature, 
 
 Of him whose whitened locks on Rydal Mount 
 
 Are lifted yet by morning breezes blowing 
 
 From the green hills, immortal in his lays. 
 
 And for myself, obedient to her wish, 
 
 I searched our landlord's proffered library, 
 
 A well-thumbed Bunyan, with its nice wood pictures 
 
 Of scaly fiends and angels not unlike them ; 
 
 Watts' unmelodious psalms ; Astrology's 
 
 Last home, a musty pile of almanacs, 
 
 And an old chronicle of border wars 
 
 And Indian history. And, as I read 
 
 A story of the marriage of the Chief 
 
 Of Saugus to the dusky Weetamoo, 
 
 Daughter of Passaconaway, who dwelt 
 
 In the old time upon the Merrimac, 
 
 Our fair one, in the playful exercise 
 
 Of her prerogative, the right divine 
 
 Of youth and beauty, bade us versify 
 
 The legend, and with ready pencil sketched 
 
 Its plan and outlines, laughingly assigning 
 
 To each his part, and barring our excuses 
 
 With absolute will. So, like the cavaliers 
 
 Whose voices still are heard in the Romance
 
 THE BRIDAL OF PENNACOOK 85 
 
 Of silver-tongued Boccaccio, on the banks 
 Of Arno, with soft tales of love beguiling 
 The ear of languid beauty, plague-exiled 
 From stately Florence, we rehearsed our rhymes 
 To their fair auditor, and shared by turns 
 Her kind approval and her playful censure. 
 
 It may be that these fragments owe alone 
 To the fair setting of their circumstances, 
 The associations of time, scene, and audience, 
 Their place amid the pictures which fill up 
 The chambers of my memory. Yet I trust 
 That some, who sigh, while wandering in thought, 
 Pilgrims of Romance o'er the olden world, 
 That our broad land, our sea-like lakes and moun- 
 tains 
 
 Piled to the clouds, our rivers overhung 
 By forests which have known no other change 
 For ages than the budding and the fall 
 Of leaves, our valleys lovelier than those 
 Which the old poets sang of, should but figure 
 On the apocryphal chart of speculation 
 As pastures, wood-lots, mill-sites, with the privileges, 
 Rights, and appurtenances, which make up 
 A Yankee Paradise, unsung, unknown, 
 To beautiful tradition ; even their names, 
 Whose melody yet lingers like the last 
 Vibration of the red man's requiem, 
 Exchanged for syllables significant, 
 Of cotton-mill and rail-car, will look kindly 
 Upon this effort to call up the ghost 
 Of our dim Past, and listen with pleased ear 
 To the responses of the questioned Shade.
 
 86 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 I. THE MERRIMAC. 
 
 O child of that white-crested mountain whose 
 
 springs 
 Gush forth in the shade of the cliff - eagle's 
 
 wings, 
 Down whose slopes to the lowlands thy wild waters 
 
 shine, 
 Leaping gray walls of rock, flashing through the 
 
 dwarf pine ; 
 
 From that cloud-curtained cradle so cold and so 
 
 lone, 
 From the arms of that wintry-locked mother of 
 
 stone, 
 By hills hung with forests, through vales wide and 
 
 free, 
 Thy mountain-born brightness glanced down to the 
 
 sea! 
 
 No bridge arched thy waters save that where the 
 
 trees 
 Stretched their long arms above thee and kissed in 
 
 the breeze : 
 No sound save the lapse of the waves on thy 
 
 shores, 
 The plunging of otters, the light dip of oars. 
 
 Green-tufted, oak-shaded, by Amoskeag's fall 
 Thy twin Uncanoonucs rose stately and tall, 
 Thy Nashua meadows lay green and unshorn, 
 And the hills of Pentucket were tasselled with 
 corn.
 
 THE BRIDAL OF PENNACOOK 87 
 
 But thy Pennacook valley was faii'er than these, 
 And greener its grasses and taller its trees, 
 Ere the sound of an axe in the forest had rung, 
 Or the mower his scythe in the meadows had 
 swung. 
 
 In their sheltered repose looking out from the 
 
 wood 
 
 The bark-builded wigwams of Pennacook stood ; 
 There glided the corn-dance, the council-fire shone, 
 And against the red war-post the hatchet was 
 
 thrown. 
 
 There the old smoked in silence their pipes, and 
 
 the young 
 To the pike and the white-perch their baited lines 
 
 flung ; 
 There the boy shaped his arrows, and there the 
 
 shy maid 
 Wove her many-hued baskets and bright wampum 
 
 braid. 
 
 O Stream of the Mountains ! if answer of thine 
 Could rise from thy waters to question of mine, 
 Methinks through the din of thy thronged banks 
 
 a moan 
 Of sorrow would swell for the days which have 
 
 gone. 
 
 Not for thee the dull jar of the loom and the wheel, 
 The gliding of shuttles, the ringing of steel ; 
 But that old voice of waters, of bird and of breeze, 
 The dip of the wild-fowl, the rustling of trees !
 
 88 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 II. THE BASHABA. 2 
 
 Lift we the twilight curtains of the Past, 
 
 And, turning from familiar sight and sound, 
 Sadly and full of reverence let us cast 
 
 A glance upon Tradition's shadowy ground, 
 Led by the few pale lights which, glimmering round 
 That dim, strange land of Eld, seem dying fast ; 
 And that which history gives not to the eye, 
 The faded coloring of Time's tapestry, 
 Let Fancy, with her dream-dipped brush, supply. 
 
 Roof of bark and walls of pine, 
 
 Through whose chinks the sunbeams shine, 
 
 Tracing many a golden line 
 
 On the ample floor within ; 
 Where, upon that earth-floor stark, 
 Lay the gaudy mats of bark, 
 With the bear's hide, rough and dark, 
 
 And the red-deer's skin. 
 
 Window-tracery, small and slight, 
 Woven of the willow white, 
 Lent a dimly checkered light ; 
 
 And the night-stars glimmered down, 
 Where the lodge-fire's heavy smoke, 
 Slowly through an opening broke, 
 In the low roof, ribbed with oak, 
 
 Sheathed with hemlock brown. 
 
 Gloomed behind the changeless shade 
 By the solemn pine-wood made ; 
 Through the rugged palisade, 
 In the open foreground planted,
 
 THE BRIDAL OF PENNACOOK 89 
 
 Glimpses came of rowers rowing, 
 Stir of leaves and wild-flowers blowing, 
 Steel-like gleams of water flowing, 
 In the sunlight slanted. 
 
 Here the mighty Bash aba 
 
 Held his long-unquestioned sway, 
 
 From the White Hills, far away, 
 
 To the great sea's sounding shore ; 
 Chief of chiefs, his regal word 
 All the river Sachems heard, 
 At his call the war-dance stirred, 
 
 Or was still once more. 
 
 There his spoils of chase and war, 
 Jaw of wolf and black bear's paw, 
 Panther's skin and eagle's claw, 
 
 Lay beside his axe and bow ; 
 And, adown the roof-pole hung, 
 Loosely on a snake-skin strung, 
 In the smoke his scalp-locks swung 
 
 Grimly to and fro. 
 
 Nightly down the river going, 
 Swifter was the hunter's rowing, 
 When he saw that lodge-fire glowing 
 
 O'er the waters still and red ; 
 And the squaw's dark eye burned brighter, 
 And she drew her blanket tighter, 
 As, with quicker step and lighter, 
 From that door she fled. 
 
 For that chief had magic skill, 
 And a Panisee's dark will,
 
 90 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 Over powers of good and ill, 
 
 Powers which bless and powers which ban ; 
 Wizard lord of Pennacook, 
 Chiefs upon their war-path shook, 
 When they met the steady look 
 
 Of that wise dark man. 
 
 Tales of him the gray squaw told, 
 When the winter night- wind cold 
 Pierced her blanket's thickest fold, 
 
 And her fire burned low and small, 
 Till the very child abed, 
 Drew its bear-skin over head, 
 Shrinking from the pale lights shed 
 
 On the trembling wall. 
 
 All the subtle spirits hiding 
 Under earth or wave, abiding 
 In the caverned rock, or riding 
 
 Misty clouds or morning breeze ; 
 Every dark intelligence, 
 Secret soul, and influence 
 Of all things which outward sense 
 
 Feels, or hears, or sees, 
 
 These the wizard's skill confessed, 
 At his bidding banned or blessed, 
 Stormful woke or lulled to rest 
 
 Wind and cloud, and fire and flood ; 
 Burned for him the drifted snow, 
 Bade through ice fresh lilies blow, 
 And the leaves of summer grow 
 
 Over winter's wood !
 
 THE BRIDAL OF PENNACOOK 91 
 
 Not untrue that tale of old ! 
 Now, as then, the wise and bold 
 All the powers of Nature hold 
 
 Subject to their kingly will; 
 From the wondering crowds ashore, 
 Treading life's wild waters o'er, 
 As upon a marble floor, 
 
 Moves the strong man still. 
 
 Still, to such, life's elements 
 With their sterner laws dispense, 
 And the chain of consequence 
 
 Broken in their pathway lies ; 
 Time and change their vassals making, 
 Flowers from icy pillows waking, 
 Tresses of the sunrise shaking 
 
 Over midnight skies. 
 
 Still, to th' earnest soul, the sun 
 Rests on towered Gibeon, 
 And the moon of Ajalon 
 
 Lights the battle-grounds of life ; 
 To his aid the strong reverses 
 Hidden powers and giant forces, 
 And the high stars, in their courses, 
 
 Mingle in his strife ! 
 
 III. THE DAUGHTER. 
 
 The soot-black brows of men, the yell 
 Of women thronging round the bed, 
 
 The tinkling charm of ring and shell, 
 The Powah whispering o'er the dead !
 
 92 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 All these the Sachem's home had known, 
 
 When, on her journey long and wild 
 To the dim World of Souls, alone, 
 In her young beauty passed the mother of his child. 
 
 Three bow-shots from the Sachem's dwelling 
 
 They laid her in the walnut shade, 
 Where a green hillock gently swelling 
 
 Her fitting mound of burial made. 
 There trailed the vine in summer hours, 
 
 The tree-perched squirrel dropped his shell, 
 On velvet moss and pale-hued flowers, 
 Woven with leaf and spray, the softened sunshine 
 fell! 
 
 The Indian's heart is hard and cold, 
 
 It closes darkly o'er its care, 
 And formed in Nature's sternest mould, 
 
 Is slow to feel, and strong to bear. 
 The war-paint on the Sachem's face, 
 
 Unwet with tears, shone fierce and red, 
 And still, in battle or in chase, 
 Dry leaf and snow-rime crisped beneath his fore- 
 most tread. 
 
 Yet when her name was heard no more, 
 And when the robe her mother gave, 
 
 And small, light moccasin she wore, 
 Had slowly wasted on her grave, 
 
 Unmarked of him the dark maids sped 
 Their sunset dance and moonlit play ; 
 
 No other shared his lonely bed, 
 No other fair young head upon his bosom lay.
 
 THE BRIDAL OF PENNACOOK 98 
 
 A lone, stern man. Yet, as sometimes 
 
 The tempest-smitten tree receives 
 From one small root the sap which climbs 
 Its topmost spray and crowning leaves, 
 So from his child the Sachem drew 
 
 A life of Love and Hope, and felt 
 His cold and rugged nature through 
 The softness and the warmth of her young being 
 melt. 
 
 A laugh which in the woodland rang 
 
 Bemocking April's gladdest bird, 
 A light and graceful form which sprang 
 
 To meet him when his step was heard, 
 Eyes by his lodge-fire flashing dark, 
 
 Small fingers stringing bead and shell 
 Or weaving mats of bright-hued bark, 
 With these the household-god 3 had graced his wig- 
 wam well. 
 
 Child of the forest ! strong and free, 
 
 Slight-robed, with loosely flowing hair, 
 She swam the lake or climbed the tree, 
 
 Or struck the flying bird in air. 
 O'er the heaped drifts of winter's moon 
 
 Her snow-shoes tracked the hunter's way ; 
 And dazzling in the summer noon 
 The blade of her light oar threw off its shower of 
 spray ! 
 
 Unknown to her the rigid rule, 
 
 The dull restraint, the chiding frown, 
 
 The weary torture of the school, 
 The taming of wild nature down.
 
 94 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 Her only lore, the legends told 
 
 Around the hunter's fire at night ; 
 Stars rose and set, and seasons rolled, 
 Flowers bloomed and snow-flakes fell, unquestioned 
 in her sight. 
 
 Unknown to her the subtle skill 
 
 With which the artist-eye can trace 
 
 In rock and tree and lake and hill 
 The outlines of divinest grace ; 
 
 Unknown the fine soul's keen unrest, 
 Which sees, admires, yet yearns alway ; 
 
 Too closely on her mother's breast 
 To note her smiles of love the child of Nature lay ! 
 
 It is enough for such to be 
 
 Of common, natural things a part, 
 To feel, with bird and stream and tree, 
 The pulses of the same great heart ; 
 But we, from Nature long exiled, 
 
 In our cold homes of Art and Thought 
 Grieve like the stranger-tended child, 
 Which seeks its mother's arms, and sees but feels 
 them not. 
 
 The garden rose may richly bloom 
 
 In cultured soil and genial air, 
 To cloud the light of Fashion's room 
 
 Or droop in Beauty's midnight hair ; 
 In lonelier grace, to sun and dew 
 
 The sweetbrier on the hillside shows 
 Its single leaf and fainter hue, 
 Untrained and wildly free, yet still a sister rose !
 
 THE BRIDAL OF PENNACOOK 95 
 
 Thus o'er the heart of Weetamoo 
 Their mingling- shades of joy and ill 
 
 The instincts of her nature threw ; 
 The savage was a woman still. 
 
 Midst outlines dim of maiden schemes, 
 Heart-colored prophecies of life, 
 
 Rose on the ground of her young dreams 
 The light of a new home, the lover and the wife. 
 
 IV. THE WEDDING. 
 
 Cool and dark fell the autumn night, 
 But the Bashaba's wigwam glowed with light, 
 For down from its roof, by green withes hung, 
 Flaring and smoking the pine-knots swung. 
 
 And along the river great wood-fires 
 Shot into the night their long, red spires, 
 Showing behind the tall, dark wood, 
 Flashing before on the sweeping flood. 
 
 In the changeful wind, with shimmer and shade, 
 Now high, now low, that firelight played, 
 On tree-leaves wet with evening dews, 
 On gliding water and still canoes. 
 
 The trapper that night on Turee's brook, 
 And the weary fisher on Contoocook, 
 Saw over the marshes, and through the pine, 
 And down on the river, the dance-lights shine. 
 
 For the Saugus Sachem had come to woo 
 The Bashaba's daughter Weetamoo,
 
 96 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 And laid at her father's feet that night 
 His softest furs and wampum white. 
 
 From the Crystal Hills to the far southeast 
 The river Sagamores came to the feast ; 
 And chiefs whose homes the sea-winds shook 
 Sat down on the mats of Pennacook. 
 
 They came from Sunapee's shore of rock, 
 From the snowy sources of Snooganock, 
 And from rough Coos whose thick woods shake 
 Their pine-cones in Umbagog Lake. 
 
 From Ammonoosuc's mountain pass, 
 Wild as his home, came Chepewass ; 
 And the Keenomps of the hills which throw 
 Their shade on the Smile of Manito. 
 
 With pipes of peace and bows unstrung, 
 Glowing with paint came old and young, 
 In wampum and furs and feathers arrayed, 
 To the dance and feast the Bashaba made. 
 
 Bird of the air and beast of the field, 
 All which the woods and the waters yield, 
 On dishes of birch and hemlock piled, 
 Garnished and graced that banquet wild. 
 
 Steaks of the brown bear fat and large 
 From the rocky slopes of the Kearsarge ; 
 Delicate trout from Babboosuck brook, 
 And salmon speared in the Contoocook ;
 
 THE BRIDAL OF PENNACOOK 97 
 
 Squirrels which fed where nuts fell thick 
 In the gravelly bed of the Otternic ; 
 And small wild-hens in reed-snares caught 
 From the banks of Sondagardee brought ; 
 
 Pike and perch from the Suncook taken, 
 Nuts from the trees of the Black Hills shaken, 
 Cranberries picked in the Squamscot bog, 
 And grapes from the vines of Piscataquog : 
 
 And, drawn from that great stone vase which 
 
 stands 
 
 In the river scooped by a spirit's hands, 4 
 Garnished with spoons of shell and horn, 
 Stood the birchen dishes of smoking corn. 
 
 Thus bird of the air and beast of the field, 
 All which the woods and the waters yield, 
 Furnished in that olden day 
 The bridal feast of the Bashaba. 
 
 And merrily when that feast was done 
 On the fire-lit green the dance begun, 
 With squaws' shrill stave, and deeper hum 
 Of old men beating the Indian drum. 
 
 Painted and plumed, with scalp-locks flowing, 
 And red arms tossing and black eyes glowing, 
 Now in the light and now in the shade 
 Around the fires the dancers played. 
 
 The step was quicker, the song more shrill, 
 And the beat of the small drums louder still
 
 98 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 Whenever within the circle drew 
 The Saugiis Sachem and Weetarnoo. 
 
 The moons of forty winters had shed 
 Their snow upon that chieftain's head, 
 And toil and care and battle's chance 
 Had seamed his hard, dark countenance. 
 
 A fawn beside the bison grim, 
 Why turns the bride's fond eye on him, 
 In whose cold look is naught beside 
 The triumph of a sullen pride ? 
 
 Ask why the graceful grape entwines 
 The rough oak with her arm of vines ; 
 And why the gray rock's rugged cheek 
 The soft lips of the mosses seek : 
 
 Why, with wise instinct, Nature seems 
 To harmonize her wide extremes, 
 Linking the stronger with the weak, 
 The haughty with the soft and meek ! 
 
 V. THE NEW HOME. 
 
 A wild and broken landscape, spiked with firs, 
 
 Roughening the bleak horizon's northern edge ; 
 Steep, cavernous hillsides, where black hemlock 
 
 spurs 
 And sharp, gray splinters of the wind-swept 
 
 ledge 
 
 Pierced the thin-glazed ice, or bristling rose, 
 Where the cold rim of the sky sunk down upon 
 the snows.
 
 THE BRIDAL OF PENNACOOK 99 
 
 And eastward cold, wide marshes stretched away, 
 Dull, dreary flats without a bush or tree, 
 
 O'er-crossed by icy creeks, where twice a day 
 Gurgled the waters of the moon-struck sea ; 
 
 And faint with distance came the stifled roar, 
 
 The melancholy lapse of waves on that low shore. 
 
 No cheerful village with its mingling smokes, 
 No laugh of children wrestling in the snow, 
 
 No camp-fire blazing through the hillside oaks, 
 No fishers kneeling on the ice below ; 
 
 Yet midst all desolate things of sound and view, 
 
 Through the long winter moons smiled dark-eyed 
 Weetamoo. 
 
 Her heart had found a home ; and freshly all 
 
 Its beautiful affections overgrew 
 Their rugged prop. As o'er some granite wall 
 
 Soft vine-leaves open to the moistening dew 
 And warm bright sun, the love of that young wife 
 Found on a hard cold breast the dew and warmth 
 of life. 
 
 The steep, bleak hills, the melancholy shore, 
 The long, dead level of the marsh between, 
 
 A coloring of unreal beauty wore 
 
 Through the soft golden mist of young love seen. 
 
 For o'er those hills and from that dreary plain, 
 
 Nightly she welcomed home her hunter chief again. 
 
 No warmth of heart, no passionate burst of feeling, 
 Repaid her welcoming smile and parting kiss, 
 
 No fond and playful dalliance half concealing, 
 Under the guise of mirth, its tenderness ;
 
 100 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 But, in their stead, the warrior's settled pride, 
 And vanity's pleased smile with homage satisfied. 
 
 Enough for Weetamoo, that she alone 
 
 Sat on his mat and slumbered at his side ; 
 
 That he whose fame to her young ear had flown 
 Now looked upon her proudly as his bride ; 
 
 That he whose name the Mohawk trembling heard 
 
 Vouchsafed to her at times a kindly look or word. 
 
 For she had learned the maxims of her race, 
 Which teach the woman to become a slave, 
 
 And feel herself the pardonless disgrace 
 
 Of love's fond weakness in the wise and brave, 
 
 The scandal and the shame which they incur, 
 
 Who give to woman all which man requires of her. 
 
 So passed the winter moons. The sun at last 
 Broke link by link the frost chain of the rills, 
 
 And the warm breathings of the southwest passed 
 Over the hoar rime of the Saugus hills ; 
 
 The gray and desolate marsh grew green once more, 
 
 And the birch-tree's tremulous shade fell round the 
 Sachem's door. 
 
 Then from far Pennacook swift runners came, 
 With gift and greeting for the Saugus chief ; 
 
 Beseeching him in the great Sachem's name, 
 That, with the coming of the flower and leaf, 
 
 The song of birds, the warm breeze and the rain, 
 
 Young Weetamoo might greet her lonely sire again. 
 
 And Winnepurkit called his chiefs together, 
 And a grave council in his wigwam met,
 
 THE BRIDAL OF PEN N A COOK 101 
 
 Solemn and brief in words, considering whether 
 
 The rigid rules of forest etiquette 
 Permitted Weetamoo once more to look 
 Upon her father's face and green-banked Penna- 
 cook. 
 
 With interludes of pipe-smoke and strong water, 
 The forest sages pondered, and at length, 
 
 Concluded in a body to escort her 
 
 Up to her father's home of pride and strength, 
 
 Impressing thus on Pennacook a sense 
 
 Of Winnepurkit's power and regal consequence. 
 
 So through old woods which Aukeetaniit's 5 hand, 
 A soft and many-shaded greenness lent, 
 
 Over high breezy hills, and meadow land 
 
 Yellow with flowers, the wild procession went, 
 
 Till, rolling down its wooded banks between, 
 
 A broad, clear, mountain stream, the Merrimac 
 was seen. 
 
 The hunter leaning on his bow undrawn, 
 The fisher lounging on the pebbled shores, 
 
 Squaws in the clearing dropping the seed-corn, 
 Young children peering through the wigwam 
 doors, 
 
 Saw with delight, surrounded by her train 
 
 Of painted Saugus braves, their Weetamoo again. 
 
 VI. AT PESTNACOOK. 
 
 The hills are dearest which our childish feet 
 Have climbed the earliest ; and the streams most 
 sweet
 
 102 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 Are ever those at which our young lips drank, 
 Stooped to their waters o'er the grassy bank. 
 
 Midst the cold dreary sea-watch, Home's hearth- 
 light 
 
 Shines round the helmsman plunging through the 
 night ; 
 
 And still, with inward eye, the traveller sees 
 
 In close, dark, stranger streets his native trees. 
 
 The home-sick dreamer's brow is nightly fanned 
 By breezes whispering of his native land, 
 And on the stranger's dim and dying eye 
 The soft, sweet pictures of his childhood lie. 
 
 Joy then for Weetamoo, to sit once more 
 A child upon her father's wigwam floor ! 
 Once more with her old fondness to beguile 
 From his cold eye the strange light of a smile. 
 
 The long, bright days of summer swiftly passed, 
 The dry leaves whirled in autumn's rising blast, 
 And evening cloud and whitening sunrise rime 
 Told of the coming of the winter-time. 
 
 But vainly looked, the while, young Weetamoo, 
 Down the dark river for her chief's canoe ; 
 No dusky messenger from Saugus brought 
 The grateful tidings which the young wife sought. 
 
 At length a runner from her father sent, 
 To Winnepurkit's sea-cooled wigwam went : 
 " Eagle of Saugus, in the woods the dove 
 Mourns for the shelter of thy wings of love."
 
 THE BRIDAL OF PENNACOOK 103 
 
 But the dark chief of Sangus turned aside 
 In the grim anger of hard-hearted pride ; 
 " I bore her as became a chieftain's daughter, 
 Up to her home beside the gliding water. 
 
 " If now no more a mat for her is found 
 Of all which line her father's wigwam round, 
 Let Pennacook call out his warrior train, 
 And send her back with wampum gifts again." 
 
 The baffled runner turned upon his track, 
 Bearing the words of Winnepurkit back. 
 " Dog of the Marsh," cried Pennacook, " no more 
 Shall child of mine sit on his wigwam floor. 
 
 " Go, let him seek some meaner squaw to spread 
 The stolen bear-skin of his beggar's bed ; 
 Son of a fish-hawk ! let him dig his clams 
 For some vile daughter of the Agawams, 
 
 " Or coward Nipmucks ! may his scalp dry black 
 
 In Mohawk smoke, before I send her back." 
 
 He shook his clenched hand towards the ocean 
 
 wave, 
 While hoarse assent his listening council gave. 
 
 Alas poor bride ! can thy grim sire impart 
 His iron hardness to thy woman's heart ? 
 Or cold self-torturing pride like his atone 
 For love denied and life's warm beauty flown ? 
 
 On Autumn's gray and mournful grave the snow 
 Hung its white wreaths ; with stifled voice and low
 
 104 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 The river crept, by one vast bridge o'er-crossed, 
 Built by the hoar-locked artisan of Frost. 
 
 And many a moon in beauty newly born 
 Pierced the red sunset with her silver horn, 
 Or, from the east, across her azure field 
 Rolled the wide brightness of her full-orbed shield. 
 
 Yet Winnepurkit came not, on the mat 
 Of the scorned wife her dusky rival sat ; 
 And he, the while, in Western woods afar, 
 Urged the long chase, or trod the path of war. 
 
 Dry up thy tears, young daughter of a chief ! 
 Waste not on him the sacredness of grief ; 
 Be the fierce spirit of thy sire thine own, 
 His lips of scorning, and his heart of stone. 
 
 What heeds the warrior of a hundred fights, 
 
 The storm-worn watcher through long hunting 
 
 nights, 
 
 Cold, crafty, proud of woman's weak distress, 
 Her home-bound grief and pining loneliness ? 
 
 VII. THE DEPARTURE. 
 
 The wild March rains had fallen fast and long 
 The snowy mountains of the North among, 
 Making each vale a watercourse, each hill 
 Bright with the cascade of some new-made rill. 
 
 Gnawed by the sunbeams, softened by the rain, 
 Heaved underneath by the swollen current's strain,
 
 Too early voyager with too frail an oar
 
 THE BRIDAL OF PENNACOOK 105 
 
 The ice-bridge yielded, and the Merrimac 
 Bore the huge ruin crashing down its track. 
 
 On that strong turbid water, a small boat 
 Guided by one weak hand was seen to float ; 
 Evil the fate which loosed it from the shore, 
 Too early voyager with too frail an oar ! 
 
 Down the vexed centre of that rushing tide, 
 The thick huge ice-blocks threatening either side, 
 The foam-white rocks of Amoskeag in view, 
 With arrowy swiftness sped that light canoe. 
 
 The trapper, moistening his moose's meat 
 
 On the wet bank by Uncanoonuc's feet, 
 
 Saw the swift boat flash down the troubled stream ; 
 
 Slept he, or waked he ? was it truth or dream ? 
 
 The straining eye bent fearfully before, 
 The small hand clenching on the useless oar, 
 The bead-wrought blanket trailing o'er the water 
 He knew them all woe for the Sachem's daugh- 
 ter! 
 
 Sick and aweary of her lonely life, 
 Heedless of peril, the still faithful wife 
 Had left her mother's grave, her father's door, 
 To seek the wigwam of her chief once more. 
 
 Down the white rapids like a sear leaf whirled, 
 On the sharp rocks and piled-up ices hurled, 
 Empty and broken, circled the canoe 
 In the vexed pool below but where was Wee- 
 tamoo ?
 
 106 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 VIII. SONG OF INDIAN WOMEN. 
 The Dark eye has left us, 
 
 The Spring-bird has flown ; 
 On the pathway of spirits 
 
 She wanders alone. 
 
 The song of the wood-dove has died on our shore : 
 Mat wonck kunna-monee ! 6 We hear it no more ! 
 
 O dark water Spirit ! 
 
 We cast on thy wave 
 These furs which may never 
 
 Hang over her grave ; 
 
 Bear down to the lost one the robes that she wore : 
 Mat wonck kunna-monee ! We see her no more ! 
 
 Of the strange land she walks in 
 
 No Powah has told : 
 It may burn with the sunshine, 
 
 Or freeze with the cold. 
 
 Let us give to our lost one the robes that she wore : 
 Mat wonck kunna-monee ! We see her no more ! 
 
 The path she is treading 
 
 Shall soon be our own ; 
 Each gliding in shadow 
 
 Unseen and alone ! 
 
 In vain shall we call on the souls gone before : 
 Mat wonck kunna-monee ! They hear us no more ! 
 
 O mighty Sowanna ! 7 
 
 Thy gateways unfold, 
 From thy wigwam of sunset 
 
 Lift curtains of gold !
 
 BARCLAY OF URY 107 
 
 Take home the poor Spirit whose journey is o'er : 
 Mat wonck kunna-monee! We see her no more ! 
 
 So sang the Children of the Leaves beside 
 The broad, dark river's coldly flowing tide ; 
 Now low, now harsh, with sob-like pause and swell, 
 On the high wind their voices rose and fell. 
 Nature's wild music, sounds of wind-swept trees, 
 The scream of birds, the wailing of the breeze, 
 The roar of waters, steady, deep, and strong, 
 Mingled and murmured in that farewell song. 
 1844. 
 
 BARCLAY OF URY. 
 
 Among the earliest converts to the doctrines of Friends in Scot- 
 laud was Barclay of Ury, an old and distinguished soldier, who 
 had fought under Gustavus Adolphus, in Germany. As a Qua- 
 ker, he became the object of persecution and abuse at the hands 
 of the magistrates and the populace. None bore the indignities 
 of the mob with greater patience and nobleness of soul than this 
 once proud gentleman and soldier. One of his friends, on an oc- 
 casion of uncommon rudeness, lamented that he should be treated 
 so harshly in his old age who had been so honored before. " I 
 find more satisfaction," said Barclay, "as well as honor, in being 
 thus insulted for my religious principles, than when, a few years 
 ago, it was usual for the magistrates, as I passed the city of Ab- 
 erdeen, to meet me on the road and conduct me to public enter- 
 tainment in their hall, and then escort me out again, to gain my 
 favor." 
 
 UP the streets of Aberdeen, 
 By the kirk and college green, 
 
 Rode the Laird of Ury ; 
 Close behind him, close beside, 
 Foul of mouth and evil-eyed, 
 
 Pressed the mob in fury.
 
 108 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 Flouted him the drunken churl, 
 Jeered at him the serving-girl, 
 
 Prompt to please her master ; 
 And the begging carlin, late 
 Fed and clothed at Ury's gate, 
 
 Cursed him as he passed her. 
 
 Yet, with calm and stately mien, 
 Up the streets of Aberdeen 
 
 Came he slowly riding ; 
 And, to all he saw and heard, 
 Answering not with bitter word, 
 
 Turning not for chiding. 
 
 Came a troop with broadswords swinging, 
 Bits and bridles sharply ringing, 
 
 Loose and free and f reward ; 
 Quoth the foremost, " Ride him down ! 
 Push him ! prick him ! through the town 
 
 Drive the Quaker coward ! " 
 
 But from out the thickening crowd 
 Cried a sudden voice and loud : 
 
 " Barclay ! Ho ! a Barclay! " 
 And the old man at his side 
 Saw a comrade, battle tried, 
 
 Scarred and sunburned darkly ; 
 
 "Who with ready weapon bare, 
 Fronting to the troopers there, 
 
 Cried aloud : " God save us, 
 Call ye coward him who stood 
 Ankle deep in Liitzen's blood, 
 
 With the brave Gustavus ? "
 
 BARCLAY OF URY 109 
 
 " Nay, I do not need thy sword, 
 Comrade mine," said Ury's lord; 
 
 " Put it up, I pray thee : 
 Passive to His holy will, 
 Trust I in my Master still, 
 
 Even though He slay me. 
 
 " Pledges of thy love and faith, 
 Proved on many a field of death, 
 
 Not by me are needed." 
 Marvelled much that henchman bold, 
 That his laird, so stout of old, 
 
 Now so meekly pleaded. 
 
 " Woe 's the day ! " he sadly said, 
 With a slowly shaking head, 
 
 And a look of pity ; 
 " Ury's honest lord reviled, 
 Mock of knave and sport of child, 
 In his own good city ! 
 
 " Speak the word, and, master mine, 
 As we charged on Tilly's 8 line, 
 
 And his Walloon lancers, 
 Smiting through their midst we '11 teach 
 Civil look and decent speech 
 
 To these boyish prancers ! " 
 
 " Marvel not, mine ancient friend, 
 Like beginning, like the end : " 
 
 Quoth the Laird of Ury ; 
 " Is the sinful servant more 
 Than his gracious Lord who bore 
 Bonds and stripes in Jewry ?
 
 110 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 " Give me joy that in His name 
 I can bear, with patient frame, 
 All these vain ones offer ; 
 While for them He suffereth long, 
 Shall I answer wrong with wrong, 
 Scoffing with the scoffer ? 
 
 " Happier I, with loss of all, 
 Hunted, outlawed, held in thrall, 
 
 With few friends to greet me, 
 Than when reeve and squire were seen, 
 Riding out from Aberdeen, 
 
 With bared heads to meet me. 
 
 " When each goodwife, o'er and o'er, 
 Blessed me as I passed her door ; 
 
 And the snooded daughter, 
 Through her casement glancing down, 
 Smiled on him who bore renown 
 
 From red fields of slaughter. 
 
 " Hard to feel the stranger's scoff, 
 Hard the old friend's falling off, 
 
 Hard to learn forgiving ; 
 But the Lord His own rewards, 
 And His love with theirs accords, 
 Warm and fresh and living. 
 
 " Through this dark and stormy night 
 Faith beholds a feeble light 
 
 Up the blackness streaking ; 
 Knowing God's own time is best, 
 In a patient hope I rest 
 
 For the full day-breaking I "
 
 BARCLAY OF URY 111 
 
 So the Laird of Ury said, 
 Turning slow his horse's head 
 
 Towards the Tolbooth prison, 
 Where, through iron gates, he heard 
 Poor disciples of the Word 
 
 Preach of Christ arisen ! 
 
 Not in vain, Confessor old, 
 Unto us the tale is told 
 
 Of thy day of trial ; 
 Every age on him who strays 
 From its broad and beaten ways 
 
 Pours its seven-fold vial. 
 
 Happy he whose inward ear 
 Angel comfortings can hear, 
 
 O'er the rabble's laughter ; 
 And while Hatred's fagots burn, 
 Glimpses through the smoke discern 
 
 Of the good hereafter. 
 
 Knowing this, that never yet 
 Share of Truth was vainly set 
 
 In the world's wide fallow ; 
 After hands shall sow the seed, 
 After hands from hill and mead 
 
 Reap the harvests yellow. 
 
 Thus, with somewhat of the Seer, 
 Must the moral pioneer 
 
 From the Future borrow ; 
 Clothe the waste with dreams of grain, 
 And, on midnight's sky of rain, 
 Paint the golden morrow ! 
 1847.
 
 112 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 THE ANGELS OF BUENA VISTA. 
 
 A letter-writer from Mexico during the Mexican war, when de- 
 tailing some of the incidents at the terrible fight of Buena Vista, 
 mentioned that Mexican women were seen hovering near the field 
 of death, for the purpose of giving aid and succor to the wound- 
 ed- One poor woman was found surrounded by the maimed and 
 suffering of both armies, ministering to the wants of Americans 
 as well as Mexicans, with impartial tenderness. 
 
 SPEAK and tell us, our Ximena, looking northward 
 
 far away, 
 O'er the camp of the invaders, o'er the Mexican 
 
 array, 
 Who is losing ? who is winning ? are they far or 
 
 come they near ? 
 Look abroad, and tell us, sister, whither rolls the 
 
 storm we hear. 
 
 " Down the hills of Angostura still the storm of 
 
 battle rolls ; 
 Blood is flowing, men are dying ; God have mercy 
 
 on their souls ! " 
 Who is losing ? who is winning ? " Over hill 
 
 and over plain, 
 I see but smoke of cannon clouding through the 
 
 mountain rain." 
 
 Holy Mother ! keep our brothers ! Look, Ximena, 
 
 look once more. 
 " Still I see the fearful whirlwind rolling darkly 
 
 as before,
 
 THE ANGELS OF BUENA VISTA 113 
 
 Bearing oil, in strange confusion, friend and foe- 
 man, foot and horse, 
 
 Like some wild and troubled torrent sweeping 
 down its mountain course." 
 
 Look forth once more, Ximena ! " Ah ! the smoke 
 has rolled away ; 
 
 And I see the Northern rifles gleaming down the 
 ranks of gray. 
 
 Hark ! that sudden blast of bugles ! there the troop 
 of Minon wheels ; 
 
 There the Northern horses thunder, with the can- 
 non at their heels. 
 
 " Jesu, pity ! how it thickens ! now retreat and 
 
 now advance ! 
 Right against the blazing cannon shivers Puebla's 
 
 charging lance ! 
 Down they go, the brave young riders ; horse and 
 
 foot together fall ; 
 Like a ploughshare in the fallow, through them 
 
 ploughs the Northern ball." 
 
 Nearer came the storm and nearer, rolling fast and 
 
 frightful on ! 
 Speak, Ximena, speak and tell us, who has lost, 
 
 and who has won ? 
 " Alas ! alas ! I know not ; friend and foe together 
 
 fall, 
 O'er the dying rush the living : pray, my sisters, 
 
 for them all !
 
 114 NA UK A 77 VE A ND LEGEND A R Y POEMS 
 
 " Lo ! the wind the smoke is lifting. Blessed 
 
 Mother, save ray brain ! 
 I can see the wounded crawling slowly out from 
 
 heaps of slain. 
 Now they stagger, blind and bleeding ; now they 
 
 fall, and strive to rise ; 
 Hasten, sisters, haste and save them, lest they die 
 
 before our eyes! 
 
 " O my heart's love ! O my dear one ! lay thy 
 
 poor head on my knee ; 
 Dost thou know the lips that kiss thee? Canst 
 
 thou hear me? canst thou see? 
 O my husband, brave and gentle ! O my Bernal, 
 
 look once more 
 On the blessed cross before thee ! Mercy ! mercy ! 
 
 all is o'er ! " 
 
 Dry thy tears, my poor Ximena ; lay thy dear one 
 
 down to rest ; 
 Let his hands be meekly folded, lay the cross upon 
 
 his breast ; 
 Let his dirge be sung hereafter, and his funeral 
 
 masses said ; 
 To-day, thou poor bereaved one, the living ask thy 
 
 aid. 
 
 Close beside her, faintly moaning, fair and young, 
 
 a soldier lay, 
 Torn with sliot and pierced with lances, bleeding 
 
 slow his life away;
 
 THE ANGELS OF BUENA VISTA 115 
 
 But, as tenderly before him the lorn Ximena knelt, 
 She saw the Northern eagle shining on his pistol- 
 belt. 
 
 With a stifled cry of horror straight she turned 
 
 away her head ; 
 With a sad and bitter feeling looked she back upon 
 
 her dead ; 
 But she heard the youth's low moaning, and his 
 
 struggling breath of pain, 
 And she raised the cooling water to his parching 
 
 lips again. 
 
 Whispered low the dying soldier, pressed her hand 
 and faintly smiled ; 
 
 Was that pitying face his mother's ? did she watch 
 beside her child ? 
 
 All his stranger words with meaning her woman's 
 heart supplied ; 
 
 With her kiss upon his forehead, " Mother ! " mur- 
 mured he, and died ! 
 
 " A bitter curse upon them, poor boy, who led thee 
 forth, 
 
 From some gentle, sad-eyed mother, weeping, lone- 
 ly, in the North ! " 
 
 Spake the mournful Mexic woman, as she laid him 
 with her dead, 
 
 And turned to soothe the living, and bind the 
 wounds which bled. 
 
 Look forth once more, Ximena! "Like a cloud 
 before the wind
 
 116 NARRA TIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 Rolls the battle down the mountains, leaving blood 
 
 and death behind ; 
 Ah ! they plead in vain for mercy ; in the dust the 
 
 wounded strive ; 
 Hide your faces, holy angels ! O thou Christ of 
 
 God, forgive ! " 
 
 Sink, O Night, among thy mountains ! let the cool, 
 
 gray shadows fall ; 
 Dying brothers, fighting demons, drop thy curtain 
 
 over all ! 
 Through the thickening winter twilight, wide apart 
 
 the battle rolled, 
 In its sheath the sabre rested, and the cannon's 
 
 lips grew cold. 
 
 But the noble Mexic women still their holy task 
 
 pursued, 
 Through that long, dark night of sorrow, worn and 
 
 faint and lacking food. 
 Over weak and suffering brothers, with a tender 
 
 care they hung, 
 And the dying foeman blessed them in a strange 
 
 and Northern tongue. 
 
 Not wholly lost, O Father! is this evil world of 
 
 ours ; 
 Upward, through its blood and ashes, spring afresh 
 
 the Eden flowers ; 
 From its smoking hell of battle, Love and Pity 
 
 send their prayer, 
 And still thy white-winged angels hover dimly in 
 
 our air ! 
 1847.
 
 THE LEGEND OF ST. MARK 117 
 
 THE LEGEND OF ST. MARK. 
 
 " This legend [to which my attention was called by my friend 
 Charles Sumner], is the subject of a celebrated picture by Tinto- 
 retto, of which Mr. Rogers possesses the original sketch. The 
 slave lies on the ground, amid a crowd of spectators, who look on, 
 animated by all the various emotions of sympathy, rage, terror ; 
 a woman, in front, with a child in her arms, has always been ad- 
 mired for the lifelike vivacity of her attitude and expression. 
 The executioner holds up the broken implements ; St. Mark, with 
 a headlong movement, seems to rush down from heaven in haste 
 to save his worshipper. The dramatic grouping in this picture is 
 wonderful ; the coloring, in its gorgeous depth and harmony, is, 
 in Mr. Rogers' s sketch, finer than in the picture." MRS. JAME- 
 SON'S Sacred and Legendary Art, i. 154 
 
 THE clay is closing dark and cold, 
 
 With roaring blast and sleety showers ; 
 
 And through the dusk the lilacs wear 
 The bloom of snow, instead of flowers. 
 
 I turn me from the gloom without, 
 To ponder o'er a tale of old ; 
 
 A legend of the age of Faith, 
 
 By dreaming monk or abbess told. 
 
 On Tintoretto's canvas lives 
 That fancy of a loving heart, 
 
 In graceful lines and shapes of power, 
 And hues immortal as his art. 
 
 In Provence (so the story runs) 
 
 There lived a lord, to whom, as slave, 
 
 A peasant-boy of tender years 
 
 The chance of trade or conquest gave.
 
 118 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 Forth-looking from the castle tower, 
 Beyond the hills with almonds dark, 
 
 The straining eye could scarce discern 
 The chapel of the good St. Mark. 
 
 And there, when bitter word or fare 
 The service of the youth repaid, 
 
 By stealth, before that holy shrine, 
 
 For grace to bear his wrong, he prayed. 
 
 The steed stamped at the castle gate, 
 The boar-hunt sounded on the hill ; 
 
 Why stayed the Baron from the chase, 
 With looks so stern, and words so ill? 
 
 " Go, bind yon slave ! and let him learn, 
 
 By scath of fire and strain of cord, 
 
 How ill they speed who give dead saints 
 
 The homage due their living lord ! " 
 
 They bound him on the fearful rack, 
 
 When, through the dungeon's vaulted dark, 
 
 He saw the light of shining robes, 
 And knew the face of good St. Mark. 
 
 Then sank the iron rack apart, 
 
 The cords released their cruel clasp, 
 
 The pincers, with their teeth of fire, 
 Fell broken from the torturer's grasp. 
 
 And lo ! before the Youth and Saint, 
 Barred door and wall of stone gave way ; 
 
 And up from bondage and the night 
 They passed to freedom and the day !
 
 THE LEGEND OF ST. MARK 119 
 
 O dreaming monk ! thy tale is true ; 
 
 O painter ! true thy pencil's art ; 
 In tones of hope and prophecy, 
 
 Ye whisper to my listening heart ! 
 
 Unheard no burdened heart's appeal 
 Moans up to God's inclining ear; 
 
 Unheeded by his tender eye, 
 
 Falls to the earth no sufferer's tear. 
 
 For still the Lord alone is God ! 
 
 The pomp and power of tyrant man 
 Are scattered at his lightest breath, 
 
 Like chaff before the winnower's fan. 
 
 Not always shall the slave uplift 
 His heavy hands to Heaven in vain. 
 
 God's angel, like the good St. Mark, 
 Comes shining down to break his chain ! 
 
 O weary ones ! ye may not see 
 
 Your helpers in their downward flight ; 
 
 Nor hear the sound of silver wings 
 
 Slow beating through the hush of night ! 
 
 But not the less gray Dothan shone, 
 With sunbright watchers bending low, 
 
 That Fear's dim eye beheld alone 
 The spear-heads of the Syrian foe. 
 
 There are, who, like the Seer of old, 
 Can see the helpers God has sent, 
 
 And how life's rugged mountain-side 
 Is white with many an angel tent !
 
 120 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 They hear the heralds whom our Lord 
 Sends down his pathway to prepare ; 
 
 And light, from others hidden, shines 
 On their high place of faith and prayer. 
 
 Let such, for earth's despairing ones, 
 Hopeless, yet longing to be free, 
 
 Breathe once again the Prophet's prayer : 
 
 " Lord, ope their eyes, that they may see ! " 
 1849. 
 
 KATHLEEN. 
 
 This ballad was originally published in my prose work, Leaves 
 from Margaret Smith's Journal, as the song of a wandering Mile- 
 sian schoolmaster. In the seventeenth century, slavery in the New 
 World was by no means confined to the natives of Africa. Polit- 
 ical offenders and criminals were transported by the British gov- 
 ernment to the plantations of Barbadoes and Virginia, where 
 they were sold like cattle in the market. Kidnapping of free 
 and innocent white persons was practised to a considerable extent 
 in the seaports of the United Kingdom. 
 
 O NORAH, lay your basket down, 
 
 And rest your weary hand, 
 And come and hear me sing a song 
 
 Of our old Ireland. 
 
 There was a lord of Galaway, 
 
 A mighty lord was he ; 
 And he did wed a second wife, 
 
 A maid of low degree. 
 
 But he was old, and she was young, 
 
 And so, in evil spite, 
 She baked the black bread for his kin, 
 
 And fed her own with white.
 
 KA THLEEN 121 
 
 She whipped the maids and starved the kern, 
 
 And drove away the poor ; 
 " Ah, woe is me ! " the old lord said, 
 " I rue my bargain sore ! " 
 
 This lord he had a daughter fair, 
 
 Beloved of old and young, 
 And nightly round the shealing-fires 
 
 Of her the gleeman sung. 
 
 " As sweet and good is young Kathleen 
 
 As Eve before her fall ; " 
 
 So sang the harper at the fair, 
 
 So harped he in the hall. 
 
 " Oh, come to me, my daughter dear ! 
 
 Come sit upon my knee, 
 For looking in your face, Kathleen, 
 Your mother's own I see ! " 
 
 He smoothed and smoothed her hair away, 
 
 He kissed her forehead fair ; 
 " It is my darling Mary's brow, 
 It is my darling's hair ! " 
 
 Oh, then spake up the angry dame, 
 
 " Get up, get up," quoth she, 
 " I '11 sell ye over Ireland, 
 I '11 seU ye o'er the sea!" 
 
 She clipped her glossy hair away, 
 That none her rank might know. 
 
 She took away her gown of silk, 
 And gave her one of tow,
 
 122 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 And sent her down to Limerick town 
 
 And to a seaman sold 
 This daughter of an Irish lord 
 
 For ten good pounds in gold. 
 
 The lord he smote upon his breast, 
 
 And tore his beard so gray; 
 But he was old, and she was young, 
 
 And so she had her way. 
 
 Sure that same night the Banshee howled 
 
 To fright the evil dame, 
 And fairy folks, who loved Kathleen, 
 
 With funeral torches came. 
 
 She watched them glancing through the trees, 
 And glimmering down the hill ; 
 
 They crept before the dead-vault door, 
 And there they all stood still ! 
 
 " Get up, old man ! the wake-lights shine ! " 
 " Ye murthering witch," quoth he, 
 
 " So I 'm rid of your tongue, I little care 
 If they shine for you or me." 
 
 "Oh, whoso brings my daughter back, 
 
 My gold and land shall have ! " 
 Oh, then spake up his handsome page, 
 " No gold nor land I crave ! 
 
 " But give to me your daughter dear, 
 
 Give sweet Kathleen to me, 
 
 Be she on sea or be she on land, 
 
 I '11 bring her back to thee."
 
 KA THLEEN 123 
 
 " My daughter is a lady born, 
 
 And you. of low degree, 
 But she shall be your bride the day 
 You bring her back to me." 
 
 He sailed east, he sailed west, 
 
 And far and long sailed he, 
 Until he came to Boston town, 
 
 Across the great salt sea. 
 
 " Oh, have ye seen the young Kathleen, 
 
 The flower of Ireland ? 
 Ye '11 know her by her eyes so blue, 
 And by her snow-white hand I " 
 
 Out spake an ancient man, " I know 
 
 The maiden whom ye mean ; 
 I bought her of a Limerick man, 
 
 And she is called Kathleen. 
 
 " No skill hath she in household work, 
 
 Her hands are soft and white, 
 Yet well by loving looks and ways 
 She doth her cost requite." 
 
 So up they walked through Boston town, 
 
 And met a maiden fair, 
 A little basket on her arm 
 
 So snowy-white and bare. 
 
 " Come hither, child, and say hast thou 
 
 This young man ever seen ? " 
 They wept within each other's arms, 
 The page and young Kathleen.
 
 124 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 " Oh give to me this darling child, 
 
 And take my purse of gold." 
 " Nay, not by me," her master said, 
 
 " Shall sweet Kathleen be sold. 
 
 " We loved her in the place of one 
 
 The Lord hath early ta'en ; 
 
 But, since her heart 's in Ireland, 
 
 We give her back again ! " 
 
 Oh, for that same the saints in heaven 
 
 For his poor soul shall pray, 
 And Mary Mother wash with tears 
 
 His heresies away. 
 
 Sure now they dwell in Ireland ; 
 
 As you go up Claremore 
 Ye '11 see their castle looking down 
 
 The pleasant Galway shore. 
 
 And the old lord's wife is dead and gone, 
 
 And a happy man is he, 
 For he sits beside his own Kathleen, 
 
 With her darling on his knee. 
 
 1849. 
 
 THE WELL OF LOCH MAREE. 
 
 Pennant, in his Voyage to the Hebrides, describes the holy well 
 of Loch Maree, the waters of which were supposed to effect a 
 miraculous cure of melancholy, trouble, and insanity. 
 
 CALM on the breast of Loch Maree 
 A little isle reposes ;
 
 THE WELL OF LOCH MAREE 125 
 
 A shadow woven of the oak 
 And willow o'er it closes. 
 
 Within, a Druid's mound is seen, 
 
 Set round with stony warders ; 
 A fountain, gushing through the turf, 
 
 Flows o'er its grassy borders. 
 
 And whoso bathes therein his brow, 
 With care or madness burning, 
 
 Feels once again his healthful thought 
 And sense of peace returning. 
 
 restless heart and fevered brain, 
 
 Unquiet and unstable, 
 That holy well of Loch Maree 
 
 Is more than idle fable ! 
 
 Life's changes vex, its discords stun, 
 
 Its glaring sunshine blindeth, 
 And blest is he who on his way 
 
 That fount of healing findeth ! 
 
 The shadows of a humbled will 
 
 And contrite heart are o'er it ; 
 Go read its legend, " TRUST IN GOD," 
 
 On Faith's white stones before it. 
 1850.
 
 126 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 THE CHAPEL OF THE HERMITS. 
 
 The incident upon which this poem is based is related in a note 
 to Bernardin Henri Saint Pierre's Etudes de la Nature. 
 
 "We arrived at the habitation of the Hermits a little before 
 they sat down to their table, and while they were still at church. 
 J. J. Rousseau proposed to me to offer up our devotions. The her- 
 mits were reciting the Litanies of Providence, which are remark- 
 ably beautiful. After we had addressed our prayers to God, and 
 the hermits were proceeding to the refectory, Rousseau said to 
 me, with his heart overflowing, ' At this moment I experience 
 what is said in the gospel : Where two or three are gathered to- 
 gether in my name, there am I in the midst of them. There is here 
 a feeling of peace and happiness which penetrates the soul.' 
 I said, ' If Fe'nelon had lived, you would have been a Catholic.' 
 He exclaimed, with tears in his eyes, ' Oh, if F^nelon were alive, 
 I would struggle to get into his service, even as a lackey! ' " 
 
 In my sketch of Saint Pierre, it will be seen that I have some- 
 what antedated the period of his old age. At that time he was 
 not probably more than fifty. In describing him, I have by no 
 means exaggerated his own history of his mental condition at the 
 period of the story. In the fragmentary Sequel to his Studies of 
 Nature, he thus speaks of himself : " The ingratitude of those 
 of whom I had deserved kindness, unexpected family misfortunes, 
 the total loss of my small patrimony through enterprises solely 
 undertaken for the benefit of my country, the debts under which 
 I lay oppressed, the blasting of all my hopes, these combined 
 calamities made dreadful inroads upon my health and reason. 
 ... I found it impossible to continue in a room where there 
 was company, especially if the doors were shut. I could not 
 even cross an alley in a public garden, if several persons had got 
 together in it. When alone, my malady subsided. I felt myself 
 likewise at ease in places where I saw children only. At the 
 sight of any one walking up to the place where I was, I felt my 
 whole frame agitated, and retired. I often said to myself, ' My 
 sole study has been to merit well of mankind ; why do I fear 
 them?'" 
 
 He attributes his improved health of mind and body to the 
 counsels of his friend, J. J. Rousseau. " I renounced," says he, 
 "my books. I threw my eyes upon the works of nature, which 
 spake to all my senses a language which neither time nor nations
 
 THE CHAPEL OF THE HERMITS 127 
 
 have it in their power to alter. Thenceforth my histories and 
 my journals were the herbage of the fields and meadows. My 
 thoughts did not go forth painfully after them, as in the case of 
 human systems ; but their thoughts, under a thousand engaging 
 forms, quietly sought me. In these I studied, without effort, the 
 laws of that Universal Wisdom which had surrounded me from 
 the cradle, but on which heretofore I had bestowed little atten- 
 tion." 
 
 Speaking of Rousseau, he says : "I derived inexpressible satis- 
 faction from his society. What I prized still more than his gen- 
 ius was his probity. He was one of the few literary characters, 
 tried in the furnace of affliction, to whom you could, with perfect 
 security, confide your most secret thoughts. . . . Even when he 
 deviated, and became the victim of himself or of others, he could 
 forget his own misery in devotion to the welfare of mankind. He 
 was uniformly the advocate of the miserable. There might be 
 inscribed on his tomb these affecting words from that Book of 
 which he carried always about him some select passages, during 
 the last years of his life : His sins, which are many, are Jorgiven, 
 for he loved muck." 
 
 " I DO believe, and yet, in grief, 
 I pray for help to unbelief ; 
 For needful strength aside to lay 
 The daily cumberings of my way. 
 
 " I 'm sick at heart of craft and cant, 
 Sick of the crazed enthusiast's rant, 
 Profession's smooth hypocrisies, 
 And creeds of iron, and lives of ease. 
 
 " I ponder o'er the sacred word, 
 I read the record of our Lord ; 
 And, weak and troubled, envy them 
 Who touched His seamless garment's hem ; 
 
 " Who saw the tears of love He wept 
 Above the grave where Lazarus slept ;
 
 128 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 And heard, amidst the shadows dim 
 Of Olivet, His evening hymn. 
 
 " How blessed the swineherd's low estate, 
 The beggar crouching at the gate, 
 The leper loathly and abhorred, 
 Whose eyes of flesh beheld the Lord ! 
 
 " O sacred soil His sandals pressed ! 
 Sweet fountains of His noonday rest I 
 O light and air of Palestine, 
 Impregnate with His life divine ! 
 
 " Oh, bear me thither ! Let me look 
 On Siloa's pool, and Kedron's brook ; 
 Kneel at Gethsemane, and by 
 Gennesaret walk, before I die ! 
 
 " Methinks this cold and northern night 
 Would melt before that Orient light ; 
 And, wet by Hermon's dew and rain, 
 My childhood's faith revive again ! " 
 
 So spake my friend, one autumn day, 
 Where the still river slid away 
 Beneath us, and above the brown 
 Eed curtains of the woods shut down. 
 
 Then said I, for I could not brook 
 The mute appealing of his look, 
 " I, too, am weak, and faith is small, 
 And blindness happeneth unto all.
 
 THE CHAPEL OF THE HERMITS 129 
 
 " Yet, sometimes glimpses on my sight, 
 Through present wrong, the eternal right ; 
 And, step by step, since time began, 
 I see the steady gain of man ; 
 
 " That all of good the past hath had 
 Remains to make our own time glad, 
 Our common daily life divine, 
 And every land a Palestine. 
 
 " Thou weariest of thy present state ; 
 What gain to thee time's holiest date? 
 The doubter now perchance had been 
 As High Priest or as Pilate then ! 
 
 " What thought Chorazin's scribes ? What faith 
 In Him had Nain and Nazareth ? 
 Of the few followers whom He led 
 One sold Him, all forsook and fled. 
 
 " O friend ! we need nor rock nor sand, 
 Nor storied stream of Morning-Land; 
 The heavens are glassed in Merrimac, 
 What more could Jordan render back ? 
 
 st We lack but open eye and ear 
 To find the Orient's marvels here ; 
 The still small voice in autumn's hush, 
 Yon maple wood the burning bush. 
 
 " For still the new transcends the old, 
 In signs and tokens manifold ; 
 Slaves rise up men ; the olive waves, 
 With roots deep set in battle graves!
 
 130 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 " Through the harsh noises of our day 
 A low, sweet prelude finds its way ; 
 Through clouds of doubt, and creeds of fear. 
 A light is breaking, calm and clear. 
 
 " That song of Love, now low and far, 
 Erelong shall swell from star to star ! 
 That light, the breaking day, which tips 
 The golden-spired Apocalypse ! " 
 
 Then, when my good friend shook his head, 
 And, sighing, sadly smiled, I said : 
 : ' Thou mind'st me of a story told 
 In rare Bernardin's leaves of gold." 
 
 And while the slanted sunbeams wove 
 The shadows of the frost-stained grove, 
 And, picturing all, the river ran 
 O'er cloud and wood, I thus began : 
 
 In Mount Valerien's chestnut wood 
 The Chapel of the Hermits stood ; 
 And thither, at the close of day, 
 Came two old pilgrims, worn and gray. 
 
 One, whose impetuous youth defied 
 The storms of Baikal's wintry side, 
 And mused and dreamed where tropic day 
 Flamed o'er his lost Virginia's bay. 
 
 His simple tale of love and woe 
 
 All hearts had melted, high or low ;
 
 THE CHAPEL OF THE HERMITS 131 
 
 A blissful pain, a sweet distress, 
 Immortal in its tenderness. 
 
 Yet, while above his charmed page 
 Beat quick the young heart of his age, 
 He walked amidst the crowd unknown, 
 A sorrowing old man, strange and lone. 
 
 A homeless, troubled age, the gray 
 Pale setting of a weary day ; 
 Too dull his ear for voice of praise, 
 Too sadly worn his brow for bays. 
 
 Pride, lust of power and glory, slept ; 
 Yet still his heart its young dream kept, 
 And, wandering like the deluge-dove, 
 Still sought the resting-place of love. 
 
 And, mateless, childless, envied more 
 The peasant's welcome from his door 
 By smiling eyes at eventide, 
 Than kingly gifts or lettered pride. 
 
 Until, in place of wife and child, 
 All-pitying Nature on him smiled, 
 And gave to him the golden keys 
 To all her inmost sanctities. 
 
 Mild Druid of her wood-paths dim ! 
 She laid her great heart bare to him, 
 Its loves and sweet accords ; he saw 
 The beauty of her perfect law.
 
 132 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 The language of her signs he knew, 
 What notes her cloudy clarion blew ; 
 The rhythm of autumn's forest dyes, 
 The hymn of sunset's painted skies. 
 
 And thus he seemed to hear the song 
 Which swept, of old, the stars along ; 
 And to his eyes the earth once more 
 Its fresh and primal beauty wore. 
 
 Who sought with him, from summer air, 
 And field and wood, a balm for care ; 
 And bathed in light of sunset skies 
 His tortured nerves and weary eyes ? 
 
 His fame on all the winds had flown ; 
 His words had shaken crypt and throne ; 
 Like fire, on camp and court and cell 
 They dropped, and kindled as they fell. 
 
 Beneath the pomps of state, below 
 The mitred juggler's masque and show, 
 A prophecy, a vague hope, ran 
 His burning thought from man to man, 
 
 For peace or rest too well he saw 
 The fraud of priests, the wrong of law, 
 And felt how hard, between the two, 
 Their breath of pain the millions drew. 
 
 A prophet-utterance, strong and wild, 
 The weakness of an unweaned child, 
 A sun-bright hope for human-kind, 
 And self -despair, in him combined.
 
 THE CHAPEL OF THE HERMITS 133 
 
 He loathed the false, yet lived not true 
 To half the glorious truths he knew ; 
 The doubt, the discord, and the sin, 
 He mourned without, he felt within. 
 
 Untrod by him the path he showed, 
 Sweet pictures on his easel glowed 
 Of simple faith, and loves of home, 
 And virtue's golden days to come. 
 
 But weakness, shame, and folly made 
 The foil to all his pen portrayed ; 
 Still, where his dreamy splendors shone, 
 The shadow of himself was thrown. 
 
 Lord, what is man, whose thought, at times, 
 Up to Thy sevenfold brightness climbs, 
 While still his grosser instinct clings 
 To earth, like other creeping things ! 
 
 So rich in words, in acts so mean ; 
 
 So high, so low ; chance-swung between 
 
 The foulness of the penal pit 
 
 And Truth's clear sky, millennium-lit ! 
 
 Vain, pride of star-lent genius ! vain, 
 Quick fancy and creative brain, 
 Unblest by prayerful sacrifice, 
 Absurdly great, or weakly wise ! 
 
 Midst yearnings for a truer life, 
 Without were fears, within was strife ; 
 And still his wayward act denied 
 The perfect good for which he sighed.
 
 134 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 The love he sent forth void returned ; 
 
 The fame that crowned him scorched and burned, 
 
 Burning, yet cold and drear and lone, 
 
 A fire-mount in a frozen zone ! 
 
 Like that the gray-haired sea-king passed, 9 
 Seen southward from his sleety mast, 
 About whose brows of changeless frost 
 A wreath of flame the wild winds tossed. 
 
 Far round the mournful beauty played 
 Of lambent light and purple shade, 
 Lost on the fixed and dumb despair 
 Of frozen earth and sea and air ! 
 
 A man apart, unknown, unloved 
 By those whose wrongs his soul had moved, 
 He bore the ban of Church and State, 
 The good man's fear, the bigot's hate ! 
 
 Forth from the city's noise and throng, 
 Its pomp and shame, its sin and wrong, 
 The twain that summer day had strayed 
 To Mount Valerien's chestnut shade. 
 
 To them the green fields and the wood 
 Lent something of their quietude, 
 And golden-tinted sunset seemed 
 Prophetical of all they dreamed. 
 
 The hermits from their simple cares 
 The bell was calling home to prayers, 
 And, listening to its sound, the twain 
 Seemed lapped in childhood's trust again.
 
 THE CHAPEL OF THE HERMITS 135 
 
 Wide open stood the chapel door ; 
 
 A sweet old music, swelling o'er 
 
 Low prayerful murmurs, issued thence, 
 
 The Litanies of Providence ! 
 
 Then Rousseau spake : " Where two or three 
 In His name meet, He there will be ! " 
 And then, in silence, on their knees 
 They sank beneath the chestnut-trees. 
 
 As to the blind returning light, 
 As daybreak to the Arctic night, 
 Old faith revived ; the doubts of years 
 Dissolved in reverential tears. 
 
 That gush of feeling overpast, 
 " Ah me ! " Bernardin sighed at last, 
 " I would thy bitterest foes could see 
 
 Thy heart as it is seen of me ! 
 
 " No church of God hast thou denied ; 
 Thou hast but spurned in scorn aside 
 A bare and hollow counterfeit, 
 Profaning the pure name of it ! 
 
 " With dry dead moss and marish weeds 
 His fire the western herdsman feeds, 
 And greener from the ashen plain 
 The sweet spring grasses rise again. 
 
 " Nor thunder-peal nor mighty wind 
 Disturb the solid sky behind ; 
 And through the cloud the red bolt rends 
 The calm, still smile of Heaven descends !
 
 136 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 " Thus through the world, like bolt and blast, 
 And scourging fire, thy words have passed. 
 Clouds break, the steadfast heavens remain ; 
 Weeds burn, the ashes feed the grain ! 
 
 " But whoso strives with wrong may find 
 Its touch pollute, its darkness blind ; 
 And learn, as latent fraud is shown 
 In others' faith, to doubt his own. 
 
 " With dream and falsehood, simple trust 
 And pious hope we tread in dust ; 
 Lost the calm faith in goodness, lost 
 The baptism of the Pentecost ! 
 
 " Alas ! the blows for error meant 
 Too oft on truth itself are spent, 
 As through the false and vile and base 
 Looks forth her sad, rebuking face. 
 
 " Not ours the Theban's charmed life ; 
 We come not scathless from the strife ! 
 The Python's coil about us clings, 
 The trampled Hydra bites and stings ! 
 
 " Meanwhile, the sport of seeming chance, 
 The plastic shapes of circumstance, 
 What might have been we fondly guess, 
 If earlier born, or tempted less. 
 
 " And thou, in these wild, troubled days, 
 Misjudged alike in blame and praise, 
 Unsought and undeserved the same 
 The skeptic's praise, the bigot's blame ;
 
 THE CHAPEL OF THE HERMITS 137 
 
 " I cannot doubt, if thou hadst been 
 Among the highly favored men 
 Who walked on earth with Fenelon, 
 He would have owned thee as his son ; 
 
 " And, bright with wings of cherubim 
 Visibly waving over him, 
 Seen through his life, the Church had seemed 
 All that its old confessors dreamed." 
 
 " I would have been," Jean Jaques replied, 
 " The humblest servant at his side, 
 
 Obscure, unknown, content to see 
 
 How beautiful man's life may be ! 
 
 " Oh, more than thrice-blest relic, more 
 Than solemn rite or sacred lore, 
 The holy life of one who trod 
 The foot-marks of the Christ of God! 
 
 " Amidst a blinded world he saw 
 The oneness of the Dual law ; 
 That Heaven's sweet peace on Earth began, 
 And God was loved through love of man. 
 
 " He lived the Truth which reconciled 
 The strong man Reason, Faith the child; 
 In him belief and act were one, 
 The homilies of duty done ! " 
 
 So speaking, through the twilight gray 
 The two old pilgrims went their way. 
 What seeds of life that day were sown, 
 The heavenly watchers knew alone.
 
 138 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 Time passed, and Autumn came to fold 
 Green Summer in her brown and gold ; 
 Time passed, and Winter's tears of snow 
 Dropped on the grave-mound of Rousseau. 
 
 " The tree remaineth where it fell, 
 The pained on earth is pained in hell ! " 
 So priestcraft from its altars cursed 
 The mournful doubts its falsehood nursed. 
 
 Ah ! well of old the Psalmist prayed, 
 " Thy hand, not man's, on me be laid ! " 
 Earth frowns below, Heaven weeps above, 
 And man is hate, but God is love ! 
 
 No Hermits now the wanderer sees, 
 Nor chapel with its chestnut-trees ; 
 A morning dream, a tale that 's told, 
 The wave of change o'er all has rolled. 
 
 Yet lives the lesson of that day ; 
 And from its twilight cool and gray 
 Comes up a low, sad whisper, " Make 
 The truth thine own, for truth's own sake. 
 
 " Why wait to see in thy brief span 
 Its perfect flower and fruit in man ? 
 No saintly touch can save ; no balm 
 Of healing hath the martyr's palm. 
 
 " Midst soulless forms, and false pretence 
 Of spiritual pride and pampered sense, 
 A voice saith, ' What is that to thee ? 
 Be true thyself, and follow Me ! '
 
 THE CHAPEL OF THE HERMITS 139 
 
 " In days when throne and altar heard 
 The wanton's wish, the bigot's word, 
 And pomp of state and ritual show 
 Scarce hid the loathsome death below, 
 
 " Midst fawning priests and courtiers foul, 
 The losel swarrn of crown and cowl, 
 White-robed walked Francois Fenelon, 
 Stainless as Uriel in the sun ! 
 
 " Yet in his time the stake blazed red, 
 The poor were eaten up like bread : 
 Men knew him not ; his garment's hem 
 No healing virtue had for them. 
 
 " Alas ! no present saint we find ; 
 The white cymar gleams far behind, 
 Revealed in outline vague, sublime, 
 Through telescopic mists of time I 
 
 " Trust not in man with passing breath, 
 But in the Lord, old Scripture saith ; 
 The truth which saves thou mayst not blend 
 With false professor, faithless friend. 
 
 " Search thine own heart. What paineth thee 
 In others in thyself may be ; 
 All dust is frail, all flesh is weak ; 
 Be thou the true man thou dost seek 1 
 
 " Where now with pain thou treadest, trod 
 The whitest of the saints of God ! 
 To show thee where their feet were set, 
 The light which led them shineth yet.
 
 140 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 " The footprints of the life divine, 
 Which marked their path, remain in thine ; 
 And that great Life, transfused in theirs, 
 Awaits thy faith, thy love, thy prayers ! " 
 
 A lesson which I well may heed, 
 A word of fitness to my need ; 
 So from that twilight cool and gray 
 Still saith a voice, or seems to say. 
 
 We rose, and slowly homeward turned, 
 While down the west the sunset burned ; 
 And, in its light, hill, wood, and tide, 
 And human forms seemed glorified. 
 
 The village homes transfigured stood, 
 And purple bluffs, whose belting wood 
 Across the waters leaned to hold 
 The yellow leaves like lamps of gold. 
 
 Then spake my friend : " Thy words are true ; 
 Forever old, forever new, 
 These home-seen splendors are the same 
 Which over Edeir's sunsets came. 
 
 " To these bowed heavens let wood and hill 
 Lift voiceless praise and anthem still; 
 Fall, warm with blessing, over them, 
 Light of the New Jerusalem ! 
 
 " Flow on, sweet river, like the stream 
 Of John's Apocalyptic dream !
 
 TA ULER 141 
 
 This mapled ridge shall Horeb be, 
 Yon green-banked lake our Galilee ! 
 
 " Henceforth my heart shall sigh no more 
 For olden time and holier shore ; 
 God's love and blessing, then and there s 
 Are now and here and everywhere." 
 
 1851. 
 
 TAULER. 
 
 TAULER, the preacher, walked, one autumn day, 
 Without the walls of Strasburg, by the Rhine, 
 Pondering the solemn Miracle of Life ; 
 As one who, wandering in a starless night, 
 Feels momently the jar of unseen waves, 
 And hears the thunder of an unknown sea, 
 Breaking along an uniinagined shore. 
 
 And as he walked he prayed. Even the same 
 Old prayer with which, for half a score of years, 
 Morning, and noon, and evening, lip and heart 
 Had groaned : " Have pity upon me, Lord ! 
 Thou seest, while teaching others, I am blind. 
 Send me a man who can direct my steps ! " 
 
 Then, as he mused, he heard along his path 
 A sound as of an old man's staff among 
 The dry, dead linden-leaves ; and, looking up, 
 He saw a stranger, weak, and poor, and old. 
 
 " Peace be unto thee, father ! " Tauler said, 
 " God give thee a good day ! " The old man raised
 
 142 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 Slowly his calm blue eyes. " I thank thee, son ; 
 But all my days are good, and none are ill." 
 
 Wondering thereat, the preacher spake again, 
 " God give thee happy life." The old man smiled, 
 " I never am unhappy." 
 
 Tauler laid 
 
 His hand upon the stranger's coarse gray sleeve : 
 " Tell me, O father, what thy strange words mean. 
 Surely man's days are evil, and his life 
 Sad as the grave it leads to." " Nay, my son, 
 Our times are in God's hands, and all our days 
 Are as our needs ; for shadow as for sun, 
 For cold as heat, for want as wealth, alike 
 Our thanks are due, since that is best which is ; 
 And that which is not, sharing not His life, 
 Is evil only as devoid of good. 
 And for the happiness of which I spake, 
 I find it in submission to his will, 
 And calm trust in the holy Trinity 
 Of Knowledge, Goodness, and Almighty Power." 
 
 Silently wondering, for a little space, 
 Stood the great preacher ; then he spake as one 
 Who, suddenly grappling with a haunting thought 
 Which long has followed, whispering through the 
 
 dark 
 
 Strange terrors, drags it, shrieking, into light : 
 " What if God's will consign thee hence to Hell ? " 
 
 " Then," said the stranger, cheerily, " be it so. 
 What Hell may be I know not ; this I know,
 
 TAULER 143 
 
 I cannot lose the presence of the Lord. 
 
 One arm, Humility, takes hold upon 
 
 His dear Humanity ; the other, Love, 
 
 Clasps his Divinity. So where I go 
 
 He goes ; and better fire-walled Hell with Him 
 
 Than golden-gated Paradise without." 
 
 Tears sprang in Tauler's eyes. A sudden light, 
 Like the first ray which fell on chaos, clove 
 Apart the shadow wherein he had walked 
 Darkly at noon. And, as the strange old man 
 Went his slow way, until his silver hair 
 Set like the white moon where the hills of vine 
 Slope to the Rhine, he bowed his head and said : 
 " My prayer is answered. God hath sent the man 
 Long sought, to teach me, by his simple trust, 
 Wisdom the weary schoolmen never knew." 
 
 So, entering with a changed and cheerful step 
 The city gates, he saw, far down the street, 
 A mighty shadow break the light of noon, 
 Which tracing backward till its airy lines 
 Hardened to stony plinths, he raised his eyes 
 O'er broad facade and lofty pediment, 
 O'er architrave and frieze and sainted niche, 
 Up the stone lace-work chiselled by the wise 
 Erwin of Steinbach, dizzily up to where 
 In the noon-brightness the great Minster's tower, 
 Jewelled with sunbeams on its mural crown, 
 Rose like a visible prayer. " Behold ! " he said, 
 " The stranger's faith made plain before mine eyes. 
 As yonder tower outstretches to the earth 
 The dark triangle of its shade alone
 
 144 NARRA TIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 When the clear day is shining on its top, 
 So, darkness in the pathway of Man's life 
 Is but the shadow of God's providence, 
 By the great Sun of Wisdom cast thereon ; 
 And what is dark below is light in Heaven." 
 1853. 
 
 THE HERMIT OF THE THEBAID. 
 
 O STRONG, upwelling prayers of faith, 
 From inmost founts of life ye start, 
 
 The spirit's pulse, the vital breath 
 Of soul and heart ! 
 
 From pastoral toil, from traffic's din, 
 Alone, in crowds, at home, abroad, 
 
 Unheard of man, ye enter in 
 The ear of God. 
 
 Ye brook no forced and measured tasks, 
 Nor weary rote, nor formal chains ; 
 
 The simple heart, that freely asks 
 In love, obtains. 
 
 For man the living temple is : 
 The mercy-seat and cherubim, 
 
 And all the holy mysteries, 
 He bears with him. 
 
 And most avails the prayer of love, 
 
 Which, wordless, shapes itself in needs, 
 
 And wearies Heaven for naught above 
 Our common needs.
 
 THE HERMIT OF THE THEBA1D 145 
 
 Which brings to God's all-perfect will 
 That trust of His uncloubting child 
 
 Whereby all seeming good and ill 
 Are reconciled. 
 
 And, seeking not for special signs 
 
 Of favor, is content to fall 
 Within the providence which shines 
 
 And rains on all. 
 
 Alone, the Thebaid hermit leaned 
 At noontime o'er the sacred word. 
 
 Was it an angel or a fiend 
 Whose voice he heard ? 
 
 It broke the desert's hush of awe, 
 A human utterance, sweet and mild ; 
 
 And, looking up, the hermit saw 
 A little child. 
 
 A child, with wonder-widened eyes, 
 O'erawed and troubled by the sight 
 
 Of hot, red sands, and brazen skies, 
 And anchorite. 
 
 " What dost thou here, poor man ? No shade 
 Of cool, green palms, nor grass, nor well, 
 Nor corn, nor vines." The hermit said : 
 "With God I dwell. 
 
 " Alone with Him in this great calm, 
 I live not by the outward sense ; 
 My Nile his love, my sheltering palm 
 His providence."
 
 146 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 The child gazed round him. " Does God live 
 Here only ? where the desert's rim 
 
 Is green with corn, at morn and eve, 
 We pray to Him. 
 
 " My brother tills beside the Nile 
 
 His little field ; beneath the leaves 
 My sisters sit and spin, the while 
 My mother weaves. 
 
 *' And when the millet's ripe heads fall, 
 And all the bean-field hangs in pod, 
 My mother smiles, and says that all 
 Are gifts from God. 
 
 " And when to share our evening meal, 
 She calls the stranger at the door, 
 She says God fills the hands that deal 
 Food to the poor." 
 
 Adown the hermit's wasted cheeks 
 
 Glistened the flow of human tears ; 
 '* Dear Lord ! " he said, " Thy angel speaks, 
 Thy servant hears." 
 
 Within his arms the child he took, 
 
 And thought of home and life with men ; 
 
 And all his pilgrim feet forsook 
 Returned again. 
 
 The palmy shadows cool and long, 
 
 The eyes that smiled through lavish locks, 
 
 Home's cradle-hymn and harvest-song, 
 And bleat of flocks.
 
 THE HERMIT OF THE THE RAID 147 
 
 ; O child ! " he said, " thou teachest me 
 There is no place where God is not ; 
 That love will make, where'er it be, 
 A holy spot." 
 
 He rose from off the desert sand, 
 And, leaning on his staff of thorn, 
 
 Went with the young child hand in hand. 
 Like night with morn. 
 
 They crossed the desert's burning line, 
 And heard the palm-tree's rustling fan, 
 
 The Nile-bird's cry, the low of kine, 
 And voice of man. 
 
 Unquestioning, his childish guide 
 He followed, as the small hand led 
 
 To where a woman, gentle-eyed, 
 Her distaff fed. 
 
 She rose, she clasped her truant boy, 
 She thanked the stranger with her eyes ; 
 
 The hermit gazed in doubt and joy 
 And dumb surprise. 
 
 And lo ! with sudden warmth and light 
 A tender memory thrilled his frame ; 
 
 New-born, the world-lost anchorite 
 A man became. 
 
 O sister of El Zara's race, 
 
 Behold me ! had we not one mother ? " 
 She gazed into the stranger's face : 
 
 " Thou art my brother ! "
 
 148 NARRA TIVE AND LEGEND A R Y POEMS 
 
 " O kin of blood ! Thy life of use 
 
 And patient trust is more than mine ; 
 And wiser than the gray recluse 
 This child of thine. 
 
 " For, taught of him whom God hath sent, 
 That toil is praise, and love is prayer, 
 I come, life's cares and pains content 
 With thee to share." 
 
 Even as his foot the threshold crossed, 
 The hermit's better life began ; 
 
 Its holiest saint the Thebaid lost, 
 And found a man ! 
 
 1854. 
 
 MAUD MULLER. 
 
 The recollection of some descendants of a Hessian deserter in 
 the Revolutionar 'war bearing the name of Muller doubtless sug- 
 gested the somewhat infelicitous title of a New England idyl. 
 The poem had no real foundation in fact, though a hint of it may 
 have been found in recalling an incident, trivial in itself, of a 
 journey on the picturesque Maine seaboard with my sister some 
 years before it was written. We had stopped to rest our tired 
 horse under the shade of an apple-tree, and refresh him with 
 water from a little brook which rippled through the stone wall 
 across the road. A very beautiful young girl in scantest summer 
 attire was at work in the hay-field, and as we talked with her we 
 noticed that she strove to hide her bare feet by raking hay over 
 them, blushing as she did so, through the tan of her cheek and 
 neck. 
 
 MAUD MULLER on a summer's day, 
 Raked the meadow sweet with hay.
 
 MAUD MULLER 149 
 
 Beneath her torn hat glowed the wealth 
 Of simple beauty and rustic health. 
 
 Singing, she wrought, and her merry glee 
 The mock-bird echoed from his tree. 
 
 But when she glanced to the far-off town, 
 White from its hill-slope looking down, 
 
 The sweet song died, and a vague unrest 
 And a nameless longing filled her breast, 
 
 A wish, that she hardly dared to own, 
 For something better than she had known. 
 
 The Judge rode slowly down the lane, 
 Smoothing his horse's chestnut mane. 
 
 He drew his bridle in the shade 
 
 Of the apple-trees, to greet the maid, 
 
 And asked a draught from the spring that flowed 
 Through the meadow across the road. 
 
 She stooped where the cool spring bubbled up, 
 And filled for him her small tin cup, 
 
 And blushed as she gave it, looking down 
 On her feet so bare, and her tattered gown. 
 
 " Thanks ! " said the Judge ; " a sweeter draught 
 From a fairer hand was never quaffed."
 
 150 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 He spoke of the grass and flowers and trees, 
 Of the singing birds and the humming bees ; 
 
 Then talked of the haying, and wondered whether 
 The cloud in the west would bring foul weather. 
 
 And Maud forgot her brier-torn gown, 
 And her graceful ankles bare and brown ; 
 
 And listened, while a pleased surprise 
 Looked from her long-lashed hazel eyes. 
 
 At last, like one who for delay 
 Seeks a vain excuse, he rode away. 
 
 Maud Muller looked and sighed : " Ah me ! 
 That I the Judge's bride might be ! 
 
 " He would dress me up in silks so fine, 
 And praise and toast me at his wine. 
 
 " My father should wear a broadcloth coat ; 
 My brother should sail a painted boat. 
 
 " I 'd dress my mother so grand and gay, 
 And the baby should have a new toy each day. 
 
 " And I 'd feed the hungry and clothe the poor, 
 And all should bless me who left our door." 
 
 The Judge looked back as he climbed the hill, 
 And saw Maud Muller standing still.
 
 MaudMuller
 
 T&.
 
 MAUD MULLER 151 
 
 A form more fair, a face more sweet, 
 Ne'er hath it been my lot to meet. 
 
 ' And her modest answer and graceful air 
 Show her wise and good as she is fair. 
 
 ' Would she were mine, and I to-day, 
 Like her, a harvester of hay ; 
 
 ' No doubtful balance of rights and wrongs, 
 Nor weary lawyers with endless tongues, 
 
 " But low of cattle and song of birds, 
 And health and quiet and loving words." 
 
 But he thought of his sisters, proud and cold, 
 And his mother, vain of her rank and gold. 
 
 So, closing his heart, the Judge rode on, 
 And Maud was left in the field alone. 
 
 But the lawyers smiled that afternoon, 
 When he hummed in court an old love-tune ; 
 
 And the young girl mused beside the well 
 Till the rain on the unraked clover fell. 
 
 He wedded a wife of richest dower, 
 Who lived for fashion, as he for power. 
 
 Yet oft, in his marble hearth's bright glow, 
 He watched a picture come and go ;
 
 152 NA ERA TI VE A ND LEGEND A R Y POEMS 
 
 And sweet Maud Muller's hazel eyes 
 Looked out in their innocent surprise. 
 
 Oft, when the wine in his glass was red, 
 He longed for the wayside well instead ; 
 
 And closed his eyes on his garnished rooms 
 To dreani of meadows and clover-blooms. 
 
 And the proud man sighed, with a secret pain, 
 " Ah, that I were free again ! 
 
 " Free as when I rode that day, 
 Where the barefoot maiden raked her hay." 
 
 She wedded a man unlearned and poor, 
 And many children played round her door. 
 
 But care and sorrow, and childbirth pain, 
 Left their traces on heart and brain. 
 
 And oft, when the summer sun shone hot 
 On the new-mown hay in the meadow lot, 
 
 And she heard the little spring brook fall 
 Over the roadside, through the wall, 
 
 In the shade of the apple-tree again 
 She saw a rider draw his rein. 
 
 And, gazing down with timid grace, 
 She felt his pleased eyes read her face.
 
 MAUD MULLER 153 
 
 Sometimes her narrow kitchen walls 
 Stretched away into stately halls ; 
 
 The weary wheel to a spinnet turned, 
 The tallow candle an astral burned, 
 
 And for him who sat by the chimney lug, 
 Dozing and grumbling o'er pipe and mug, 
 
 A manly form at her side she saw, 
 And joy was duty and love was law. 
 
 Then she took up her burden of life again, 
 Saying only, " It might have been." 
 
 Alas for maiden, alas for Judge, 
 
 For rich repiner and household drudge ! 
 
 God pity them both ! and pity us all, 
 Who vainly the dreams of youth recall. 
 
 For of all sad words of tongue or pen, 
 
 The saddest are these : "It might have been ! " 
 
 Ah, well ! for us all some sweet hope lies 
 Deeply buried from human eyes ; 
 
 And, in the hereafter, angels may 
 Roll the stone from its grave away ! 
 1854.
 
 154 NA RRA TI VE A ND LEGEND A R Y POEMS 
 
 MARY GARVIN. 
 
 FROM the heart of Waumbek Methna, from the 
 lake that never fails, 
 
 Falls the Saco in the green lap of Conway's inter- 
 vales ; 
 
 There, in wild and virgin freshness, its waters 
 foam and flow r 
 
 As when Darby Field first saw them, two hundred 
 years ago. 
 
 But, vexed in all its seaward course with bridges, 
 dams, and mills, 
 
 How changed is Saco's stream, how lost its free- 
 dom of the hills, 
 
 Since travelled Jocelyn, factor Vines, and stately 
 Champernoon 
 
 Heard on its banks the gray wolf's howl, the trum- 
 pet of the loon ! 
 
 With smoking axle hot with speed, with steeds of 
 fire and steam, 
 
 Wide-waked To-day leaves Yesterday behind him 
 like a dream. 
 
 Still, from the hurrying train of Life, fly back- 
 ward far and fast 
 
 The milestones of the fathers, the landmarks of 
 the past. 
 
 But human hearts remain unchanged : the sorrow 
 
 and the sin, 
 The loves and hopes and fears of old, are to our 
 
 own akin ;
 
 MAR Y GARVIN 155 
 
 And if, in tales our fathers told, the songs our 
 
 mothers sung, 
 Tradition wears a snowy beard, Romance is always 
 
 young. 
 
 O sharp-lined man of traffic, on Saco's banks to- 
 day ! 
 
 O mill-girl watching late and long the shuttle's 
 restless play ! 
 
 Let, for the once, a listening ear the working hand 
 beguile, 
 
 And lend my old Provincial tale, as suits, a tear or 
 smile! 
 
 The evening gun had sounded from gray Fort 
 
 Mary's walls ; 
 Through the forest, like a wild beast, roared and 
 
 plunged the Saco's falls. 
 
 And westward on the sea-wind, that damp and 
 gusty grew, 
 
 Over cedars darkening inland the smokes of Spur- 
 wink blew. 
 
 On the hearth of Farmer Garvin, blazed the crack- 
 ling walnut log ; 
 
 Right and left sat dame and goodman, and between 
 them lay the dog, 
 
 Head on paws, and tail slow wagging, and beside 
 
 him on her mat, 
 Sitting drowsy in the firelight, winked and purred 
 
 the mottled cat.
 
 156 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 " Twenty years ! " said Goodman Garvin, speaking 
 
 sadly, under breath, 
 And his gray head slowly shaking, as one who 
 
 speaks of death. 
 
 The goodwife dropped her needles : " It is twenty 
 
 years to-day, 
 Since the Indians fell on Saco, and stole our child 
 
 away." 
 
 Then they sank into the silence, for each knew 
 
 the other's thought, 
 Of a great and common sorrow, and words were 
 
 needed not. 
 
 "Who knocks?" cried Goodman Garvin. The 
 
 door was open thrown ; 
 On two strangers, man and maiden, cloaked and 
 
 furred, the fire-light shone. 
 
 One with courteous gesture lifted the bear-skin 
 
 from his head ; 
 " Lives here Elkanah Garvin ? " "I am he," the 
 
 goodman said. 
 
 " Sit ye down, and dry and warm ye, for the night 
 
 is chill with rain." 
 And the goodwife drew the settle, and stirred the 
 
 fire amain. 
 
 The maid unclasped her cloak-hood, the firelight 
 
 glistened fair 
 In her large, moist eyes, and over soft folds of 
 
 dark brown hair.
 
 MARY GARVIN 157 
 
 Dame Garvin looked upon her : " It is Mary's self 
 
 I see! 
 Dear heart ! " she cried, " now tell me, has my 
 
 child come back to me ? " 
 
 " My name indeed is Mary," said the stranger sob- 
 bing wild ; 
 
 " Will you be to me a mother ? I am Mary Gar- 
 vin's child ! 
 
 " She sleeps by wooded Simcoe, but on her dying 
 
 day 
 She bade my father take me to her kinsfolk far 
 
 away. 
 
 " And when the priest besought her to do me no 
 
 such wrong, 
 She said, ' May God forgive me ! I have closed 
 
 my heart too long. 
 
 " ' When I hid me from my father, and shut out 
 
 my mother's call, 
 I sinned against those dear ones, and the Father 
 
 of us all. 
 
 " ' Christ's love rebukes no home-love, breaks no 
 
 tie of kin apart ; 
 Better heresy in doctrine, than heresy of heart. 
 
 " ' Tell me not the Church must censure : she who 
 
 wept the Cross beside 
 Never made her own flesh strangers, nor the claims 
 
 of blood denied ;
 
 158 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 " ' And if she who wronged her parents, with her 
 
 child atones to them, 
 Earthly daughter, Heavenly Mother ! thou at least 
 
 wilt not condemn ! ' 
 
 " So, upon her death-bed lying, my blessed mother 
 
 spake ; 
 As we come to do her bidding, so receive us for her 
 
 sake." 
 
 " God be praised ! " said Goodwife Garvin, " He 
 
 taketh, and He gives ; 
 He woundeth, but He healeth ; in her child our 
 
 daughter lives ! " 
 
 " Amen ! " the old man answered, as he brushed a 
 tear away, 
 
 And, kneeling by his hearthstone, said, with rever- 
 ence, " Let us pray." 
 
 All its Oriental symbols, and its Hebrew para- 
 
 Warm with earnest life and feeling, rose his prayer 
 of love and praise. 
 
 But he started at beholding, as he rose from off 
 
 his knee, 
 The stranger cross his forehead with the sign of 
 
 Papistrie. 
 
 " What is this ? " cried Farmer Garvin. " Is an 
 
 English Christian's home 
 A chapel or a mass-house, that you make the sign 
 
 of Rome?"
 
 MAR Y GARVIN 19 
 
 Then the young girl knelt beside him, kissed his 
 
 trembling hand, and cried : 
 " Oh, forbear to chide my father ; in that faith my 
 
 mother died ! 
 
 "On her wooden cross at Simcoe the dews and 
 
 sunshine fall, 
 As they fall on Spurwink's graveyard ; and the 
 
 dear God watches all ! " 
 
 The old man stroked the fair head that rested on 
 
 his knee ; 
 " Your words, dear child," he answered, " are God's 
 
 rebuke to me. 
 
 " Creed and rite perchance may differ, yet our 
 
 faith and hope be one. 
 Let me be your father's father, let him be to me 
 
 When the horn, on Sabbath morning, through the 
 
 still and frosty air, 
 From Spurwink, Pool, and Black Point, called to 
 
 sermon and to prayer, 
 
 To the goodly house of worship, where, in order 
 
 due and fit, 
 As by public vote directed, classed and ranked the 
 
 people sit ; 
 
 Mistress first and goodwife after, clerkly squire 
 
 before the clown, 
 From the brave coat, lace-embroidered, to the gray 
 
 frock, shading down ;
 
 160 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 From the pulpit read the preacher, " Goodman 
 
 Garvin and his wife 
 Fain would thank the Lord, whose kindness has 
 
 followed them through life, 
 
 "For the great and crowning mercy, that their 
 
 daughter, from the wild, 
 Where she rests (they hope in God's peace), has 
 
 sent to them her child ; 
 
 " And the prayers of all God's people they ask, 
 
 that they may prove 
 Not unworthy, through their weakness, of such 
 
 special proof of love." 
 
 As the preacher prayed, uprising, the aged couple 
 stood, 
 
 And the fair Canadian also, in her modest maiden- 
 hood. 
 
 Thought the elders, grave and doubting, " She is 
 
 Papist born and bred ; " 
 Thought the young men, " 'T is an angel in Mary 
 
 Garvin's stead ! " 
 1856. 
 
 THE EANGER. 
 
 Originally published as Martha Mason ; a Song of the Old 
 French War. 
 
 ROBERT RAWLIN ! Frosts were falling 
 When the ranger's horn was calling 
 Through the woods to Canada.
 
 THE RANGER 161 
 
 Gone the winter's sleet and snowing, 
 Gone the spring-time's bud and blowing, 
 Gone the summer's harvest mowing, 
 
 And again the fields are gray. 
 
 Yet away, he 's away ! 
 Faint and fainter hope is growing 
 
 In the hearts that mourn his stay. 
 
 Where the lion, crouching high on 
 Abraham's rock with teeth of iron, 
 
 Glares o'er wood and wave away, 
 Faintly thence, as pines far sighing, 
 Or as thunder spent and dying, 
 Come the challenge and replying, 
 
 Come the sounds of flight and fray. 
 
 Well-a-day ! Hope and pray ! 
 Some are living, some are lying 
 
 In their red graves far away. 
 
 Straggling rangers, worn with dangers, 
 Homeward faring, weary strangers 
 
 Pass the farm-gate on their way ; 
 Tidings of the dead and living, 
 Forest march and ambush, giving, 
 Till the maidens leave their weaving, 
 
 And the lads forget their play. 
 
 " Still away, still away ! " 
 Sighs a sad one, sick with grieving, 
 
 " Why does Robert still delay ! " 
 
 Nowhere fairer, sweeter, rarer, 
 Does the golden-locked fruit bearer 
 Through his painted woodlands stray,
 
 162 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 Than where hillside oaks and beeches 
 Overlook the long, blue rea,ches, 
 Silver coves and pebbled beaches, 
 
 And green isles of Casco Bay ; 
 
 Nowhere day, for delay, 
 With a tenderer look beseeches, 
 
 " Let me with my charmed earth stay." 
 
 On the grain-lands of the mainlands 
 Stands the serried corn like train-bands, 
 
 Plume and pennon rustling gay ; 
 Out at sea, the islands wooded, 
 Silver birches, golden-hooded, 
 Set with maples, crimson-blooded, 
 
 White sea-foam and sand-hills gray, 
 
 Stretch away, far away. 
 Dim and dreamy, over-brooded 
 
 By the hazy autumn day. 
 
 Gayly chattering to the clattering 
 
 Of the brown nuts downward pattering. 
 
 Leap the squirrels, red and gray. 
 On the grass-land, on the fallow, 
 Drop the apples, red and yellow ; 
 Drop the russet pears and mellow, 
 
 Drop the red leaves all the day. 
 
 And away, swift away, 
 Sun and cloud, o'er hill and hollow 
 
 Chasing, weave their web of play. 
 
 " Martha Mason, Martha Mason, 
 Prithee tell us of the reason 
 
 Why you mope at home to-day :
 
 THE RANGER 163 
 
 Surely smiling is not sinning ; 
 
 Leave your quilling, leave your spinning j 
 
 What is all your store of linen, 
 
 If your heart is never gay ? 
 
 Come away, come away ! 
 Never yet did sad beginning 
 
 Make the task of life a play." 
 
 Overbending, till she 's blending 
 With the flaxen skein she 's tending 
 
 Pale brown tresses smoothed away 
 From her face of patient sorrow, 
 Sits she, seeking but to borrow, 
 From the trembling hope of morrow, 
 
 Solace for the weary day. 
 
 " Go your way, laugh and play ; 
 Unto Him who heeds the sparrow 
 
 And the lily, let me pray." 
 
 " With our rally, rings the valley, 
 Join us ! " cried the blue-eyed Nelly ; 
 
 " Join us ! " cried the laughing May, 
 " To the beach we all are going, 
 And, to save the task of rowing, 
 West by north the wind is blowing, 
 
 Blowing briskly down the bay ! 
 
 Come away, come away ! 
 Time and tide are swiftly flowing, 
 
 Let us take them while we may ! 
 
 " Never tell us that you '11 fail us, 
 Where the purple beach-plum mellows 
 On the bluffs so wild and gray.
 
 164 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 Hasten, for the oars are falling ; 
 Hark, our merry mates are calling ; 
 Time it is that we were all in, 
 
 Singing tideward down the bay ! " 
 
 " Nay, nay, let me stay ; 
 Sore and sad for Robert Rawlin 
 
 Is my heart," she said, " to-day." 
 
 " Vain your calling for Rob Rawlin ! 
 Some red squaw his moose-meat 's broiling, 
 
 Or some French lass, singing gay ; 
 Just forget as he 's forgetting ; 
 What avails a life of fretting ? 
 If some stars must needs be setting, 
 
 Others rise as good as they." 
 
 " Cease, I pray ; go your way ! " 
 Martha cries, her eyelids wetting ; 
 
 " Foul and false the words you say ! " 
 
 *' Martha Mason, hear to reason ! 
 Prithee, put a kinder face on ! " 
 
 " Cease to vex me," did she say ; 
 " Better at his side be lying, 
 With the mournful pine-trees sighing, 
 And the wild birds o'er us crying, 
 
 Than to doubt like mine a prey ; 
 
 While away, far away, 
 Turns my heart, forever trying 
 
 Some new hope for each new day. 
 
 " When the shadows veil the meadows, 
 And the sunset's golden ladders 
 
 Sink from twilight's walls of gray,
 
 THE RANGER 165 
 
 From the window of my dreaming, 
 I can see his sickle gleaming, 
 Cheery-voiced, can hear him teaming 
 
 Down the locust-shaded way ; 
 
 But away, swift away, 
 Fades the fond, delusive seeming, 
 
 And I kneel again to pray. 
 
 ; When the growing dawn is showing, 
 And the barn-yard cock is crowing, 
 
 And the horned moon pales away : 
 From a dream of him awaking, 
 Every sound my heart is making 
 Seems a footstep of his taking ; 
 
 Then I hush the thought, and say, 
 
 ' Nay, nay, he 's away ! ' 
 Ah ! my heart, my heart is breaking 
 
 For the dear one far away." 
 
 Look up, Martha ! worn and swarthy, 
 Glows a face of manhood worthy : 
 
 " Robert ! " * Martha ! " all they say. 
 O'er went wheel and reel together, 
 Little cared the owner whither ; 
 Heart of lead is heart of feather, 
 
 Noon of night is noon of day ! 
 
 Come away, come away ! 
 When such lovers meet each other, 
 
 Why should prying idlers stay ? 
 
 Quench the timber's fallen embers, 
 Quench the red leaves in December's 
 Hoary rime and chilly spray.
 
 166 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 But the hearth shall kindle clearer, 
 Household welcomes sound sincerer, 
 Heart to loving heart draw nearer, 
 When the bridal bells shall say : 
 " Hope and pray, trust alway ; 
 Life is sweeter, love is dearer, 
 
 For the trial and delay ! " 
 1856. 
 
 THE GARRISON OF CAPE ANN. 
 
 FROM the hills of home forth looking, far beneath 
 
 the tent-like span 
 Of the sky, I see the white gleam of the headland 
 
 of Cape Ann. 
 Well I know its coves and beaches to the ebb-tide 
 
 glimmering down, 
 And the white-walled hamlet children of its ancient 
 
 fishing-town. 
 
 Long has passed the summer morning, and its 
 
 memory waxes old, 
 When along yon breezy headlands with a pleasant 
 
 friend I strolled. 
 Ah! the autumn sun is shining, and the ocean 
 
 wind blows cool, 
 And the golden-rod and aster bloom around thy 
 
 grave, Rantoul ! 
 
 With the memory of that morning by the summer 
 
 sea I blend 
 A wild and wondrous story, by the younger Mather 
 
 penned,
 
 THE GARRISON OF CAPE ANN 167 
 
 In that quaint Magnolia Christi, with all strange 
 
 and marvellous things, 
 Heaped up huge and undigested, like the chaos 
 
 Ovid sings. 
 
 Dear to me these far, faint glimpses of the dual 
 life of old, 
 
 Inward, grand with awe and reverence ; outward, 
 mean and coarse and cold ; 
 
 Gleams of mystic beauty playing over dull and vul- 
 gar clay, 
 
 Golden-threaded fancies weaving in a web of hod- 
 den gray. 
 
 The great eventful Present hides the Past ; but 
 through the din 
 
 Of its loud life hints and echoes from the life be- 
 hind steal in ; 
 
 And the lore of home and fireside, and the legend- 
 ary rhyme, 
 
 Make the task of duty lighter which the true man 
 owes his time. 
 
 So, with something of the feeling which the Cove- 
 nanter knew, 
 
 When with pious chisel wandering Scotland's 
 moorland graveyards through, 
 
 From the graves of old traditions I part the black- 
 berry-vines, 
 
 Wipe the moss from off the headstones, and re- 
 touch the faded lines.
 
 168 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 Where the sea-waves back and forward, hoarse 
 with rolling pebbles, ran, 
 
 The garrison-house stood watching on the gray 
 rocks of Cape Ann ; 
 
 On its windy site uplifting gabled roof and pali- 
 sade, 
 
 And rough walls of unhewn timber with the moon- 
 light overlaid. 
 
 On his slow round walked the sentry, south and 
 
 eastward looking forth 
 O'er a rude and broken coast-line, white with 
 
 breakers stretching north, 
 Wood and rock and gleaming sand-drift, jagged 
 
 capes, with bush and tree, 
 Leaning inland from the smiting of the wild and 
 
 gusty sea. 
 
 Before the deep-mouthed chimney, dimly lit by 
 
 idying brands, 
 Twenty soldiers sat and waited, with their muskets 
 
 in their hands ; 
 On the rough-hewn oaken table the venison haunch 
 
 was shared, 
 And the pewter tankard circled slowly round from 
 
 beard to beard. 
 
 Long they sat and talked together, talked of 
 wizards Satan-sold ; 
 
 Of all ghostly sights and noises, signs and won- 
 ders manifold ;
 
 THE GARRISON OF CAPE ANN 169 
 
 Of the spectre-ship of Salem, with the dead men 
 in her shrouds, 
 
 Sailing sheer above the water, in the loom of morn- 
 ing clouds ; 
 
 Of the marvellous valley hidden in the depths of 
 
 Gloucester woods, 
 Full of plants that love the summer, blooms of 
 
 warmer latitudes ; 
 Where the Arctic birch is braided by the tropic's 
 
 flowery vines, 
 And the white magnolia-blossoms star the twilight 
 
 of the pines ! 
 
 But their voices sank yet lower, sank to husky 
 
 tones of fear, 
 As they spake of present tokens of the powers of 
 
 evil near ; 
 Of a spectral host, defying stroke of steel and aim 
 
 of gun ; 
 Never yet was ball to slay them in the mould of 
 
 mortals run ! 
 
 Thrice, with plumes and flowing scalp-locks, from 
 the midnight wood they came, 
 
 Thrice around the block-house marching, met, un- 
 harmed, its volleyed flame ; 
 
 Then, with mocking laugh and gesture, sunk in 
 earth or lost in air, 
 
 All the ghostly wonder vanished, and the moonlit 
 sands lay bare.
 
 170 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 Midnight came ; from out the forest moved a 
 
 dusky mass that soon 
 Grew to warriors, plumed and painted, grimly 
 
 marching in the moon. 
 " Ghosts or witches," said the captain, " thus I foil 
 
 the Evil One ! " 
 And he rammed a silver button, from his doublet, 
 
 down his gun. 
 
 Once again the spectral horror moved the guarded 
 wall about ; 
 
 Once again the levelled muskets through the pali- 
 sades flashed out, 
 
 With that deadly aim the squirrel on his tree-top 
 might not shun, 
 
 Nor the beach-bird seaward flying with his slant 
 wing to the sun. 
 
 Like the idle rain of summer sped the harmless 
 
 shower of lead. 
 With a laugh of fierce derision, once again the 
 
 phantoms fled ; 
 Once again, without a shadow on the sands the 
 
 moonlight lay, 
 And the white smoke curling through it drifted 
 
 slowly down the bay ! 
 
 " God preserve us ! " said the captain ; " never 
 
 mortal foes were there ; 
 They have vanished with their leader, Prince and 
 
 Power of the air !
 
 THE GARRISON OF CAPE ANN 171 
 
 Lay aside your useless weapons ; skill and prowess 
 naught avail ; 
 
 They who do the Devil's service wear their mas- 
 ter's coat of mail ! " 
 
 So the night grew near to cock-crow, when again 
 
 a warning call 
 Roused the score of weary soldiers watching round 
 
 the dusky hall : 
 And they looked to flint and priming, and they 
 
 longed for break of day ; 
 But the captain closed his Bible : " Let us cease 
 
 from man, and pray ! " 
 
 To the men who went before us, all the unseen 
 
 powers seemed near, 
 And their steadfast strength of courage struck its 
 
 roots in holy fear. 
 Every hand forsook the musket, every head was 
 
 bowed and bare, 
 Every stout knee pressed the flag-stones, as the 
 
 captain led in prayer. 
 
 Ceased thereat the mystic marching of the spectres 
 
 round the wall, 
 But a sound abhorred, unearthly, smote the ears 
 
 and hearts of all, 
 Howls of rage and shrieks of anguish! Never 
 
 after mortal man 
 Saw the ghostly leaguers marching round the 
 
 block-house of Cape Ann.
 
 172 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 So to us who walk in summer through the cool and 
 
 sea-blown town, 
 From the childhood of its people conies the solemn 
 
 legend down. 
 Not in vain the ancient fiction, in whose moral 
 
 lives the youth 
 And the fitness and the freshness of an undecay- 
 
 ing truth. 
 
 Soon or late to all our dwellings come the spectres 
 
 of the mind, 
 Doubts and fears and dread forebodings, in the 
 
 darkness undefined ; 
 Round us throng the grim projections of the heart 
 
 and of the brain, 
 And our pride of strength is weakness, and the 
 
 cunning hand is vain. 
 
 In the dark we cry like children ; and no answer 
 
 from on high 
 Breaks the crystal spheres of silence, and no white 
 
 wings downward fly ; 
 But the heavenly help we pray for comes to faith, 
 
 and not to sight, 
 And our prayers themselves drive backward all the 
 
 spirits of the night ! 
 1857. 
 
 THE GIFT OF TRITEMIUS. 
 
 TRITEMIUS of Herbipolis, one day, 
 While kneeling at the altar's foot to pray, 
 Alone with God, as was his pious choice, 
 Heard from without a miserable voice,
 
 THE GIFT OF TRITEMIUS 173 
 
 A sound which seemed of all sad things to tell, 
 As of a lost soul crying out of hell. 
 
 Thereat the Abbot paused ; the chain whereby 
 His thoughts went upward broken by that cry ; 
 And, looking from the casement, saw below 
 A wretched woman, with gray hair a-flow, 
 And withered hands held up to him, who cried 
 For alms as one who might not be denied. 
 
 She cried, "For the dear love of Him who gave 
 His life for ours, my child from bondage save, 
 My beautiful, brave first-born, chained with slaves 
 In the Moor's galley, where the sun-srnit waves 
 Lap the white walls of Tunis ! " " What I can 
 I give," Tritemius said, " my prayers." " O man 
 Of God ! " she cried, for grief had made her bold, 
 " Mock me not thus ; I ask not prayers, but gold. 
 Words will not serve me, alms alone suffice ; 
 Even while I speak perchance my first-born dies." 
 
 " W T oman ! " Tritemius answered, " from our door 
 None go unfed, hence are we always poor ; 
 A single soldo is our only store. 
 Thou hast our prayers ; what can we give thee 
 more?" 
 
 " Give me," she said, " the silver candlesticks 
 On either side of the great crucifix. 
 God well may spare them on His errands sped, 
 Or He can give you golden ones instead." 
 
 Then spake Tritemius, " Even as thy word, 
 Woman, so be it ! (Our most gracious Lord,
 
 174 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 Who loveth mercy more than sacrifice, 
 Pardon me if a human soul I prize 
 Above the gifts upon his altar piled !) 
 Take what thou askest, and redeem thy child." 
 
 But his hand trembled as the holy alms 
 He placed within the beggar's eager palms ; 
 And as she vanished down the linden shade, 
 He bowed his head and for forgiveness prayed. 
 
 So the day passed, and when the twilight came 
 He woke to find the chapel all aflame, 
 And, dumb with grateful wonder, to behold 
 Upon the altar candlesticks of gold ! 
 1857. 
 
 SKIPPER IRESON'S RIDE. 
 
 In the valuable and carefully prepared History of Marblehead, 
 published in 1879 by Samuel Roads, Jr., it is stated that the crew 
 of Captain Ireson, rather than himself, were responsible for the 
 abandonment of the disabled vessel. To screen themselves they 
 charged their captain with the crime. In view of this the writer 
 of the ballad addressed the following letter to the historian : 
 
 OAK KNOLL, DANVEBS, 5 mo. 18, 1880. 
 
 MY DEAR FRIEND : I heartily thank thee for a copy of thy 
 History of Marblehead. I have read it with great interest and 
 think good use has been made of the abundant material. No 
 town in Essex County has a record more honorable than Marble- 
 head ; no one has done more to develop the industrial interests of 
 our New England seaboard, and certainly none have given such 
 evidence of self-sacrificing patriotism. I am glad the story of it 
 has been at last told, and told so well. I have now no doubt that 
 thy version of Skipper Ireson's ride is the correct one. My verse 
 was founded solely on a fragment of rhyme which I heard from 
 one of my early schoolmates, a native of Marblehead. 
 
 I supposed the story to which it referred dated back at least a 
 century. I knew nothing of the participators, and the narrative
 
 SKIPPER IRESON'S RIDE 175 
 
 of the ballad was pure fancy. I am glad for the sake of truth 
 and justice that the real facts are given in thy book. I certainly 
 would not knowingly do injustice to any one, dead or living. 
 I am very truly thy friend, 
 
 JOHN G. WHITTIEK. 
 
 OF all the rides since the birth of time, 
 Told in story or sung in rhyme, 
 On Apuleius's Golden Ass, 
 Or one-eyed Calendar's horse of brass, 
 Witch astride of a human back, 
 Islam's prophet on Al-Borak, 
 The strangest ride that ever was sped 
 Was Ireson's, out from Marblehead ! 
 Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart, 
 Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart 
 By the women of Marblehead ! 
 
 Body of turkey, head of owl, 
 Wings a-droop like a raiued-on fowl, 
 Feathered and ruffled in every part, 
 Skipper Ireson stood in the cart. 
 Scores of women, old and young, 
 Strong of muscle, and glib of tongue, 
 Pushed and pulled up the rocky lane, 
 Shouting and singing the shrill refrain : 
 " Here 's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt, 
 Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt 
 By the women o' Morble'ead ! " 
 
 Wrinkled scolds with hands on hips, 
 Girls in bloom of cheek and lips, 
 Wild-eyed, free-limbed, such as chase 
 Bacchus round some antique vase,
 
 176 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 Brief of skirt, with ankles bare, 
 
 Loose of kerchief and loose of hair, 
 
 With conch-shells blowing and fish-horns' twang, 
 
 Over and over the Maenads sang : 
 
 " Here 's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt, 
 Torr'd an' futherr'd an corr'd in a corrt 
 By the women o' Morble'ead ! " 
 
 Small pity for him ! He sailed away 
 From a leaking ship, in Chaleur Bay, 
 Sailed away from a sinking wreck, 
 With his own town's-people on her deck ! 
 " Lay by ! lay by ! " they called to him. 
 Back he answered, " Sink or swim ! 
 Brag of your catch of fish again ! " 
 And off he sailed through the fog and rain ! 
 Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart, 
 Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart 
 By the women of Marblehead ! 
 
 Fathoms deep in dark Chaleur 
 That wreck shall lie forevermore. 
 Mother and sister, wife and maid, 
 Looked from the rocks of Marblehead 
 Over the moaning and rainy sea, 
 Looked for the coming that might not be ! 
 What did the winds and the sea-birds say 
 Of the cruel captain who sailed away ? 
 Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart, 
 Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart 
 By the women of Marblehead ! 
 
 Through the street, on either side, 
 Up flew windows, doors swung wide ;
 
 SKIPPER IRESON'S RIDE 177 
 
 Sharp-tongued spinsters, old wives gray, 
 Treble lent the fish-horn's bray. 
 Sea-worn grandsires, cripple-bound, 
 Hulks of old sailors run aground, 
 Shook head, and fist, and hat, and cane, 
 And cracked with curses the hoarse refrain : 
 " Here 's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt, 
 Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt 
 By the women o' Morble'ead ! " 
 
 Sweetly along the Salem road 
 Bloom of orchard and lilac showed. 
 Little the wicked skipper knew 
 Of the fields so green and the sky so blue. 
 Riding there in his sorry trim, 
 Like an Indian idol glum and grim, 
 Scarcely he seemed the sound to hear 
 Of voices shouting, far and near : 
 
 " Here 's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt, 
 Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt 
 By the women o' Morble'ead ! " 
 
 /; ' Hear me, neighbors ! " at last he cried, 
 " What to me is this noisy ride ? 
 What is the shame that clothes the skin 
 To the nameless horror that lives within ? 
 Waking or sleeping, I see a wreck, 
 And hear a cry from a reeling deck ! 
 Hate me and curse me, I only dread 
 The hand of God and the face of the dead ! " 
 Said old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart, 
 Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart 
 By the women of Marblehead !
 
 178 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 Then the wife of the skipper lost at sea 
 Said, " God has touched him ! why should we ? " 
 Said an old wife mourning her only son, 
 " Cut the rogue's tether and let him run ! " 
 So with soft relentings and rude excuse, 
 Half scorn, half pity, they cut him loose, 
 And gave him a cloak to hide him in, 
 And left him alone with his shame and sin. 
 Poor Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart, 
 Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart 
 
 By the women of Marblehead ! 
 1857. 
 
 THE SYCAMORES. 
 
 Hugh Tallant was the first Irish resident of Haverhill, Mass. 
 He planted the button-wood trees on the bank of the river below 
 the village in the early part of the seventeenth century. Unfor- 
 tunately this noble avenue is now nearly destroyed. 
 
 IN the outskirts of the village, 
 
 On the river's winding shores, 
 Stand the Occidental plane-trees, 
 
 Stand the ancient sycamores. 
 
 One long century hath been numbered, 
 
 And another half-way told, 
 Since the rustic Irish gleeman 
 
 Broke for them the virgin mould. 
 
 Deftly set to Celtic music, 
 
 At his violin's sound they grew, 
 
 Through the moonlit eves of summer, 
 Making Amphion's fable true.
 
 THE SYCAMORES 179 
 
 Rise again, thou poor Hugh Tallant ! 
 
 Pass in jerkin green along, 
 With thy eyes brimful of laughter, 
 
 And thy mouth as full of song. 
 
 Pioneer of Erin's outcasts, 
 
 With his fiddle and his pack ; 
 Little dreamed the village Saxons 
 
 Of the myriads at his back. 
 
 How he wrought with spade and fiddle, 
 Delved by day and sang by night, 
 
 With a hand that never wearied, 
 And a heart forever light, 
 
 Still the gay tradition mingles 
 
 With a record grave and drear, 
 Like the rollic air of Cluny, 
 
 With the solemn march of Mear. 
 
 When the box-tree, white with blossoms, 
 Made the sweet May woodlands glad, 
 
 And the Aronia by the river 
 Lighted up the swarming shad, 
 
 And the bulging nets swept shoreward, 
 
 With their silver-sided haul, 
 Midst the shouts of dripping fishers, 
 
 He was merriest of them all. 
 
 When, among the jovial huskers, 
 
 Love stole in at Labor's side, 
 With the lusty airs of England, 
 
 Soft his Celtic measures vied.
 
 180 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 Songs of love and wailing lyke-wake, 
 
 And the merry fair's carouse ; 
 Of the wild Ked Fox of Erin 
 
 And the Woman of Three Cows, 
 
 By the blazing hearths of winter, 
 Pleasant seemed his simple tales, 
 
 Midst the grimmer Yorkshire legends 
 And the mountain myths of Wales. 
 
 How the souls in Purgatory 
 
 Scrambled up from fate forlorn, 
 
 On St. Keven's sackcloth ladder, 
 Slyly hitched to Satan's horn. 
 
 Of the fiddler who at Tara 
 
 Played all night to ghosts of kings ; 
 
 Of the brown dwarfs, and the fairies 
 Dancing in their moorland rings ! 
 
 Jolliest of our birds of singing, 
 Best he loved the Bob-o-link. 
 " Hush ! " he 'd say, " the tipsy fairies ! 
 Hear the little folks in drink ! " 
 
 Merry-faced, with spade and fiddle, 
 Singing through the ancient town, 
 
 Only this, of poor Hugh Tallant, 
 Hath Tradition handed down. 
 
 Not a stone his grave discloses ; 
 
 But if yet his spirit walks, 
 'T is beneath the trees he planted, 
 
 And when Bob-o-Lincoln talks ;
 
 THE SYCAMORES 181 
 
 Green memorials of the gleeman ! 
 
 Linking still the river-shores, 
 With their shadows cast by sunset, 
 
 Stand Hugh Tallant's sycamores ! 
 
 When the Father of his Country 
 Through the north-land riding came, 
 
 And the roofs were starred with banners, 
 And the steeples rang acclaim, 
 
 When each war-scarred Continental, 
 
 Leaving smithy, mill, and farm, 
 Waved his rusted sword in welcome, 
 
 And shot off his old king's arm, 
 
 Slowly passed that august Presence 
 
 Down the thronged and shouting street ; 
 
 Village girls as white as angels, 
 Scattering flowers around his feet. 
 
 Midway, where the plane-tree's shadow 
 
 Deepest fell, his rein he drew : 
 On his stately head, uncovered, 
 
 Cool and soft the west-wind blew. 
 
 And he stood up in his stirrups, 
 
 Looking up and looking down 
 On the hills of Gold and Silver 
 
 Rimming round the little town, 
 
 On the river, full of sunshine, 
 
 To the lap of greenest vales 
 Winding down from wooded headlands, 
 
 Willow-skirted, white with sails.
 
 182 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 And he said, the landscape sweeping 
 
 Slowly with his ungloved hand, 
 " I have seen no prospect fairer 
 In this goodly Eastern land." 
 
 Then the bugles of his escort 
 
 Stirred to life the cavalcade : 
 And that head, so bare and stately, 
 
 Vanished down the depths of shade. 
 
 Ever since, in town and farm-house, 
 Life has had its ebb and flow ; 
 
 Thrice hath passed the human harvest 
 To its garner green and low. 
 
 But the trees the gleeman planted, 
 
 Through the changes, changeless stand ; 
 
 As the marble calm of Tadmor 
 Mocks the desert's shifting sand. 
 
 Still the level moon at rising 
 Silvers o'er each stately shaft ; 
 
 Still beneath them, half in shadow, 
 Singing, glides the pleasure craft ; 
 
 Still beneath them, arm-enfolded, 
 Love and Youth together stray ; 
 
 While, as heart to heart beats faster, 
 More and more their feet delay. 
 
 Where the ancient cobbler, Keezar, 
 
 On the open hillside wrought, 
 Singing, as he drew his stitches, 
 
 Songs his German masters taught,
 
 THE PIPES AT LUCKNOW 183 
 
 Singing, with his gray hair floating 
 
 Round his rosy ample face, 
 Now a thousand Saxon craftsmen 
 
 Stitch and hammer in his place. 
 
 All the pastoral lanes so grassy 
 Now are Traffic's dusty streets ; 
 
 From the village, grown a city, 
 Fast the rural grace retreats. 
 
 But, still green, and tall, and stately, 
 
 On the river's winding shores, 
 Stand the Occidental plane-trees, 
 
 Stand Hugh Tallant's sycamores. 
 
 1857. 
 
 THE PIPES AT LUCKNOW. 
 
 An incident of the Sepoy mutiny. 
 
 PIPES of the misty moorlands, 
 
 Voice of the glens and hills ; 
 The droning of the torrents, 
 
 The treble of the rills ! 
 Not the braes of broom and heather, 
 
 Nor the mountains dark with rain, 
 Nor maiden bower, nor border tower, 
 
 Have heard your sweetest strain ! 
 
 Dear to the Lowland reaper, 
 And plaided mountaineer, 
 
 To the cottage and the castle 
 The Scottish pipes are dear ; 
 
 Sweet sounds the ancient pibroch 
 O'er mountain, loch, and glade ;
 
 184 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 But the sweetest of all music 
 The pipes at Lucknow played. 
 
 Day by day the Indian tiger 
 
 Louder yelled, and nearer crept ; 
 Round and round the jungle-serpent 
 
 Near and nearer circles swept. 
 " Pray for rescue, wives and mothers, 
 
 Pray to-day ! " the soldier said ; 
 " To-morrow, death 's between us 
 
 And the wrong and shame we dread. 
 
 Oh, they listened, looked, and waited, 
 
 Till their hope became despair ; 
 And the sobs of low bewailing 
 
 Filled the pauses of their prayer. 
 Then up spake a Scottish maiden, 
 
 With her ear unto the ground : 
 " Dinna ye hear it ? dinna ye hear it ? 
 
 The pipes o' Havelock sound ! " 
 
 Hushed the wounded man his groaning ; 
 
 Hushed the wife her little ones ; 
 Alone they heard the drum-roll 
 
 And the roar of Sepoy guns. 
 But to sounds of home and childhood 
 
 The Highland ear was true ; 
 As her mother's cradle-crooning 
 
 The mountain pipes she knew. 
 
 Like the march of soundless music 
 
 Through the vision of the seer, 
 More of feeling than of hearing, 
 
 Of the heart than of the ear,
 
 THE PIPES AT LUCKNOW 185 
 
 She knew the droning pibroch, 
 
 She knew the Campbell's call : 
 " Hark ! hear ye no' MacGregor's, 
 The grandest o' them all ! " 
 
 Oh, they listened, dumb and breathless, 
 
 And they caught the sound at last ; 
 Faint and far beyond the Goomtee 
 
 Rose and fell the piper's blast ! 
 Then a burst of wild thanksgiving 
 
 Mingled woman's voice and man's ; 
 " God be praised ! the march of Havelock ! 
 
 The piping of the clans ! " 
 
 Louder, nearer, fierce as vengeance, 
 
 Sharp and shrill as swords at strife, 
 Came the wild MacGregor's clan-call, 
 
 Stinging all the air to life. 
 But when the far-off dust-cloud 
 
 To plaided legions grew, 
 Full tenderly and blithesomely 
 
 The pipes of rescue blew ! 
 
 Round the silver domes of Lucknow, 
 
 Moslem mosque and Pagan shrine, 
 Breathed the air to Britons dearest, 
 
 The air of Auld Lang Syne. 
 O'er the cruel roll of war-drums 
 
 Rose that sweet and homelike strain ; 
 And the tartan clove the turban, 
 
 As the Goomtee cleaves the plain. 
 
 Dear to the corn-land reaper 
 And plaided mountaineer,
 
 186 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 To the cottage and the castle 
 
 The piper's song is dear. 
 Sweet sounds the Gaelic pibroch 
 
 O'er mountain, glen, and glade ; 
 But the sweetest of all music 
 
 The Pipes at Lucknow played ! 
 1858. 
 
 TELLING THE BEES. 
 
 A remarkable custom, brought from the Old Country, formerly 
 prevailed in the rural districts of New England. On the death 
 of a member of the family, the bees were at once informed of the 
 event, and their hives dressed in mourning. This ceremonial 
 was supposed to be necessary to prevent the swarms from leaving 
 their hives and seeking a new home. 
 
 HERE is the place ; right over the hill 
 
 Runs the path I took ; 
 You can see the gap in the old wall still, 
 
 And the stepping-stones in the shallow brook. 
 
 There is the house, with the gate red-barred, 
 
 And the poplars tall ; 
 And the barn's brown length, and the cattle-yard, 
 
 And the white horns tossing above the waU. 
 
 There are the beehives ranged in the sun ; 
 
 And down by the brink 
 Of the brook are her poor flowers, weed-o'errun, 
 
 Pansy and daffodil, rose and pink. 
 
 A year has gone, as the tortoise goes, 
 Heavy and slow ;
 
 Telling the Bees
 
 TELLING THE BEES 187 
 
 And the same rose blows, and the same sun glows, 
 And the same brook sings of a year ago. 
 
 There 's the same sweet clover-smell in the breeze ; 
 
 And the June sun warm 
 Tangles his wings of fire in the trees, 
 
 Setting, as then, over Fernside farm. 
 
 I mind me how with a lover's care 
 
 From my Sunday coat 
 I brushed off the burrs, and smoothed my hair, 
 
 And cooled at the brookside my brow and 
 throat. 
 
 Since we parted, a month had passed, 
 
 To love, a year ; 
 Down through the beeches I looked at last 
 
 On the little red gate and the well-sweep near. 
 
 I can see it all now, the slantwise rain 
 
 Of light through the leaves, 
 The sundown's blaze on her window-pane, 
 
 The bloom of her roses under the eaves. 
 
 Just the same as a month before, 
 
 The house and the trees, 
 The barn's brown gable, the vine by the door, 
 
 Nothing changed but the hives of bees. 
 
 Before them, under the garden wall, 
 
 Forward and back, 
 Went drearily singing the chore-girl small, 
 
 Draping each hive with a shred of black.
 
 188 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 Trembling, I listened : the summer sun 
 
 Had the chill of snow ; 
 For I knew she was telling the bees of one 
 
 Gone on the journey we all must go ! 
 
 Then I said to myself, " My Mary weeps 
 
 For the dead to-day : 
 Haply her blind old grandsire sleeps 
 
 The fret and the pain of his age away." 
 
 But her dog whined low ; on the doorway sill, 
 
 With his cane to his chin, 
 The old man sat ; and the chore-girl still 
 
 Sung to the bees stealing out and in. 
 
 And the song she was singing ever since 
 
 In my ear sounds on : 
 " Stay at home, pretty bees, fly not hence ! 
 Mistress Mary is dead and gone ! " 
 
 1858. 
 
 THE SWAN SONG OF PARSON AVERT. 
 
 In Young's Chronicles of Massachusetts Bay from 1623 to 1636 
 may be found Anthony Thacher's Narrative of his Shipwreck. 
 Thacher was Avery's companion and survived to tell the tale. 
 Mather's Magnolia, III. 2, gives further Particulars of Parson 
 Avery's End, and suggests the title of the poem. 
 
 WHEN the reaper's task was ended, and the sum- 
 mer wearing late, 
 
 Parson Avery sailed from Newbury, with his wife 
 and children eight, 
 
 Dropping down the river-harbor in the shallop 
 " Watch and Wait."
 
 THE SWAN SONG OF PARSON A VERY 189 
 
 Pleasantly lay the clearings in the mellow summer- 
 morn, 
 
 With the newly planted orchards dropping their 
 fruits first-born, 
 
 And the home-roofs like brown islands amid a sea 
 of corn. 
 
 Broad meadows reached out seaward the tided 
 
 creeks between, 
 And hills rolled wave-like inland, with oaks and 
 
 walnuts green ; 
 A fairer home, a goodlier land, his eyes had never 
 
 Yet away sailed Parson Avery, away where duty 
 
 led, 
 And the voice of God seemed calling, to break the 
 
 living bread 
 To the souls of fishers starving on the rocks of 
 
 Marblehead. 
 
 All day they sailed : at nightfall the pleasant land- 
 breeze died, 
 
 The blackening sky, at midnight, its starry lights 
 denied, 
 
 And far and low the thunder of tempest prophe- 
 sied ! 
 
 Blotted out were all the coast-lines, gone were rock, 
 
 and wood, and sand ; 
 Grimly anxious stood the skipper with the rudder 
 
 in his hand, 
 And questioned of the darkness what was sea and 
 
 what was land.
 
 190 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 And the preacher heard his dear ones, nestled 
 round him, weeping sore : 
 
 " Never heed, ray little children ! Christ is walk- 
 ing on before 
 
 To the pleasant land of heaven, where the sea shall 
 be no more." 
 
 All at once the great cloud parted, like a curtain 
 
 drawn aside, 
 To let down the torch of lightning on the terror 
 
 far and wide ; 
 And the thunder and the whirlwind together smote 
 
 the tide. 
 
 There was wailing in the shallop, woman's wail 
 
 and man's despair, 
 A crash of breaking timbers on the rocks so sharp 
 
 and bare, 
 And, through it all, the murmur of Father Avery's 
 
 prayer. 
 
 From his struggle in the darkness with the wild 
 
 waves and the blast, 
 On a rock, where every billow broke above him as 
 
 it passed, 
 Alone, of all his household, the man of God was 
 
 cast. 
 
 There a comrade heard him praying, in the pause 
 of wave and wind : 
 
 " All my own have gone before me, and I linger 
 just behind ; 
 
 Not for life I ask, but only for the rest Thy ran- 
 somed find I
 
 THE SWAN SONG OF PARSON A VERY 191 
 
 " In this night of death I challenge the promise of 
 
 Thy word ! 
 Let me see the great salvation of which mine ears 
 
 have heard ! 
 Let me pass from hence forgiven, through the 
 
 grace of Christ, our Lord ! 
 
 " In the baptism of these waters wash white my 
 
 every sin, 
 And let me follow up to Thee my household and 
 
 my kin ! 
 Open the sea-gate of Thy heaven, and let me enter 
 
 in!" 
 
 When the Christian sings his death-song, all the 
 
 listening heavens draw near, 
 And the angels, leaning over the walls of crystal, 
 
 hear 
 How the notes so faint and broken swell to music 
 
 in God's ear. 
 
 The ear of God was open to His servant's last re- 
 quest ; 
 
 As the strong wave swept him downward the sweet 
 hymn upward pressed, 
 
 And the soul of Father Avery went, singing, to its 
 rest. 
 
 There was wailing on the mainland, from the rocks 
 
 of Marblehead ; 
 In the stricken church of Newbury the notes o 
 
 prayer were read ; 
 And long, by board and hearthstone, the living 
 
 mourned the dead.
 
 192 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 And still the fishers outbound, or scudding from 
 the squall, 
 
 'With grave and reverent faces, the ancient tale re- 
 call, 
 
 When they see the white waves breaking on the 
 
 Rock of Avery's Fall ! 
 1858. 
 
 THE DOUBLE-HEADED SNAKE OF NEW- 
 BURY. 
 
 " Concerning y e Amphisbaena, as soon as I received your com- 
 mands, I made diligent inquiry: ... he assures me y* it had 
 really two heads, one at each end; two mouths, two stings or 
 tongues." REV. CHRISTOPHER TOPPAN to COTTON MATHER. 
 
 FAR away in the twilight time 
 Of every people, in every clime, 
 Dragons and griffins and monsters dire, 
 Born of water, and air, and fire, 
 Or nursed, like the Python, in the mud 
 And ooze of the old Deucalion flood, 
 Crawl and wriggle and foam with rage, 
 Through dusk tradition and ballad age. 
 So from the childhood of Newbury town 
 And its time of fable the tale comes down 
 Of a terror which haunted bush and brake, 
 The Amphisbsena, the Double Snake I 
 
 Thou who makest the tale thy mirth, 
 Consider that strip of Christian earth 
 On the desolate shore of a sailless sea, 
 Full of terror and mystery,
 
 THE DOUBLE-HEADED SNAKE 193 
 
 Half redeemed from the evil hold 
 
 Of the wood so dreary, and dark, and old, 
 
 Which drank with its lips of leaves the dew 
 
 When Time was young, and the world was new, 
 
 And wove its shadows with sun and moon, 
 
 Ere the stones of Cheops were squared and hewn. 
 
 Think of the sea's dread monotone, 
 
 Of the mournful wail from the pine-wood blown, 
 
 Of the strange, vast splendors that lit the North, 
 
 Of the troubled throes of the quaking earth, 
 
 And the dismal tales the Indian told, 
 
 Till the settler's heart at his hearth grew cold, 
 
 And he shrank from the tawny wizard boasts, 
 
 And the hovering shadows seemed full of ghosts, 
 
 And above, below, and on every side, 
 
 The fear of his creed seemed verified ; 
 
 And think, if his lot were now thine own, 
 
 To grope with terrors nor named nor known, 
 
 How laxer muscle and weaker nerve 
 
 And a feebler faith thy need might serve ; 
 
 And own to thyself the wonder more 
 
 That the snake had two heads, and not a score ! 
 
 Whether he lurked in the Oldtown fen 
 
 Or the gray earth-flax of the Devil's Den, 
 
 Or swam in the wooded Artichoke, 
 
 Or coiled by the Northman's Written Rock, 
 
 Nothing on record is left to show ; 
 
 Only the fact that he lived, we know, 
 
 And left the cast of a double head 
 
 In the scaly mask which he yearly shed. 
 
 For he carried a head where his tail should be, 
 
 And the two, of course, could never agree, 
 
 VOL. I. 13
 
 194 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 But wriggled about with main and might, 
 Now to the left and now to the right ; 
 Pulling and twisting this way and that, 
 Neither knew what the other was at. 
 
 A snake with two heads, lurking so near ! 
 Judge of the wonder, guess at the fear ! 
 Think what ancient gossips might say, 
 Shaking their heads in their dreary way, 
 Between the meetings on Sabbath-day ! 
 How urchins, searching at day's decline 
 The Common Pasture for sheep or kine, 
 The terrible double-ganger heard 
 In leafy rustle or whir of bird ! 
 Think what a zest it gave to the sport, 
 In berry-time, of the younger sort, 
 As over pastures blackberry -twined, 
 Reuben and Dorothy lagged behind, 
 And closer and closer, for fear of harm, 
 The maiden clung to her lover's arm ; 
 And how the spark, who was forced to stay, 
 By his sweetheart's fears, till the break of day, 
 Thanked the snake for the fond delay ! 
 
 Far and wide the tale was told, 
 
 Like a snowball growing while it rolled. 
 
 The nurse hushed with it the baby's cry ; 
 
 And it served, in the worthy minister's eye, 
 
 To paint the primitive serpent by. 
 
 Cotton Mather came galloping down 
 
 All the way to Newbury town, 
 
 With his eyes agog and his ears set wide, 
 
 And his marvellous inkhorn at his side ;
 
 MABEL MARTIN 195 
 
 Stirring the while in the shallow pool 
 
 Of his brains for the lore he learned at school, 
 
 To garnish the story, with here a streak 
 
 Of Latin, and there another of Greek : 
 
 And the tales he heard and the notes he took, 
 
 Behold ! are they not in his Wonder-Book ? 
 
 Stories, like dragons, are hard to kill. 
 
 If the snake does not, the tale runs still 
 
 In Byfield Meadows, on Pipestave Hill. 
 
 And still, whenever husband and wife 
 
 Publish the shame of their daily strife, 
 
 And, with mad cross-purpose, tug and strain 
 
 At either end of the marriage-chain, 
 
 The gossips say, with a knowing shake 
 
 Of their gray heads, " Look at the Double Snake ! 
 
 One in body and two in will, 
 
 The Amphisbaena is living still ! " 
 
 1859. 
 
 MABEL MARTIN. 
 
 A HARVEST IDYL. 
 
 Susanna Martin, an aged woman of Amesbury, Mass., was tried 
 and executed for the alleged crime of witchcraft. Her home was 
 in what is now known as Pleasant Valley on the Merrimac, a lit- 
 tle above the old Ferry way, where, tradition says, an attempt 
 was made to assassinate Sir Edmund Andros on his way to Fal- 
 mouth (afterward Portland) and Pemaquid, which was frustrated 
 by a warning timely given. Goody Martin was the only woman 
 hanged on the north side of the Merrimac during the dreadful 
 delusion. The aged wife of Judge Bradbury who lived on the 
 other side of the Powow River was imprisoned and would have 
 been put to death but for the collapse of the hideous persecu- 
 tion.
 
 196 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 The substance of the poem which follows was published under 
 the name of The Witch's Daughter, in The National Era in 
 1857. In 1875 my publishers desired to issue it with illustra- 
 tions, and I then enlarged it and otherwise altered it to its present 
 form. The principal addition was in the verses which constitute 
 Parti. 
 
 PROEM. 
 
 I CALL the old time back : I bring my lay 
 In tender memory of the summer day 
 When, where our native river lapsed away, 
 
 We dreamed it over, while the thrushes made 
 Songs of their own, and the great pine-trees 
 
 laid 
 On warm noonlights the masses of their shade. 
 
 And she was with us, living o'er again 
 
 Her life in ours, despite of years and pain, 
 
 The Autumn's brightness after latter rain. 
 
 Beautiful in her holy peace as one 
 
 Who stands, at evening, when the work is done, 
 
 Glorified in the setting of the sun ! 
 
 Her memory makes our common landscape seem 
 Fairer than any of which painters dream ; 
 Lights the brown hills and sings in every stream ; 
 
 For she whose speech was always truth's pure 
 
 gold 
 
 Heard, not unpleased, its simple legends told, 
 And loved with us the beautiful and old.
 
 MABEL MARTIN 197 
 
 I. THE RIVER VALLEY. 
 
 Across the level tableland, 
 A grassy, rarely trodden way, 
 With thinnest skirt of birchen spray 
 
 And stunted growth of cedar, leads 
 To where you see the dull plain fall 
 Sheer off, steep-slanted, ploughed by all 
 
 The seasons' rainfalls. On its brink 
 The over-leaning harebells swing, 
 With roots half bare the pine-trees cling ; 
 
 And, through the shadow looking west, 
 You see the wavering river flow 
 Along a vale, that far below 
 
 Holds to the sun, the sheltering hills 
 And glimmering water-line between, 
 Broad fields of corn and meadows green, 
 
 And fruit-bent orchards grouped around 
 The low brown roofs and painted eaves, 
 And chimney-tops half hid in leaves. 
 
 No warmer valley hides behind 
 
 Yon wind-scourged sand-dunes, cold and bleak ; 
 No fairer river comes to seek 
 
 The wave-sung welcome of the sea, 
 Or mark the northmost border line 
 Of sun-loved growths of nut and vine.
 
 198 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 Here, ground-fast in their native fields, 
 Untempted by the city's gain, 
 The quiet farmer folk remain 
 
 Who bear the pleasant name of Friends, 
 And keep their fathers' gentle ways 
 And simple speech of Bible days ; 
 
 In whose neat homesteads woman holds 
 With modest ease her equal place, 
 And wears upon her tranquil face 
 
 The look of one who, merging not 
 Her self-hood in another's will, 
 Is love's and duty's handmaid still. 
 
 Pass with me down the path that winds 
 Through birches to the open land, 
 Where, close upon the river strand 
 
 You mark a cellar, vine o'errun, 
 
 Above whose wall of loosened stones 
 The sumach lifts its reddening cones, 
 
 And the black nightshade's berries shine, 
 And broad, unsightly burdocks fold 
 The household ruin, century-old. 
 
 Here, in the dim colonial time 
 
 Of sterner lives and gloomier faith, 
 A woman lived, tradition saith,
 
 MABEL MARTIN 199 
 
 Who wrought her neighbors foul annoy, 
 And witched and plagued the country-side, 
 Till at the hangman's hand she died. 
 
 Sit with me while the westering day 
 Falls slantwise down the quiet vale, 
 And, haply ere yon loitering sail, 
 
 That rounds the upper headland, falls 
 Below Deer Island's pines, or sees 
 Behind it Hawkswood's belt of trees 
 
 Eise black against the sinking sun, 
 My idyl of its days of old, 
 The vaUey's legend, shall be told. 
 
 II. THE HUSKING. 
 
 It was the pleasant harvest-time, 
 When cellar-bins are closely stowed, 
 And garrets bend beneath their load, 
 
 And the old swallow-haunted barns, 
 Brown-gabled, long, and full of seams 
 Through which the nioted sunlight streams, 
 
 And winds blow freshly in, to shake 
 The red plumes of the roosted cocks, 
 And the loose hay-mow's scented locks, 
 
 Are filled with summer's ripened stores, 
 Its odorous grass and barley sheaves, 
 From their low scaffolds to their eaves.
 
 200 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 On Esek Harden's oaken floor, 
 
 With many an autumn threshing worn, 
 Lay the heaped ears of unhusked corn. 
 
 And thither came young men and maids, 
 Beneath a moon that, large and low, 
 Lit that sweet eve of long ago. 
 
 They took their places ; some by chance, 
 And others by a merry voice 
 Or sweet smile guided to their choice. 
 
 How pleasantly the rising moon, 
 Between the shadow of the mows, 
 Looked on them through the great elm- 
 boughs ! 
 
 On sturdy boyhood, sun-embrowned, 
 On girlhood with its solid curves 
 Of healthful strength and painless nerves ! 
 
 And jests went round, and laughs that made 
 The house-dog answer with his howl, 
 And kept astir the barn-yard fowl ; 
 
 And quaint old songs their fathers sung 
 In Derby dales and Yorkshire moors, 
 Ere Norman William trod their shores ; 
 
 And tales, whose merry license shook 
 The fat sides of the Saxon thane, 
 Forgetful of the hovering Dane,
 
 MABEL MARTIN 201 
 
 Rude plays to Celt and Cimbri known, 
 The charms and riddles that beguiled 
 On Oxus' banks the young world's child, 
 
 That primal picture-speech wherein 
 Have youth and maid the story told, 
 So new in each, so dateless old, 
 
 Recalling pastoral Ruth in her . ^ 
 
 Who waited, blushing and demure, 
 The red-ear's kiss of forfeiture. 
 
 III. THE WITCH'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 But still the sweetest voice was mute 
 That river-valley ever heard 
 From lips of maid or throat of bird ; 
 
 For Mabel Martin sat apart, 
 
 And let the hay-mow's shadow fall 
 Upon the loveliest face of all. 
 
 She sat apart, as one forbid, 
 
 Who knew that none would condescend 
 To own the Witch-wife's child a friend. 
 
 The seasons scarce had gone their round, 
 Since curious thousands thronged to see 
 Her mother at the gallows-tree ; 
 
 And mocked the prison-palsied limbs 
 That faltered on the fatal stairs, 
 And wan lip trembling with its prayers !
 
 202 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 Few questioned of the sorrowing child, 
 Or, when they saw the mother die, 
 Dreamed of the daughter's agony. 
 
 They went up to their homes that day, 
 As men and Christians justified : 
 God willed it, and the wretch had died ! 
 
 Dear God and Father of us all, 
 Forgive our faith in cruel lies, 
 Forgive the blindness that denies ! 
 
 Forgive thy creature when he takes, 
 For the all-perfect love Thou art, 
 Some grim creation of his heart. 
 
 Cast down our idols, overturn 
 Our bloody altars; let us see 
 Thyself in Thy humanity ! 
 
 Young Mabel from her mother's grave 
 Crept to her desolate hearth-stone, 
 And wrestled with her fate alone ; 
 
 With love, and anger, and despair, 
 The phantoms of disordered sense, 
 The awful doubts of Providence ! 
 
 Oh, dreary broke the winter days, 
 And dreary fell the winter nights 
 When, one by one, the neighboring lights
 
 MABEL MARTIN 203 
 
 Went out, and human sounds grew still, 
 And all the phantom-peopled dark 
 Closed round her hearth-fire's dying spark. 
 
 And summer days were sad and long, 
 And sad the uncompanioued eves, 
 And sadder sunset-tinted leaves, 
 
 And Indian Summer's airs of balm ; 
 She scarcely felt the soft caress, 
 The beauty died of loneliness ! 
 
 The school-boys jeered her as they passed, 
 And, when she sought the house of prayer, 
 Her mother's curse pursued her there. 
 
 And still o'er many a neighboring door 
 She saw the horseshoe's curved charm, 
 To guard against her mother's harm : 
 
 That mother, poor and sick and lame, 
 Who daily, by the old arm-chair, 
 Folded her withered hands in prayer ; 
 
 Who turned, in Salem's dreary jail, 
 Her worn old Bible o'er and o'er, 
 When her dim eyes could read no more ! 
 
 Sore tried and pained, the poor girl kept 
 Her faith, and trusted that her way, 
 So dark, would somewhere meet the day.
 
 204 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 And still her weary wheel went round 
 Day after day, with no relief : 
 Small leisure have the poor for grief. 
 
 IV. THE CHAMPION. 
 
 So in the shadow Mabel sits ; 
 
 Untouched by mirth she sees and hears, 
 Her smile is sadder than her tears. 
 
 But cruel eyes have found her out, 
 And cruel lips repeat her name, 
 And taunt her with her mother's shame. 
 
 She answered not with railing words, 
 But drew her apron o'er her face, 
 And, sobbing, glided from the place. 
 
 And only pausing at the door, 
 
 Her sad eyes met the troubled gaze 
 Of one who, in her better days, 
 
 Had been her warm and steady friend, 
 Ere yet her mother's doom had made 
 Even Esek Harden half afraid. 
 
 He felt that mute appeal of tears, 
 And, starting, with an angry frown, 
 Hushed all the wicked murmurs down. 
 
 " Good neighbors mine," he sternly said, 
 " This passes harmless mirth or jest ; 
 I brook no insult to my guest.
 
 MABEL MARTIN 205 
 
 " She is indeed her mother's child ; 
 But God's sweet pity ministers 
 Unto no whiter soul than hers. 
 
 " Let Goody Martin rest in peace ; 
 I never knew her harm a fly, 
 And witch or not, God knows not I. 
 
 " I know who swore her life away ; 
 
 And as God lives, I 'd not condemn 
 An Indian dog on word of them." 
 
 The broadest lands in all the town, 
 The skill to guide, the power to awe, 
 Were Harden's ; and his word was law. 
 
 None dared withstand him to his face, 
 But one sly maiden spake aside : 
 " The little witch is evil-eyed ! 
 
 " Her mother only killed a cow, 
 
 Or witched a churn or dairy-pan ; 
 
 But she, forsooth, must charm a man ! " 
 
 V. IN THE SHADOW. 
 
 Poor Mabel, homeward turning, passed 
 The nameless terrors of the wood, 
 And saw, as if a ghost pursued, 
 
 Her shadow gliding in the moon ; 
 
 The soft breath of the west-wind gave 
 A chill as from her mother's grave.
 
 206 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 How dreary seemed the silent house ! 
 Wide in the moonbeams' ghastly glare 
 Its windows had a dead man's stare ! 
 
 And, like a gaunt and spectral hand, 
 The tremulous shadow of a birch 
 Reached out and touched the door's low 
 porch, 
 
 As if to lift its latch ; hard by, 
 A sudden warning call she heard, 
 The night-cry of a boding bird. 
 
 She leaned against the door ; her face, 
 So fair, so young, so full of pain, 
 White in the moonlight's silver rain. 
 
 The river, on its pebbled rim, 
 
 Made music such as childhood knew ; 
 The door-yard tree was whispered through 
 
 By voices such as childhood's ear 
 Had heard in moonlights long ago ; 
 And through the willow-boughs below 
 
 She saw the rippled waters shine ; 
 Beyond, in waves of shade and light, 
 The hills rolled off into the night. 
 
 She saw and heard, but over all 
 A sense of some transforming spell, 
 The shadow of her sick heart fell.
 
 Mabel Martin
 
 MABEL MARTIN 207 
 
 And still across the wooded space 
 The harvest lights of Harden shone, 
 And song and jest and laugh went on. 
 
 And he, so gentle, true, and strong, 
 Of men the bravest and the best, 
 Had he, too, scorned her with the rest ? 
 
 She strove to drown her sense of wrong, 
 And, in her old and simple way, 
 To teach her bitter heart to pray. 
 
 Poor child ! the prayer, begun in faith, 
 Grew to a low, despairing cry 
 Of utter misery : " Let me die ! 
 
 Oh ! take me from the scornful eyes, 
 And hide me where the cruel speech 
 And mocking finger may not reach ! 
 
 I dare riot breathe my mother's name : 
 A daughter's right I dare not crave 
 To weep above her unblest grave ! 
 
 Let me not live until my heart, 
 With few to pity, and with none 
 To love me, hardens into stone. 
 
 O God ! have mercy on Thy child, 
 
 Whose faith in Thee grows weak and 
 
 small, 
 And take me ere I lose it all ! "
 
 208 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 A shadow on the moonlight fell, 
 
 And murmuring wind and wave became 
 A voice whose burden was her name. 
 
 VI. THE BETROTHAL. 
 
 Had then God heard her? Had He sent 
 His angel down ? In flesh and blood, 
 Before her Esek Harden stood ! 
 
 He laid his hand upon her arm : 
 
 " Dear Mabel, this no more shall be ; 
 Who scoffs at you must scoff at me. 
 
 " You know rough Esek Harden well ; 
 And if he seems no suitor gay, 
 And if his hair is touched with gray, 
 
 " The maiden grown shall never find 
 
 His heart less warm than when she smiled, 
 Upon his knees, a little child ! " 
 
 Her tears of grief were tears of joy, 
 As, folded in his strong embrace, 
 She looked in Esek Harden' s face. 
 
 " O truest friend of all ! " she said, 
 
 " God bless you for your kindly thought, 
 And make me worthy of my lot ! " 
 
 He led her forth, and, blent in one, 
 Beside their happy pathway ran 
 The shadows of the maid and man.
 
 MABEL MARTIN 209 
 
 He led her through his dewy fields, 
 
 To where the swinging lanterns glowed, 
 And through the doors the huskers showed. 
 
 " Good friends and neighbors ! " Esek said, 
 " I 'm weary of this lonely life ; 
 In Mabel see my chosen wife I 
 
 " She greets you kindly, one and all ; 
 The past is past, and all offence 
 Falls harmless from her innocence. 
 
 " Henceforth she stands no more alone ; 
 You know what Esek Harden is ; 
 He brooks no wrong to him or his. 
 
 " Now let the merriest tales be told, 
 And let the sweetest songs be sung 
 That ever made the old heart young ! 
 
 " For now the lost has found a home ; 
 
 And a lone hearth shall brighter burn, 
 As all the household joys return ! " 
 
 Oh, pleasantly the harvest-moon, 
 Between the shadow of the mows, 
 Looked on them through the great elm- 
 boughs ! 
 
 On Mabel's curls of golden hair, 
 On Esek's shaggy strength it fell ; 
 And the wind whispered, " It is well ! "
 
 210 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 THE PROPHECY OF SAMUEL SEWALL. 
 
 The prose version of this prophecy is to be found in Se wall's 
 The New Heaven upon the New Earth, 1697, quoted in Joshua 
 Coffin's History of Newbury. Judge Sewall's father, Henry 
 Sewall, was one of the pioneers of Newbury. 
 
 UP and down the village streets 
 
 Strange are the forms my fancy meets, 
 
 For the thoughts and things of to-day are hid, 
 
 And through the veil of a closed lid 
 
 The ancient worthies I see again : 
 
 I hear the tap of the elder's cane, 
 
 And his awful periwig I see, 
 
 And the silver buckles of shoe and knee. 
 
 Stately and slow, with thoughtful air, 
 
 His black cap hiding his whitened hair, 
 
 Walks the Judge of the great Assize, 
 
 Samuel Sewall the good and wise. 
 
 His face with lines of firmness wrought, 
 
 He wears the look of a man unbought, 
 
 Who swears to his hurt and changes not; 
 
 Yet, touched and softened nevertheless 
 
 With the grace of Christian gentleness, 
 
 The face that a child would climb to kiss ! 
 
 True and tender and brave and just, 
 
 That man might honor and woman trust. 
 
 Touching and sad, a tale is told, 
 Like a penitent hymn of the Psalmist old, 
 Of the fast which the good man lifelong kept 10 
 With a haunting sorrow that never slept, 
 As the circling year brought round the time 
 Of an error that left the sting of crime,
 
 THE PROPHECY OF SAMUEL SEW ALL 211 
 
 When he sat on the bench of the witchcraft 
 
 courts, 
 
 With the laws of Moses and Hale's Reports, 
 And spake, in the name of both, the word 
 That gave the witch's neck to the cord, 
 And piled the oaken planks that pressed 
 The feeble life from the warlock's breast ! 
 All the day long, from dawn to dawn, 
 His door was bolted, his curtain drawn ; 
 No foot on his silent threshold trod, 
 No eye looked o*n him save that of God, 
 As he baffled the ghosts of the dead with charms 
 Of penitent tears, and prayers, and psalms, 
 And, with precious proofs from the sacred word 
 Of the boundless pity and love of the Lord, 
 His faith confirmed and his trust renewed 
 That the sin of his ignorance, sorely rued, 
 Might be washed away in the mingled flood 
 Of his human sorrow and Christ's dear blood! 
 
 Green forever the memory be 
 Of the Judge of the old Theocracy, 
 Whom even his errors glorified, 
 Like a far-seen, sunlit mountain-side 
 By the cloudy shadows which o'er it glide! 
 Honor and praise to the Puritan 
 Who the halting step of his age outran, 
 And, seeing the infinite worth of man 
 In the priceless gift the Father gave, 
 In the infinite love that stooped to save, 
 Dared not brand his brother a slave ! 
 " Who doth such wrong," he was wont to say, 
 In his own quaint, picture-loving way,
 
 212 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 " Flings up to Heaven a hand-grenade 
 
 Which God shall cast down upon his head ! " 
 
 Widely as heaven and hell, contrast 
 That brave old jurist of the past 
 And the cunning trickster and knave of courts 
 Who the holy features of Truth distorts, 
 Ruling as right the will of the strong, 
 Poverty, crime, and weakness wrong ; 
 Wide-eared to power, to the wronged and weak 
 Deaf as Egypt's gods of leek ; ' 
 Scoffing aside at party's nod 
 Order of nature and law of God ; 
 For whose dabbled ermine respect were waste, 
 Reverence folly, and awe misplaced ; 
 Justice of whom 't were vain to seek 
 As from Koordish robber or Syrian Sheik ! 
 Oh, leave the wretch to his bribes and sins ; 
 Let him rot in the web of lies he spins ! 
 To the saintly soul of the early day, 
 To the Christian judge, let us turn and say : 
 " Praise and thanks for an honest man ! 
 Glory to God for the Puritan ! " 
 
 I see, far southward, this quiet day, 
 The hills of Newbury rolling away, 
 With the many tints of the season gay, 
 Dreamily blending in autumn mist 
 Crimson, and gold, and amethyst. 
 Long and low, with dwarf trees crowned, 
 Plum Island lies, like a whale aground, 
 A stone's toss over the narrow sound.
 
 THE PROPHECY OF SAMUEL SEWALL 213 
 
 Inland, as far as the eye can go, 
 
 The hills curve round like a bended bow ; 
 
 A silver arrow from out them sprung, 
 
 I see the shine of the Quasycung ; 
 
 And, round and round, over valley and hill, 
 
 Old roads winding, as old roads will, 
 
 Here to a ferry, and there to a mill ; 
 
 And glimpses of chimneys and gabled eaves, 
 
 Through green elm arches and maple leaves, 
 
 Old homesteads sacred to all that can 
 
 Gladden or sadden the heart of man, 
 
 Over whose thresholds of oak and stone 
 
 Life and Death have come and gone ! 
 
 There pictured tiles in the fireplace show, 
 
 Great beams sag from the ceiling low, 
 
 The dresser glitters with polished wares, 
 
 The long clock ticks on the foot-worn stairs, 
 
 And the low, broad chimney shows the crack 
 
 By the earthquake made a century back. 
 
 Up from their midst springs the village spire 
 
 With the crest of its cock in the sun afire ; 
 
 Beyond are orchards and planting lands, 
 
 And great salt marshes and glimmering sands, 
 
 And, where north and south the coast-lines run, 
 
 The blink of the sea in breeze and sun ! 
 
 I see it all like a chart unrolled, 
 But my thoughts are full of the past and old, 
 I hear the tales of my boyhood told ; 
 And the shadows and shapes of early days 
 Flit dimly by in the veiling haze, 
 With measured movement and rhythmic chime 
 Weaving like shuttles my web of rhyme.
 
 214 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 I think of the old man wise and good 
 Who once on yon misty hillsides stood, 
 (A poet who never measured rhyme, 
 A seer unknown to his dull-eared time,) 
 And, propped on his staff of age, looked down, 
 With his boyhood's love, on his native town, 
 Where, written, as if on its hills and plains, 
 His burden of prophecy yet remains, 
 For the voices of wood, and wave, and wind 
 To read in the ear of the musing mind : 
 
 " As long as Plum Island, to guard the coast 
 As God appointed, shall keep its post ; 
 As long as a salmon shall haunt the deep 
 Of Merrimac River, or sturgeon leap ; 
 As long as pickerel swift and slim, 
 Or red-backed perch, in Crane Pond swim ; 
 As long as the annual sea-fowl know 
 Their time to come and their time to go ; 
 As long as cattle shall roam at will 
 The green, grass meadows by Turkey Hill ; 
 As long as sheep shall look from the side 
 Of Oldtown Hill on marishes wide, 
 And Parker River, and salt-sea tide ; 
 As long as a wandering pigeon shall search 
 The fields below from his white-oak perch, 
 When the barley-harvest is ripe and shorn, 
 And the dry husks fall f i-om the standing corn ; 
 As long as Nature shall not grow old, 
 Nor drop her work from her doting hold, 
 And her care for the Indian corn forget, 
 And the yellow rows in pairs to set ; 
 So long shall Christians here be born, 
 Grow up and ripen as God's sweet corn !
 
 THE RED RIVER VOYAGEUR 215 
 
 By the beak of bird, by the breath of frost, 
 Shall never a holy ear be lost, 
 But, husked by Death in the Planter's sight, 
 Be sown again in the fields of light ! " 
 
 The Island still is purple with plums, 
 Up the river the salmon comes, 
 The sturgeon leaps, and the wild-fowl feeds 
 On hillside berries and marish seeds, 
 All the beautiful signs remain, 
 From spring-time sowing to autumn rain 
 The good man's vision returns again ! 
 And let us hope, as well we can, 
 That the Silent Angel who garners man 
 May find some grain as of old he found 
 In the human cornfield ripe and sound, 
 And the Lord of the Harvest deign to own 
 The precious seed by the fathers sown ! 
 1859. 
 
 THE BED RIVER VOYAGEUR. 
 
 OUT and in the river is winding 
 The links of its long, red chain, 
 
 Through belts of dusky pine-land 
 And gusty leagues of plain. 
 
 Only, at times, a smoke-wreath 
 With the drifting cloud-rack joins, 
 
 The smoke of the hunting-lodges 
 Of the wild Assiniboins ! 
 
 Drearily blows the north-wind 
 From the land of ice and snow ;
 
 216 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 The eyes that look are weary, 
 And heavy the hands that row. 
 
 And with one foot on the water, 
 
 And one upon the shore, 
 The Angel of Shadow gives warning 
 
 That day shall be no more. 
 
 Is it the clang of wild-geese ? 
 
 Is it the Indian's yell, 
 That lends to the voice of the north-wind 
 
 The tones of a far-off bell ? 
 
 The voyageur smiles as he listens 
 To the sound that grows apace ; 
 
 Well he knows the vesper ringing 
 Of the bells of St. Boniface. 
 
 The bells of the Roman Mission, 
 That call from their turrets twain, 
 
 To the boatman on the river, 
 To the hunter on the plain ! 
 
 Even so in our mortal journey 
 
 The bitter north-winds blow, 
 And thus upon life's Red River 
 
 Our hearts, as oarsmen, row. 
 
 And when the Angel of Shadow 
 Rests his feet on wave and shore, 
 
 And our eyes grow dim with watching 
 And our hearts faint at the oar,
 
 THE PREACHER 217 
 
 Happy is he who heareth 
 
 The signal of his release 
 In the bells of the Holy City, 
 
 The chimes of eternal peace ! 
 
 THE PREACHER. 
 
 George Whitefield, the celebrated preacher, died at Newbury- 
 port in 1770, and was buried under the church which has since 
 borne bis name. 
 
 ITS windows flashing to the sky, 
 Beneath a thousand roofs of brown, 
 Far down the vale, my friend and I 
 Beheld the old and quiet town ; 
 The ghostly sails that out at sea 
 Flapped their white wings of mystery ; 
 The beaches glimmering in the sun, 
 And the low wooded capes that run 
 Into the sea-mist north and south ; 
 The sand-bluffs at the river's mouth ; 
 The swinging chain-bridge, and, afar, 
 The foam-line of the harbor-bar. 
 
 Over the woods and meadow-lands 
 
 A crimson-tinted shadow lay, 
 
 Of clouds through which the setting day 
 
 Flung a slant glory far away. 
 
 It glittered on the wet sea-sands, 
 
 It flamed upon the city's panes, 
 
 Smote the white sails of ships that wore
 
 218 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 Outward or in, and glided o'er 
 
 The steeples with their veering vanes ! 
 
 Awhile my friend with rapid search 
 
 O'erran the landscape. " Yonder spire 
 
 Over gray roofs, a shaft of fire ; 
 
 What is it, pray ? " " The Whitefield Church ! 
 
 Walled about by its basement stones, 
 
 There rest the marvellous prophet's bones." 
 
 Then as our homeward way we walked, 
 
 Of the great preacher's life we talked ; 
 
 And through the mystery of our theme 
 
 The outward glory seemed to stream, 
 
 And Nature's self interpreted 
 
 The doubtful record of the dead ; 
 
 And every level beam that smote 
 
 The sails upon the dark afloat 
 
 A symbol of the light became, 
 
 Which touched the shadows of our blame, 
 
 With tongues of Pentecostal flame. 
 
 Over the roofs of the pioneers 
 Gathers the moss of a hundred years ; 
 On man and his works has passed the change 
 Which needs must be in a century's range. 
 The land lies open and warm in the sun, 
 Anvils clamor and mill-wheels run, 
 Flocks on the hillsides, herds on the plain, 
 The wilderness gladdened with fruit and grain ! 
 But the living faith of the settlers old 
 A dead profession their children hold ; 
 To the lust of office and greed of trade 
 A stepping-stone is the altar made.
 
 THE PREACHER 219 
 
 The Church, to place and power the door, 
 
 Eebukes the sin of the world no more, 
 
 Nor sees its Lord in the homeless poor. 
 
 Everywhere is the grasping hand, 
 
 And eager adding of land to land ; 
 
 And earth, which seemed to the fathers meant 
 
 But as a pilgrim's wayside tent, 
 
 A nightly shelter to fold away 
 
 When the Lord should call at the break of day, 
 
 Solid and steadfast seems to be, 
 
 And Time has forgotten Eternity ! 
 
 But fresh and green from the rotting roots 
 Of primal forests the young growth shoots ; 
 From the death of the old the new proceeds, 
 And the life of truth from the rot of creeds : 
 On the ladder of God, which upward leads, 
 The steps of progress are human needs. 
 For His judgments still are a mighty deep, 
 And the eyes of His providence never sleep : 
 When the night is darkest He gives the morn ; 
 When the famine is sorest, the wine and corn ! 
 
 In the church of the wilderness Edwards wrought, 
 
 Shaping his creed at the forge of thought ; 
 
 And with Thor's own hammer welded and bent 
 
 The iron links of his argument, 
 
 Which strove to grasp in its mighty span 
 
 The purpose of God and the fate of man ! 
 
 Yet faithful still, in his daily round 
 
 To the weak, and the poor, and sin-sick found, 
 
 The schoolman's lore and the casuist's art 
 
 Drew warmth and life from his fervent heart.
 
 220 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 Had he not seen in the solitudes 
 
 Of his deep and dark Northampton woods 
 
 A vision of love about him fall ? 
 
 Not the blinding splendor which fell on Saul, 
 
 But the tenderer glory that rests on them 
 
 Who walk in the New Jerusalem, 
 
 Where never the sun nor moon are known, 
 
 But the Lord and His love are the light alone ! 
 
 And watching the sweet, still countenance 
 
 Of the wife of his bosom rapt in trance, 
 
 Had he not treasured each broken word 
 
 Of the mystical wonder seen and heard ; 
 
 And loved the beautiful dreamer more 
 
 That thus to the desert of earth she bore 
 
 Clusters of Eshcol from Canaan's shore ? 
 
 As the barley- winnower, holding with pain 
 Aloft in waiting his chaff and grain, 
 Joyfully welcomes the far-off breeze 
 Sounding the pine-tree's slender keys, 
 So he who had waited long to hear 
 The sound of the Spirit drawing near, 
 Like that which the son of Iddo heard 
 When the feet of angels the myrtles stirred, 
 Felt the answer of prayer, at last, 
 As over his church the afflatus passed, 
 Breaking its sleep as breezes break 
 To sun-bright ripples a stagnant lake. 
 
 At first a tremor of silent fear, 
 The creep of the flesh at danger near, 
 A vague foreboding and discontent, 
 Over the hearts of the people went.
 
 THE PREACHER 221 
 
 All nature warned in sounds and signs : 
 The wind in the tops of the forest pines 
 In the name of the Highest called to prayer, 
 As the muezzin calls from the minaret stair. 
 Through ceiled chambers of secret sin 
 Sudden and strong the light. shone in ; 
 A guilty sense of his neighbor's needs 
 Startled the man of title-deeds ; 
 The trembling hand of the worldling shook 
 The dust of years from the Holy Book ; 
 And the psalms of David, forgotten long, 
 Took the place of the scoffer's song. 
 
 The impulse spread like the outward course 
 Of waters moved by a central force ; 
 The tide of spiritual life rolled down 
 From inland mountains to seaboard town. 
 
 Prepared and ready the altar stands 
 
 Waiting the prophet's outstretched hands 
 
 And prayer availing, to downward call 
 
 The fiery answer in view of all. 
 
 Hearts are like wax in the furnace ; who 
 
 Shall mould, and shape, and cast them anew ? 
 
 Lo ! by the Merrimac Whitefield stands 
 
 In the temple that never was made by hands, 
 
 Curtains of azure, and crystal wall, 
 
 And dome of the sunshine over all 
 
 A homeless pilgrim, with dubious name 
 
 Blown about on the winds of fame ; 
 
 Now as an angel of blessing classed, 
 
 And now as a mad enthusiast. 
 
 Called in his youth to sound and gauge 
 
 The moral lapse of his race and age,
 
 222 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 And, sharp as truth, the contrast draw 
 Of human frailty and perfect law ; 
 Possessed by the one dread thought that lent 
 Its goad to his fiery temperament, 
 Up and down the world he went, 
 A John the Baptist crying, Repent I 
 
 No perfect whole can our nature make ; 
 Here or there the circle will break ; 
 The orb of life as it takes the light 
 On one side leaves the other in night. 
 Never was saint so good and great 
 As to give no chance at St. Peter's gate 
 For the plea of the Devil's advocate. 
 So, incomplete by his being's law, 
 The marvellous preacher had his flaw ; 
 With step unequal, and lame with faults, 
 His shade on the path of History halts. 
 
 Wisely and well said the Eastern bard : 
 Fear is easy, but love is hard, 
 Easy to glow with the Santon's rage, 
 And walk on the Meccan pilgrimage ; 
 But he is greatest and best who can 
 Worship Allah by loving man. 
 
 Thus he, to whom, in the painful stress 
 Of zeal on fire from its own excess, 
 Heaven seemed so vast and earth so small 
 That man was nothing, since God was all, 
 Forgot, as the best at times have done, 
 That the love of the Lord and of man are one. 
 Little to him whose feet unshod 
 The thorny path of the desert trod,
 
 THE PREACHER 223 
 
 Careless of pain, so it led to God, 
 Seemed the hunger-pang and the poor man's wrong, 
 The weak ones trodden beneath the strong. 
 Should the worm be chooser ? the clay withstand 
 The shaping will of the potter's hand ? 
 
 In the Indian fable Arjoon hears 
 The scorn of a god rebuke his fears : 
 " Spare thy pity ! " Krishna saith ; 
 " Not in thy sword is the power of death ! 
 All is illusion, loss but seems ; 
 Pleasure and pain are only dreams ; 
 Who deems he slayeth doth not kill ; 
 Who counts as slain is living still. 
 Strike, nor fear thy blow is crime ; 
 Nothing dies but the cheats of time ; 
 Slain or slayer, small the odds 
 To each, immortal as Indra's gods ! " 
 
 So by Savannah's banks of shade, 
 The stones of his mission the preacher laid 
 On the heart of the negro crushed and rent, 
 And made of his blood the wall's cement ; 
 Bade the slave-ship speed from coast to coast, 
 Fanned by the wings of the Holy Ghost ; 
 And begged, for the love of Christ, the gold 
 Coined from the hearts in its groaning hold. 
 What could it matter, more or less 
 Of stripes, and hunger, and weariness? 
 Living or dying, bond or free, 
 What was time to eternity ? 
 
 Alas for the preacher's cherished schemes ! 
 Mission and church are now but dreams ;
 
 224 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 Nor prayer nor fasting availed the plan 
 To honor God through the wrong of man. 
 Of all his labors no trace remains 
 Save the bondman lifting his hands in chains. 
 The woof he wove in the righteous warp 
 Of freedom-loving Oglethorpe, 
 Clothes with curses the goodly land, 
 Changes its greenness and bloom to sand ; 
 And a century's lapse reveals once more 
 The slave-ship stealing to Georgia's shore. 
 Father of Light I how blind is he 
 Who sprinkles the altar he rears to Thee 
 "With the blood and tears of humanity ! 
 
 He erred : shall we count His gifts as naught ? 
 Was the work of God in him unwrought ? 
 The servant may through his deafness err, 
 And blind may be God's messenger ; 
 But the errand is sure they go upon, 
 The word is spoken, the deed is done. 
 Was the Hebrew temple less fair and good 
 That Solomon bowed to gods of wood ? 
 For his tempted heart and wandering feet, 
 Were the songs of David less pure and sweet? 
 So in light and shadow the preacher went, 
 God's erring and human instrument ; 
 And the hearts of the people where he passed 
 Swayed as the reeds sway in the blast, 
 Under the spell of a voice which took 
 In its compass the flow of Siloa's brook, 
 And the mystical chime of the bells of gold 
 On the ephod's hem of the priest of old, 
 Now the roll of thunder, and now the awe 
 Of the trumpet heard in the Mount of Law.
 
 THE PREACHER 225 
 
 A solemn fear on the listening crowd 
 
 Fell like the shadow of a cloud. 
 
 The sailor reeling from out the ships 
 
 Whose masts stood thick in the river-slips 
 
 Felt the jest and the curse die on his lips. 
 
 Listened the fisherman rude and hard, 
 
 The calker rough from the builder's yard ; 
 
 The man of the market left his load, 
 
 The teamster leaned on his bending goad, 
 
 The maiden, and youth beside her, felt 
 
 Their hearts in a closer union melt, 
 
 And saw the flowers of their love in bloom 
 
 Down the endless vistas of life to come. 
 
 Old age sat feebly brushing away 
 
 From his ears the scanty locks of gray ; 
 
 And careless boyhood, living the free 
 
 Unconscious life of bird and tree, 
 
 Suddenly wakened to a sense 
 
 Of sin and its guilty consequence. 
 
 It was as if an angel's voice 
 
 Called the listeners up for their final choice ; 
 
 As if a strong hand rent apart 
 
 The veils of sense from soul and heart, 
 
 Showing in light ineffable 
 
 The joys of heaven and woes of hell ! 
 
 All about in the misty air 
 
 The hills seemed kneeling in silent prayer ; 
 
 The rustle of leaves, the moaning sedge, 
 
 The water's lap on its gravelled edge, 
 
 The wailing pines, and, far and faint, 
 
 The wood-dove's note of sad complaint, 
 
 To the solemn voice of the preacher lent 
 
 An undertone as of low lament ;
 
 226 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 And the rote of the sea from its sandy coast, 
 On the easterly wind, now heard, now lost, 
 Seemed the murmurous sound of the judgment host 
 
 Yet wise men doubted, and good men wept, 
 
 As that storm of passion above them swept, 
 
 And, comet-like, adding flame to flame, 
 
 The priests of the new Evangel came, 
 
 Davenport, flashing upon the crowd, 
 
 Charged like summer's electric cloud, 
 
 Now holding the listener still as death 
 
 With terrible warnings under breath, 
 
 Now shouting for joy, as if he viewed 
 
 The vision of Heaven's beatitude ! 
 
 And Celtic Tennant, his long coat bound 
 
 Like a monk's with leathern girdle round, 
 
 Wild with the toss of unshorn hair, 
 
 And wringing of hands, and eyes aglare, 
 
 Groaning under the world's despair ! 
 
 Grave pastors, grieving their flocks to lose, 
 
 Prophesied to the empty pews 
 
 That gourds would wither, and mushrooms die, 
 
 And noisiest fountains run soonest dry, 
 
 Like the spring that gushed in Newbury Street, 
 
 Under the tramp of the earthquake's feet, 
 
 A silver shaft in the air and light, 
 
 For a single day, then lost in night, 
 
 Leaving only, its place to tell, 
 
 Sandy fissure and sulphurous smell. 
 
 With zeal wing-clipped and white-heat cool, 
 
 Moved by the spirit in grooves of rule, 
 
 No longer harried, and cropped, and fleeced, 
 
 Flogged by sheriff and cursed by priest,
 
 THE PREACHER 227 
 
 But by wiser counsels left at ease 
 To settle quietly on his lees, 
 And, self-concentred, to count as done 
 The work which his fathers well begun, 
 In silent protest of letting alone, 
 The Quaker kept the way of his own, 
 A non-conductor among the wires, 
 With coat of asbestos proof to fires. 
 And quite unable to mend his pace 
 To catch the falling manna of grace, 
 He hugged the closer his little store 
 Of faith, and silently prayed for more. 
 And vague of creed and barren of rite, 
 But holding, as in his Master's sight, 
 Act and thought to the inner light, 
 The round of his simple duties walked, 
 And strove to live what the others talked. 
 
 And who shall marvel if evil went 
 Step by step with the good intent, 
 And with love and meekness, side by side, 
 Lust of the flesh and spiritual pride ? 
 That passionate longings and fancies vain 
 Set the heart on fire and crazed the brain? 
 That over the holy oracles 
 Folly sported with cap and bells ? 
 That goodly women and learned men 
 Marvelling told with tongue and pen 
 How unweaned children chirped like birds 
 Texts of Scripture and solemn words, 
 Like the infant seers of the rocky glens 
 In the Puy de Dome of wild Cevennes : 
 Or baby Lamas who pray and preach 
 From Tartar cradles in Buddha's speech?
 
 228 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 In the war which Truth or Freedom wages 
 With impious fraud and the wrong of ages, 
 Hate and malice and self-love mar 
 The notes of triumph with painful jar, 
 And the helping angels turn aside 
 Their sorrowing faces the shame to hide. 
 Never on custom's oiled grooves 
 The world to a higher level moves, 
 Bat grates and grinds with friction hard 
 On granite boulder and flinty shard. 
 The heart must bleed before it feels, 
 The pool be troubled before it heals ; 
 Ever by losses the right must gain, 
 Every good have its birth of pain ; 
 The active Virtues blush to find 
 The Vices wearing their badge behind, 
 And Graces and Charities feel the fire 
 Wherein the sins of the age expire ; 
 The fiend still rends as of old he rent 
 The tortured body from which he went. 
 
 But Time tests all. In the over-drift 
 And flow of the Nile, with its annual gift, 
 Who cares for the Hadji's relics sunk? 
 Who thinks of the drowned-out Coptic monk ? 
 The tide that loosens the temple's stones, 
 And scatters the sacred ibis-bones, 
 Drives away from the valley-land 
 That Arab robber, the wandering sand, 
 Moistens the fields that know no rain, 
 Fringes the desert with belts of grain, 
 And bread to the sower brings again.
 
 THE PREACHER 229 
 
 So the flood of emotion deep and strong 
 Troubled the land as it swept along, 
 But left a result of holier lives, 
 Tenderer mothers and worthier wives. 
 The husband and father whose children fled 
 And sad wife wept when his drunken tread 
 Frightened peace from his roof-tree's shade, 
 And a rock of offence his hearthstone made, 
 In a strength that was not his own began 
 To rise from the brute's to the plane of man. 
 Old friends embraced, long held apart 
 By evil counsel and pride of heart ; 
 And penitence saw through misty tears, 
 In the bow of hope on its cloud of fears, 
 The promise of Heaven's eternal years, 
 The peace of God for the world's annoy, 
 Beauty for ashes, and oil of joy ! 
 
 Under the church of Federal Street, 
 
 Under the tread of its Sabbath feet, 
 
 Walled about by its basement stones, 
 
 Lie the marvellous preacher's bones. 
 
 No saintly honors to them are shown, 
 
 No sign nor miracle have they known ; 
 
 But he who passes the ancient church 
 
 Stops in the shade of its belfry-porch, 
 
 And ponders the wonderful life of him 
 
 Who lies at rest in that charnel dim. 
 
 Long shall the traveller strain his eye 
 
 From the railroad car, as it plunges by, 
 
 And the vanishing town behind him search 
 
 For the slender spire of the Whitefield Church ;
 
 130 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 And feel for one moment the ghosts of trade, 
 And fashion, and folly, and pleasure laid, 
 By the thought of that life of pure intent, 
 That voice of warning yet eloquent, 
 Of one on the errands of angels sent. 
 And if where he labored the flood of sin 
 Like a tide from the harbor-bar sets in, 
 And over a life of time and sense 
 The church-spires lift their vain defence, 
 As if to scatter the bolts of God 
 With the points of Calvin's thunder-rod, 
 Still, as the gem of its civic crown, 
 Precious beyond the world's renown, 
 His memory hallows the ancient town ! 
 1859. 
 
 THE TRUCE OF PISCATAQUA. 
 
 In the winter of 1675-76, the Eastern Indians, who had heen 
 making war upon the New Hampshire settlements, were so re- 
 duced in numbers by fighting and famine that they agreed to a 
 peace with Major Waldron at Dover, but the peace was broken 
 in the fall of 1676. The famous chief, Squando, was the princi- 
 pal negotiator on the part of the savages. He had taken up the 
 hatchet to revenge the brutal treatment of his child by drunken 
 white sailors, which caused its death. 
 
 It not unfrequently happened during the Border wars that 
 young white children were adopted by their Indian captors, and 
 so kindly treated that they were unwilling to leave the free, wild 
 life of the woods ; and in some instances they utterly refused to 
 go back with their parents to their old homes and civilization. 
 
 RAZE these long blocks of brick and stone, 
 These huge mill-monsters overgrown ; 
 Blot out the humbler piles as well, 
 Where, moved like living shuttles, dwell
 
 THE TRUCE OF P1SCATAQUA 231 
 
 The weaving genii of the bell ; 
 
 Tear from the wild Cocheco's track 
 
 The dams that hold its torrents back ; 
 
 And let the loud -rejoicing fall 
 
 Plunge, roaring, down its rocky wall ; 
 
 And let the Indian's paddle play 
 
 On the unbridged Piscataqua ! 
 
 Wide over hill and valley spread 
 
 Once more the forest, dusk and dread, 
 
 With here and there a clearing cut 
 
 From the walled shadows round it shut ; 
 
 Each with its farm-house builded rude, 
 
 By English yeoman squared and hewed, 
 
 And the grim, flankered block-house bound 
 
 With bristling palisades around. 
 
 So, haply shall before thine eyes 
 
 The dusty veil of centuries rise, 
 
 The old, strange scenery overlay 
 
 The tamer pictures of to-day, 
 
 While, like the actors in a play, 
 
 Pass in their ancient guise along 
 
 The figures of my border song : 
 
 What time beside Cocheco's flood 
 
 The white man and the red man stood, 
 
 With words of peace and brotherhood ; 
 
 When passed the sacred calumet 
 
 From lip to lip with fire-draught wet, 
 
 And, puffed in scorn, the peace-pipe's smoke 
 
 Through the gray beard of Waldron broke, 
 
 And Squando's voice, in suppliant plea 
 
 For mercy, struck the haughty key 
 
 Of one who held, in any fate, 
 
 His native pride inviolate !
 
 232 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 " Let your ears be opened wide ! 
 He who speaks has never lied. 
 Waldron of Piscataqua, 
 Hear what Squaudo has to say ! 
 
 " Squando shuts his eyes and sees, 
 Far off, Saco's hemlock-trees. 
 In his wigwam, still as stone, 
 Sits a woman all alone, 
 
 " Wampum beads and birchen strands 
 Dropping from her careless hands, 
 Listening ever for the fleet 
 Patter of a dead child's feet ! 
 
 " When the moon a year ago 
 Told the flowers the time to blow, 
 In that lonely wigwam smiled 
 Menewee, our little child. 
 
 " Ere that moon grew thin and old, 
 He was lying still and cold ; 
 Sent before us, weak and small, 
 When the Master did not call! 
 
 " On his little grave I lay ; 
 Three times went and came the day ; 
 Thrice above me blazed the noon, 
 Thrice upon me wept the moon. 
 
 " In the third night-watch I heard, 
 Far and low, a spirit-bird ; 
 Very mournful, very wild, 
 Sang the totem of my child.
 
 THE TRUCE OF PISCATAQUA 233 
 
 u ' Menewee, poor Menewee, 
 Walks a path he cannot see : 
 Let the white man's wigwam light 
 With its blaze his steps aright. 
 
 " ' All-uncalled, he dares not show 
 Empty hands to Manito : 
 Better gifts he cannot bear 
 Than the scalps his slayers wear.' 
 
 " All the while the totem sang, 
 Lightning blazed and thunder rang ; 
 And a black cloud, reaching high, 
 Pulled the white moon from the sky. 
 
 " I, the medicine-man, whose ear 
 All that spirits hear can hear, 
 I, whose eyes are wide to see 
 All the things that are to be, 
 
 " Well I knew the dreadful signs 
 In the whispers of the pines, 
 In the river roaring loud, 
 In the mutter of the cloud. 
 
 " At the breaking of the day, 
 From the grave I passed away ; 
 Flowers bloomed round me, birds sang glad, 
 But my heart was hot and mad. 
 
 " There is rust on Squando's knife, 
 From the warm, red springs of life ; 
 On the funeral hemlock-trees 
 Many a scalp the totem sees.
 
 234 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 " Blood for blood ! But evermore 
 Squando's heart is sad and sore ; 
 And his poor squaw waits at home 
 For the feet that never come ! 
 
 " Waldron of Cocheco, hear ! 
 Squando speaks, who laughs at fear ; 
 Take the captives he has ta'en ; 
 Let the land have peace again ! " 
 
 As the words died on his tongue, 
 Wide apart his warriors swung ; 
 Parted, at the sign he gave, 
 Right and left, like Egypt's wave. 
 
 And, like Israel passing free 
 Through the prophet-charmed sea, 
 Captive mother, wife, and child 
 Through the dusky terror filed. 
 
 One alone, a little maid, 
 Middleway her steps delayed, 
 Glancing, with quick, troubled sight, 
 Round about from red to white. 
 
 Then his hand the Indian laid 
 On the little maiden's head, 
 Lightly from her forehead fair 
 Smoothing back her yellow hair. 
 
 " Gift or favor ask I none ; 
 What I have is all my own : 
 Never yet the birds have sung, 
 
 ' Squando hath a beggar's tongue.'
 
 THE TRUCE OF PISCATAQUA 235 
 
 " Yet for her who waits at home, 
 For the dead who cannot come, 
 Let the little Gold-hair be 
 In the place of Menewee ! 
 
 " Mishanock, my little star ! 
 Come to Saco's pines afar ; 
 Where the sad one waits at home, 
 Wequashim, my moonlight, come ! " 
 
 " What ! " quoth Waldron, " leave a child 
 Christian-born to heathens wild ? 
 As God lives, from Satan's hand 
 I will pluck her as a brand ! " 
 
 " Hear me, white man ! " Squando cried ; 
 " Let the little one decide. 
 
 Wequashim, my moonlight, say, 
 
 Wilt thou go with me, or stay ? " 
 
 Slowly, sadly, half afraid, 
 
 Half regretfully, the maid 
 
 Owned the ties of blood and race, 
 
 Turned from Squando's pleading face. 
 
 Not a word the Indian spoke, 
 But his wampum chain he broke, 
 And the beaded wonder hung 
 On that neck so fair and young. 
 
 Silence-shod, as phantoms seem 
 In the marches of a dream, 
 Single-filed, the grim array 
 Through the pine-trees wound away.
 
 236 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 Doubting, trembling, sore amazed, 
 Through her tears the young child gazed. 
 
 " God preserve her ! " Waldron said ; 
 
 "Satan hath bewitched the maid ! " 
 
 Years went and came. At close of day 
 Singing came a child from play, 
 Tossing from her loose-locked head 
 Gold in sunshine-, brown in shade. 
 
 Pride was in the mother's look, 
 But her head she gravely shook, 
 And with lips that fondly smiled 
 Feigned to chide her truant child. 
 
 Unabashed, the maid began : 
 " Up and down the brook I ran, 
 Where, beneath the bank so steep, 
 Lie the spotted trout asleep. 
 
 " * Chip ! ' went squirrel on the wall, 
 After me I heard him call, 
 And the cat-bird on the tree 
 Tried his best to mimic me. 
 
 " Where the hemlocks grew so dark 
 That I stopped to look and hark, 
 On a log, with feather-hat, 
 By the path, an Indian sat. 
 
 " Then I cried, and ran away ; 
 But he called, and bade me stay ; 
 And his voice was good and mild 
 As my mother's to her child.
 
 THE TRUCE OF PISCATAQUA 237 
 
 " And lie took my wampum chain, 
 Looked and looked it o'er again ; 
 Gave me berries, and, beside, 
 On my neck a plaything tied." 
 
 Straight the mother stooped to see 
 What the Indian's gift might be. 
 On the braid of wampum hung, 
 Lo ! a cross of silver swung. 
 
 "Well she knew its graven sign, 
 Squando's bird and totem pine ; 
 And, a mirage of the brain, 
 Flowed her childhood back again. 
 
 Flashed the roof the sunshine through, 
 Into space the walls outgrew ; 
 On the Indian's wigwam-mat, 
 Blossom-crowned, again she sat. 
 
 Cool she felt the west-wind blow, 
 In her ear the pines sang low, 
 And, like links from out a chain, 
 Dropped the years of care and pain. 
 
 From the outward toil and din, 
 From the griefs that gnaw within, 
 To the freedom of the woods 
 Called the birds, and winds, and floods. 
 
 "Well, O painful minister ! 
 Watch thy flock, but blame not her, 
 If her ear grew sharp to hear 
 All their voices whispering near.
 
 238 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 Blarne her not, as to her soul 
 All the desert's glamour stole, 
 That a tear for childhood's loss 
 Dropped upon the Indian's cross. 
 
 When, that night, the Book was read, 
 And she bowed her widowed head, 
 And a prayer for each loved name 
 Rose like incense from a flame, 
 
 With a hope the creeds forbid 
 In her pitying bosom hid, 
 To the listening ear of Heaven 
 Lo ! the Indian's name was given. 
 
 1860. 
 
 MY PLAYMATE. 
 
 THE pines were dark on Ramoth hill, 
 Their song was soft and low ; 
 
 The blossoms in the sweet May wind 
 Were falling like the snow. 
 
 The blossoms drifted at our feet, 
 The orchard birds sang clear ; 
 
 The sweetest and the saddest day 
 It seemed of all the year. 
 
 For, more to me than birds or flowers, 
 My playmate left her home, 
 
 And took with her the laughing spring, 
 The music and the bloom.
 
 MY PLAYMATE 239 
 
 She kissed the lips of kith and kin, 
 
 She laid her hand in mine : 
 What more could ask the bashful boy 
 
 Who fed her father's kine ? 
 
 She left us in the bloom of May : 
 
 The constant years told o'er 
 Their seasons with as sweet May morns, 
 
 But she came back no more. 
 
 I walk, with noiseless feet, the round 
 
 Of uneventful years ; 
 Still o'er and o'er I sow the spring 
 
 And reap the autumn ears. 
 
 She lives where all the golden year 
 
 Her summer roses blow ; 
 The dusky children of the sun 
 
 Before her come and go. 
 
 There haply with her jewelled hands 
 She smooths her silken gown, 
 
 No more the homespun lap wherein 
 I shook the walnuts down. 
 
 The wild grapes wait us by the brook, 
 
 The brown nuts on the hill, 
 And still the May-day flowers make sweet 
 
 The woods of Follymill. 
 
 The lilies blossom in the pond, 
 
 The bird builds in the tree, 
 The dark pines sing on Ramoth hill 
 
 The slow song of the sea.
 
 240 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 I wonder if she thinks of them, 
 And how the old time seems, 
 
 If ever the pines of Ramoth wood 
 Are sounding in her dreams. 
 
 I see her face, I hear her voice ; 
 
 Does she remember mine ? 
 And what to her is now the boy 
 
 Who fed her father's kine ? 
 
 What cares she that the orioles build 
 
 For other eyes than ours, 
 That other hands with nuts are filled, 
 
 And other laps with flowers ? 
 
 O playmate in the golden time ! 
 
 Our mossy seat is green, 
 Its fringing violets blossom yet, 
 
 The old trees o'er it lean. 
 
 The winds so sweet with birch and fern 
 
 A sweeter memory blow ; 
 And there in spring the veeries sing 
 
 The song of long ago. 
 
 And still the pines of Ramoth wood 
 
 Are moaning like the sea, 
 The moaning of the sea of change 
 
 Between myself and thee ! 
 1860.
 
 COBBLER KEEZAR'S VISION 241 
 
 COBBLER KEEZAR'S VISION. 
 
 This ballad was written on the occasion of a Horticultural Fes- 
 tival. Cobbler Keezar was a noted character among the first set- 
 tlers in the valley of the Merrimac. 
 
 THE beaver cut his timber 
 
 With patient teeth that day, 
 The minks were fish-wards, and the crows 
 
 Surveyors of highway, 
 
 When Keezar sat on the hillside 
 
 Upon his cobbler's form, 
 With a pan of coals on either hand 
 
 To keep his waxed-ends warm. 
 
 And there, in the golden weather, 
 
 He stitched and hammered and sung ; 
 
 In the brook he moistened his leather, 
 In the pewter mug his tongue. 
 
 Well knew the tough old Teuton 
 
 Who brewed the stoutest ale, 
 And he paid the good wife's reckoning 
 
 In the coin of song and tale. 
 
 The songs they still are singing 
 
 Who dress the hills of vine, 
 The tales that haunt the Brockeii 
 
 And whisper down the Rhine. 
 
 Woodsy and wild and lonesome, 
 
 The swift stream wound away, 
 Through birches and scarlet maples 
 
 Flashing in foam and spray,
 
 242 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 Down on the sharp-horned ledges 
 
 Plunging in steep cascade, 
 Tossing its white-maned waters 
 
 Against the hemlock's shade. 
 
 Woodsy and wild and lonesome, 
 
 East and west and north and south ; 
 
 Only the village of fishers 
 Down at the river's mouth ; 
 
 Only here and there a clearing, 
 With its farm-house rude and new, 
 
 And tree-stumps, swart as Indians, 
 Where the scanty harvest grew. 
 
 No shout of home-bound reapers, 
 
 No vintage-song he heard, 
 And on the green no dancing feet 
 
 The merry violin stirred. 
 
 " Why should folk be glum," said Keezar, 
 
 " When Nature herself is glad, 
 
 And the painted woods are laughing 
 
 At the faces so sour and sad? " 
 
 Small heed had the careless cobbler 
 What sorrow of heart was theirs 
 
 Who travailed in pain with the births of God, 
 And planted a state with prayers, 
 
 Hunting of witches and warlocks, 
 
 Smiting the heathen horde, 
 One hand on the mason's trowel, 
 
 And one on the soldier's sword I
 
 COBBLER KEEZAR'S VISION 243 
 
 But give him his ale and cider, 
 
 Give him his pipe and song, 
 Little he cared for Church or State, 
 
 Or the balance of right and wrong. 
 
 " 'T is work, work, work," he muttered, 
 
 " And for rest a snuffle of psalms ! " 
 He smote on his leathern apron 
 With his brown and waxen palms. 
 
 " Oh for the purple harvests 
 
 Of the days when I was young ! 
 For the merry grape-stained maidens, 
 And the pleasant songs they sung ! 
 
 " Oh for the breath of vineyards, 
 
 Of apples and nuts and wine ! 
 For an oar to row and a breeze to blow 
 Down the grand old river Rhine ! " 
 
 A tear in his blue eye glistened, 
 
 And dropped on his beard so gray. 
 " Old, old am I," said Keezar, 
 
 " And the Rhine flows far away ! " 
 
 But a cunning man was the cobbler ; 
 
 He could call the birds from the trees, 
 Charm the black snake out of the ledges, 
 
 And bring back the swarming bees. 
 
 All the virtues of herbs and metals, 
 All the lore of the woods, he knew, 
 
 And the arts of the Old World mingle 
 With the marvels of the New.
 
 244 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 Well he kiiew the tricks of magic, 
 
 And the lapstone on his knee 
 Had the gift of the Mormon's goggles 
 
 Or the stone of Doctor Dee. u 
 
 For the mighty master Agrippa 
 Wrought it with spell and rhyme 
 
 From a fragment of mystic moonstone 
 In the tower of Nettesheim. 
 
 To a cobbler Minnesinger 
 
 The marvellous stone gave he, 
 
 And he gave it, in turn, to Keezar, 
 Who brought it over the sea. 
 
 He held up that mystic lapstone, 
 
 He held it up like a lens, 
 And he counted the long years coming 
 
 By twenties and by tens. 
 
 " One hundred years," quoth Keezar, 
 
 " And fifty have I told : 
 Now open the new before me, 
 And shut me out the old ! " 
 
 Like a cloud of mist, the blackness 
 
 Rolled from the magic stone, 
 And a marvellous picture mingled 
 
 The unknown and the known. 
 
 Still ran the stream to the river, 
 
 And river and ocean joined ; 
 And there were the bluffs and the blue sea-line, 
 
 And cold north hills behind.
 
 COBBLER KEEZAR'S VISION 245 
 
 But the mighty forest was broken 
 
 By many a steepled town, 
 By many a white-walled farm-house, 
 
 And many a garner brown. 
 
 Turning a score of mill-wheels, 
 
 The stream no more ran free ; 
 White sails on the winding river, 
 
 White sails on the far-off sea. 
 
 Below in the noisy village 
 
 The flags were floating gay, 
 And shone on a thousand faces 
 
 The light of a holiday. 
 
 Swiftly the rival ploughmen 
 
 Turned the brown earth from their shares ; 
 Here were the farmer's treasures, 
 
 There were the craftsman's wares. 
 
 Golden the goodwife's butter, 
 
 Ruby her currant-wine ; 
 Grand were the strutting turkeys, 
 
 Fat were the beeves and swine. 
 
 Yellow and red were the apples, 
 And the ripe pears russet-brown, 
 
 And the peaches had stolen blushes 
 From the girls who shook them down. 
 
 And with blooms of hill and wildwood, 
 
 That shame the toil of art, 
 Mingled the gorgeous blossoms 
 
 Of the garden's tropic heart.
 
 246 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 " What is it I see ? " said Keezar : 
 
 " Am I here, or am I there ? 
 Is it a fete at Bingen ? 
 
 Do I look on Frankfort fair ? 
 
 " But where are the clowns and puppets, 
 
 And imps with horns and tail ? 
 
 And where are the Rhenish flagons ? 
 
 And where is the foaming ale ? 
 
 " Strange things, I know, will happen, 
 
 Strange things the Lord permits ; 
 But that droughty folk should be jolly 
 Puzzles my poor old wits. 
 
 " Here are smiling manly faces, 
 
 And the maiden's step is gay ; 
 Nor sad by thinking, nor mad by drinking, 
 Nor mopes, nor fools, are they. 
 
 " Here 's pleasure without regretting, 
 
 And good without abuse, 
 The holiday and the bridal 
 Of beauty and of use. 
 
 " Here 's a priest and there is a Quaker, 
 
 Do the cat and dog agree ? 
 Have they burned the stocks for ovenwood ? 
 Have they cut down the gallows-tree ? 
 
 " Would the old folk know their children ? 
 
 Would they own the graceless town, 
 With never a ranter to worry 
 And never a witch to drown ? "
 
 COBBLER KEEZAR'S VISION 247 
 
 Loud laughed the cobbler Keezar, 
 Laughed like a school-boy gay ; 
 
 Tossing his arms above him, 
 The lapstone rolled away. 
 
 It rolled down the rugged hillside, 
 
 It spun like a wheel bewitched, 
 It plunged through the leaning willows, 
 
 And into the river pitched. 
 
 There, in the deep, dark water, 
 
 The magic stone lies still, 
 Under the leaning willows 
 
 In the shadow of the hill. 
 
 But oft the idle fisher 
 
 Sits on the shadowy bank, 
 And his dreams make marvellous pictures 
 
 Where the wizard's lapstone sank. 
 
 And still, in the summer twilights, 
 
 When the river seems to run 
 Out from the inner glory, 
 
 Warm with the melted sun, 
 
 The weary mill-girl lingers 
 
 Beside the charmed stream, 
 And the sky and the golden water 
 
 Shape and color her dream. 
 
 Fair wave the sunset gardens, 
 
 The rosy signals fly ; 
 Her homestead beckons from the cloud, 
 
 And love goes sailing by. 
 1861,
 
 248 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 AMY WENTWORTH. 
 
 TO WILLIAM BRADFORD. 
 
 As they who watch by sick-beds find relief 
 
 Unwittingly from the great stress of grief 
 
 And anxious care, in fantasies outwrought 
 
 From the hearth's embers flickering low, or caught 
 
 From whispering wind, or tread of passing feet, 
 
 Or vagrant memory calling up some sweet 
 
 Snatch of old song or romance, whence or why 
 
 They scarcely know or ask, so, thou and I, 
 
 Nursed in the faith that Truth alone is strong 
 
 In the endurance which out wearies Wrong, 
 
 With meek persistence baffling brutal force, 
 
 And trusting God against the universe, 
 
 We, doomed to watch a strife we may not share 
 
 With other weapons than the patriot's prayer, 
 
 Yet owning, with full hearts and moistened eyes, 
 
 The awful beauty of self-sacrifice, 
 
 And wrung by keenest sympathy for all 
 
 Who give their loved ones for the living wall 
 
 'Twixt law and treason, in this evil day 
 
 May haply find, through automatic play 
 
 Of pen and pencil, solace to our pain, 
 
 And hearten others with the strength we gain. 
 
 I know it has been said our times require 
 
 No play of art, nor dalliance with the lyre, 
 
 No weak essay with Fancy's chloroform 
 
 To calm the hot, mad pulses of the storm, 
 
 But the stern war-blast rather, such as sets 
 
 The battle's teeth of serried bayonets,
 
 AMY WENTWORTH 249 
 
 And pictures grim as Vernet's. Yet with these 
 Some softer tints may blend, and milder keys 
 Relieve the storm-stunned ear. Let us keep sweet, 
 If so we may, our hearts, even while we eat 
 The bitter harvest of our own device 
 And half a century's moral cowardice. 
 As Niirnberg sang while Wittenberg defied, 
 And Krauach painted by his Luther's side, 
 And through the war-march of the Puritan 
 The silver stream of MarvelTs music ran, 
 So let the household melodies be sung, 
 The pleasant pictures on the wall be hung, 
 So let us hold against the hosts of night 
 And slavery all our vantage-ground of light. 
 Let Treason boast its savagery, and shake 
 From its flag-folds its symbol rattlesnake, 
 Nurse its fine arts, lay human skins in tan, 
 And carve its pipe-bowls from the bones of man, 
 And make the tale of Fijian banquets dull 
 By drinking whiskey from a loyal skull, 
 But let us guard, till this sad war shall cease, 
 (God grant it soon !) the graceful arts of peace : 
 No foes are conquered who the victors teach 
 Their vandal manners and barbaric speech. 
 
 And while, with hearts of thankfulness, we bear 
 Of the great common burden our full share, 
 Let none upbraid us that the waves entice 
 Thy sea-dipped pencil, or some quaint device, 
 Rhythmic and sweet, beguiles my pen away 
 From the sharp strifes and sorrows of to-day. 
 Thus, while the east-wind keen from Labrador 
 Sings in the leafless elms, and from the shore
 
 250 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 Of the great sea coines the monotonous roar 
 
 Of the long-breaking surf, and all the sky 
 
 Is gray with cloud, home-bound and dull, I try 
 
 To time a simple legend to the sounds 
 
 Of winds in the woods, and waves on pebbled 
 
 bounds, 
 
 A song for oars to chime with, such as might 
 Be sung by tired sea-painters, who at night 
 Look from their hemlock camps, by quiet cove 
 Or beach, moon-lighted, on the waves they love. 
 (So hast thou looked, when level sunset lay 
 On the calm bosom of some Eastern bay, 
 And all the spray-moist rocks and waves that rolled 
 Up the white sand-slopes flashed with ruddy gold.) 
 Something it has a flavor of the sea, 
 And the sea's freedom which reminds of thee. 
 Its faded picture, dimly smiling down 
 From the blurred fresco of the ancient town, 
 I have not touched with warmer tints in vain, 
 If, in this dark, sad year, it steals one thought from 
 
 pain. 
 
 Her fingers shame the ivory keys 
 They dance so light along ; 
 
 The bloom upon her parted lips 
 Is sweeter than the song. 
 
 O perfumed suitor, spare thy smiles ! 
 
 Her thoughts are not of thee ; 
 She better loves the salted wind, 
 
 The voices of the sea.
 
 Amy Wentworth
 
 AMY WENTWORTH 251 
 
 Her heart is like an outbound ship 
 
 That at its anchor swings ; 
 The murmur of the stranded shell 
 
 Is in the song she sings. 
 
 She sings, and, smiling, hears her praise, 
 
 But dreams the while of one 
 Who watches from his sea-blown deck 
 
 The icebergs in the sun. 
 
 She questions all the winds that blow, 
 
 And every fog-wreath dim, 
 And bids the sea-birds flying north 
 
 Bear messages to him. 
 
 She speeds them with the thanks of men 
 
 He perilled life to save, 
 And grateful prayers like holy oil 
 
 To smooth for him the wave. 
 
 Brown Viking of the fishing-smack ! 
 
 Fair toast of all the town ! 
 The skipper's jerkin ill beseems 
 
 The lady's silken gown ! 
 
 But ne'er shall Amy Wentworth wear 
 
 For him the blush of shame 
 Who dares to set his manly gifts 
 
 Against her ancient name. 
 
 The stream is brightest at its spring, 
 
 And blood is not like wine ; 
 Nor honored less than he who heirs 
 
 Is he who founds a line.
 
 252 NA RRA TIVE AND LEGEND A R Y POEMS 
 
 Full lightly shall the prize be won, 
 
 If love be Fortune's spur ; 
 And never maiden stoops to him 
 
 Who lifts himself to her. 
 
 Her home is brave in Jaffrey Street, 
 
 With stately stairways worn 
 By feet of old Colonial knights 
 
 And ladies gentle-born. 
 
 Still green about its ample porch 
 
 The English ivy twines, 
 Trained back to show in English oak 
 
 The herald's carven signs. 
 
 And on her, from the wainscot old, 
 
 Ancestral faces frown, 
 And this has worn the soldier's sword, 
 
 And that the judge's gown. 
 
 But, strong of will and proud as they, 
 
 She walks the gallery floor 
 As if she trod her sailor's deck 
 
 By stormy Labrador ! 
 
 The sweetbrier blooms on Kittery-side, 
 And green are Elliot's bowers ; 
 
 Her garden is the pebbled beach, 
 The mosses are her flowers. 
 
 She looks across the harbor-bar 
 
 To see the white gulls fly ; 
 His greeting from the Northern sea 
 
 Is in their clanging cry.
 
 THE COUNTESS 253 
 
 She hums a song, and dreams that he, 
 
 As in its romance old, 
 Shall homeward ride with silken sails 
 
 And masts of beaten gold ! 
 
 Oh, rank is good, and gold is fair, 
 
 And high and low mate ill ; 
 But love has never known a law 
 
 Beyond its own sweet will ! 
 1862. 
 
 THE COUNTESS. 
 
 TO fc. W. 
 
 I inscribed this poem to Dr. Elias Weld of Haverhill, Massa- 
 chusetts, to whose kindness I was much indebted in my boyhood. 
 He was the one cultivated man in the neighborhood. His small 
 but well-chosen library was placed at my disposal. He is the 
 "wise old doctor" of Snow-Bound. 
 
 Count FrangoisdeVipart with his cousin Joseph Rochemont de 
 Poyen came to the United States in the early part of the pre- 
 sent century. They took up their residence at Rocks Village 
 on the Merrimac, where they both married. The wife of Count 
 Vipart was Mary Ingalls, who as my father remembered her was 
 a very lovely young girl. Her wedding dress, as described by a 
 lady still living, was " pink satin with an overdress of white lace, 
 and white satin slippers." She died in less than a year after her 
 marriage. Her husband returned to his native country. He lies 
 buried in the family tomb of the Viparts at Bordeaux. 
 
 I KNOW not, Time and Space so intervene, 
 Whether, still waiting with a trust serene, 
 Thou bearest up thy fourscore years and ten, 
 Or, called at last, art now Heaven's citizen ; 
 But, here or there, a pleasant thought of thee, 
 Like an old friend, all day has been with me.
 
 254 NA RRA TI VE A ND LEG EN DA R Y POEMS 
 
 The shy, still boy, for whom thy kindly hand 
 Smoothed his hard pathway to the wonder-land 
 Of thought and fancy, in gray manhood yet 
 Keeps green the memory of his early debt. 
 To-day, when truth and falsehood speak their 
 
 words 
 
 Through hot-lipped cannon and the teeth of swords, 
 Listening with quickened heart and ear intent 
 To each sharp clause of that stern argument, 
 I still can hear at times a softer note 
 Of the old pastoral music round me float, 
 While through the hot gleam of our civil strife 
 Looms the green mirage of a simpler life. 
 As, at his alien post, the sentinel 
 Drops the old bucket in the homestead well, 
 And hears old voices in the winds that toss 
 Above his head the live-oak's beard of moss, 
 So, in our trial-time, and under skies 
 Shadowed by swords like Islam's paradise, 
 I wait and watch, and let my fancy stray 
 To milder scenes and youth's Arcadian day ; 
 And howsoe'er the pencil dipped in dreams 
 Shades the brown woods or tints the sunset streams, 
 The country doctor in the foreground seems, 
 Whose ancient sulky down the village lanes 
 Dragged, like a war-car, captive ills and pains. 
 I could not paint the scenery of my song, 
 Mindless of one who looked thereon so long ; 
 Who, night and day, on duty's lonely round, 
 Made friends o' the woods and rocks, and knew the 
 
 sound 
 
 Of each small brook, and what the hillside trees 
 Said to the winds that touched their leafy keys ;
 
 THE COUNTESS 255 
 
 TTho saw so keenly and so well could paint 
 The village-folk, with all their humors quaint, 
 The parson ambling on his wall-eyed roan, 
 Grave and erect, with white hair backward blown ; 
 The tough old boatman, half amphibious grown ; 
 The muttering witch-wife of the gossip's tale, 
 And the loud straggler levying his blackmail, 
 Old customs, habits, superstitions, fears, 
 All that lies buried under fifty years. 
 To thee, as is most fit, I bring my lay, 
 And, grateful, own the debt I cannot pay. 
 
 Over the wooded northern ridge, 
 
 Between its houses brown, 
 To the dark tunnel of the bridge 
 
 The street comes straggling down. 
 
 
 You catch a glimpse, through birch and pine, 
 
 Of gable, roof, and porch, 
 The tavern with its swinging sign, 
 
 The sharp horn of the church. 
 
 The river's steel-blue crescent curves 
 
 To meet, in ebb and flow, 
 The single broken wharf that serves 
 
 For sloop and gundelow. 
 
 With salt sea-scents along its shores 
 
 The heavy hay-boats crawl, 
 The long antennae of their oars 
 
 In lazy rise and fall.
 
 256 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 Along the gray abutment's wall 
 
 The idle shad-net dries ; 
 The toll-man in his cobbler's stall 
 
 Sits smoking with closed eyes. 
 
 You hear the pier's low undertone 
 Of waves that chafe and gnaw ; 
 
 You start, a skipper's horn is blown 
 To raise the creaking draw. 
 
 At times a blacksmith's anvil sounds 
 
 With slow and sluggard beat, 
 Or stage-coach on its dusty rounds 
 
 Wakes up the staring street. 
 
 A place for idle eyes and ears, 
 
 A cobwebbed nook of dreams ; 
 Left by the stream whose waves are years 
 The stranded village seems. 
 
 And there, like other moss and rust, 
 
 The native dweller clings, 
 And keeps, in uninquiring trust, 
 
 The old, dull round of things. 
 
 The fisher drops his patient lines, 
 
 The farmer sows his grain, 
 Content to hear the murmuring pines 
 
 Instead of railroad-train. 
 
 Go where, along the tangled steep 
 
 That slopes against the west, 
 The hamlet's buried idlers sleep 
 
 In still profounder rest.
 
 THE COUNTESS 257 
 
 Throw back the locust's flowery plume, 
 
 The birch's pale-green scarf, 
 And break the web of brier and bloom 
 
 From name and epitaph. 
 
 A simple muster-roll of death, 
 
 Of pomp and romance shorn, 
 The dry, old names that common breath 
 
 Has cheapened and outworn. 
 
 Yet pause by one low mound, and part 
 
 The wild vines o'er it laced, 
 And read the words by rustic art 
 
 Upon its headstone traced. 
 
 Haply yon white-haired villager 
 
 Of fourscore years can say 
 What means the noble name of her 
 
 Who sleeps with common clay. 
 
 An exile from the Gascon land 
 
 Found refuge here and rest, 
 And loved, of all the village band, 
 
 Its fairest and its best. 
 
 He knelt with her on Sabbath morns, 
 He worshipped through her eyes, 
 
 And on the pride that doubts and scorns 
 Stole in her faith's surprise. 
 
 Her simple daily life he saw 
 
 By homeliest duties tried, 
 In all things by an untaught law 
 
 Of fitness justified.
 
 258 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 For her his rank aside he laid ; 
 
 He took the hue and tone 
 Of lowly life and toil, and made 
 
 Her simple ways his own. 
 
 Yet still, in gay and careless ease, 
 
 To harvest-field or dance 
 He brought the gentle courtesies, 
 
 The nameless grace of France. 
 
 And she who taught him love not less 
 
 From him she loved in turn 
 Caught in her sweet unconsciousness 
 
 What love is quick to learn. 
 
 Each grew to each in pleased accord, 
 
 Nor knew the gazing town 
 If she looked upward to her lord 
 
 Or he to her looked down. 
 
 How sweet, when summer's day was o'er, 
 
 His violin's mirth and wail, 
 The walk on pleasant Newbury's shore, 
 
 The river's moonlit sail ! 
 
 Ah ! life is brief, though love be long ; 
 
 The altar and the bier, 
 The burial hymn and bridal song, 
 
 Were both in one short year ! 
 
 Her rest is quiet on the hill, 
 
 Beneath the locust's bloom : 
 Far off her lover sleeps as still 
 
 Within his scutcheoned tomb.
 
 THE COUNTESS 259 
 
 The Gascon lord, the village maid, 
 In death still clasp their hands ; 
 
 The love that levels rank and grade 
 Unites their severed lands. 
 
 What matter whose the hillside grave, 
 
 Or whose the blazoned stone? 
 Forever to her western wave 
 
 Shall whisper blue Garonne ! 
 
 O Love ! so hallowing every soil 
 That gives thy sweet flower room, 
 
 Wherever, nursed by ease or toil, 
 The human heart takes bloom ! 
 
 Plant of lost Eden, from the sod 
 
 Of sinful earth unriven, 
 White blossom of the trees of God 
 
 Dropped down to us from heaven ! 
 
 This tangled waste of mound and stone 
 
 Is holy for thy sake ; 
 A sweetness which is all thy own 
 
 Breathes out from fern and brake. 
 
 And while ancestral pride shall twine 
 The Gascon's tomb with flowers, 
 
 Fall sweetly here, O song of mine, 
 With summer's bloom and showers ! 
 
 And let the lines that severed seem 
 
 Unite again in thee, 
 As western wave and Gallic stream 
 
 Are mingled in one sea ! 
 
 1863.
 
 260 NARRA Tl VE A ND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 AMONG THE HILLS. 
 
 This poem, when originally published, was dedicated to Annie 
 Fields, wife of the distinguished publisher, James T. Fields, of 
 Boston, in grateful acknowledgment of the strength and inspira- 
 tion I have found in her friendship and sympathy. 
 
 The poem in its first form was entitled The Wife : an Idyl of 
 Bearcamp Water, and appeared in The Atlantic Monthly for Jan- 
 uary, 1868. When I published the volume Among the Hills, in 
 December of the same year, I expanded the Prelude and filled 
 out also the outlines of the story. 
 
 PRELUDE. 
 
 ALONG the roadside, like the flowers of gold 
 That tawny Incas for their gardens wrought, 
 Heavy with sunshine droops the golden-rod, 
 And the red pennons of the cardinal-flowers 
 Hang motionless upon their upright staves. 
 The sky is hot and hazy, and the wind, 
 Wing-weary with its long flight from the south, 
 Unfelt; yet, closely scanned, yon maple leaf 
 With faintest motion, as one stirs in dreams, 
 Confesses it. The locust by the wall 
 Stabs the noon-silence with his sharp alarm. 
 A single hay-cart down the dusty road 
 Creaks slowly, with its driver fast asleep 
 On the load's top. Against the neighboring hill, 
 Huddled along the stone wall's shady side, 
 The sheep show white, as if a snowdrift still 
 Defied the dog-star. Through the open door 
 A drowsy smell of flowers gray heliotrope, 
 And white sweet clover, and shy mignonette 
 Comes faintly in, and silent chorus lends 
 To the pervading symphony of peace.
 
 AMONG THE HILLS 261 
 
 No time is this for hands long over- worn 
 
 To task their strength : and (unto Him be praise 
 
 Who giveth quietness !) the stress and strain 
 
 Of years that did the work of centuries 
 
 Have ceased, and we can draw our breath once 
 
 more 
 
 Freely and full. So, as yon harvesters 
 Make glad their nooning underneath the elms 
 With tale and riddle and old snatch of song, 
 I lay aside grave themes, and idly turn 
 The leaves of memory's sketch-book, dreaming 
 
 o'er 
 
 Old summer pictures of the quiet hills, 
 And human life, as quiet, at their feet. 
 
 And yet not idly all. A farmer's son, 
 
 Proud of field-lore and harvest craft, and feeling 
 
 All their fine possibilities, how rich 
 
 And restful even poverty and toil 
 
 Become when beauty, harmony, and love 
 
 Sit at their humble hearth as angels sat 
 
 At evening in the patriarch's tent, when man 
 
 Makes labor noble, and his farmer's frocl$ 
 
 The symbol of a Christian chivalry 
 
 Tender and just and generous to her 
 
 Who clothes with grace all duty ; still, I know 
 
 Too well the picture has another side, 
 
 How wearily the grind of toil goes on 
 
 Where love is wanting, how the eye and ear 
 
 And heart are starved amidst the plenitude 
 
 Of nature, and how hard and colorless 
 
 Is life without an atmosphere. I look 
 
 Across the lapse of half a century,
 
 262 NA RRA TI VE A ND LEGEND A R Y POEMS 
 
 And call to mind old homesteads, where no flower 
 Told that the spring had come, but evil weeds, 
 Nightshade and rough-leaved burdock in the place 
 Of the sweet doorway greeting of the rose 
 And honeysuckle, where the house walls seemed 
 Blistering in sun, without a tree or vine 
 To cast the tremulous shadow of its leaves 
 Across the curtainless windows, from whose panes 
 Fluttered the signal rags of shiftlessness. 
 Within, the cluttered kitchen-floor, unwashed 
 (Broom-clean I think they called it) ; the best 
 
 room 
 
 Stifling with cellar damp, shut from the air 
 In hot midsummer, bookless, pictureless 
 Save the inevitable sampler hung 
 Over the fireplace, or a mourning piece, 
 A green-haired woman, peony-cheeked, beneath 
 Impossible willows ; the wide-throated hearth 
 Bristling with faded pine-boughs half concealing 
 The piled-up rubbish at the chimney's back ; 
 And, in sad keeping with all things about them, 
 Shrill, querulous women, sour and sullen men, 
 Untidy, loveless, old before their time, 
 With scarce a human interest save their own 
 Monotonous round of small economies, 
 Or the poor scandal of the neighborhood ; 
 Blind to the beauty everywhere revealed, 
 Treading the May-flowers with regardless feet ; 
 For them the song-sparrow and the bobolink 
 Sang not, nor winds made music in the leaves ; 
 For them in vain October's holocaust 
 Burned, gold and crimson, over all the hills, 
 The sacramental mystery of the woods.
 
 AMONG THE HILLS 263 
 
 Church-goers, fearful of the unseen Powers, 
 But grumbling over pulpit-tax and pew-rent, 
 Saving, as shrewd economists, their souls 
 And winter pork with the least possible outlay 
 Of salt and sanctity ; in daily life 
 Showing as little actual comprehension 
 Of Christian charity and love and duty, 
 As if the Sermon on the Mount had been 
 Outdated like a last year's almanac : 
 Rich in broad woodlands and in half-tilled fields, 
 And yet so pinched and bare and comfortless, 
 The veriest straggler limping on his rounds, 
 The sun and air his sole inheritance, 
 Laughed at a poverty that paid its taxes, 
 And hugged his rags in self-complacency ! 
 
 Not such should be the homesteads of a land 
 Where whoso wisely wills and acts may dwell 
 As king and lawgiver, in broad-acred state, 
 With beauty, art, taste, culture, books, to make 
 His hour of leisure richer than a life 
 Of fourscore to the barons of old time, 
 Our yeoman should be equal to his home 
 Set in the fair, green valleys, purple walled, 
 A man to match his mountains, not to creep 
 Dwarfed and abased below them. I would fain 
 In this light way (of which I needs must own 
 With the knife-grinder of whom Canning sings, 
 " Story, God bless you ! I have none to tell you ! ") 
 Invite the eye to see and heart to feel 
 The beauty and the joy within their reach, 
 Home, and home loves, and the beatitudes 
 Of nature free to all. Haply in years
 
 264 NARRA TIVE AND LEGEND AR Y POEMS 
 
 That wait to take the places of our own, 
 Heard where some breezy balcony looks down 
 On happy homes, or where the lake in the moon 
 Sleeps dreaming of the mountains, fair as Ruth, 
 In the old Hebrew pastoral, at the feet 
 Of Boaz, even this simple lay of mine 
 May seem the burden of a prophecy, 
 Finding its late fulfilment in a change 
 Slow as the oak's growth, lifting manhood up 
 Through broader culture, finer manners, love, 
 And reverence, to the level of the hills. 
 
 O Golden Age, whose light is of the dawn, 
 
 And not of sunset, forward, not behind, 
 
 Flood the new heavens and earth, and with thee 
 
 bring 
 
 All the old virtues, whatsoever things 
 Are pure and honest and of good repute, 
 But add thereto whatever bard has sung 
 Or seer has told of when in trance and dream 
 They saw the Happy Isles of prophecy ! 
 Let Justice hold her scale, and Truth divide 
 Between the right and wrong ; but give the heart 
 The freedom of its fair inheritance ; 
 Let the poor prisoner, cramped and starved so 
 
 long, 
 
 At Nature's table feast his ear and eye 
 With joy and wonder ; let all harmonies 
 Of sound, form, color, motion, wait upon 
 The princely guest, whether in soft attire 
 Of leisure clad, or the coarse frock of toil, 
 And, lending life to the dead form of faith, 
 Give human nature reverence for the sake
 
 AMONG THE HILLS 265 
 
 Of One who bore it, making it divine 
 
 With the ineffable tenderness of God ; 
 
 Let common need, the brotherhood of prayer, 
 
 The heirship of an unknown destiny, 
 
 The unsolved mystery round about us, make 
 
 A man more precious than the gold of Ophir. 
 
 Sacred, inviolate, unto whom all things 
 
 Should minister, as outward types and signs 
 
 Of the eternal beauty which fulfils 
 
 The one great purpose of creation, Love, 
 
 The sole necessity of Earth and Heaven ! 
 
 For weeks the clouds had raked the hills 
 And vexed the vales with raining, 
 
 And all the woods were sad with mist, 
 And all the brooks complaining. 
 
 At last, a sudden night-storm tore 
 
 The mountain veils asunder, 
 And swept the valleys clean before 
 
 The besom of the thunder. 
 
 Through Sandwich notch the west-wind sang 
 
 Good morrow to the cotter ; 
 And once again Chocorua's horn 
 
 Of shadow pierced the water. 
 
 Above his broad lake Ossipee, 
 Once more the sunshine wearing, 
 
 Stooped, tracing on that silver shield 
 His grim armorial bearing.
 
 266 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 Clear drawn against the hard blue sky, 
 The peaks had winter's keenness ; 
 
 And, close on autumn's frost, the vales 
 Had more than June's fresh greenness. 
 
 Again the sodden forest floors 
 
 With golden lights were checkered, 
 
 Once more rejoicing leaves in wind 
 And sunshine danced and flickered. 
 
 It was as if the summer's late 
 
 Atoning for its sadness 
 Had borrowed every season's charm 
 
 To end its days in gladness. 
 
 I call to mind those banded vales 
 
 Of shadow and of shining, 
 Through which, my hostess at my side, 
 
 I drove in day's declining. 
 
 We held our sideling way above 
 The river's whitening shallows, 
 
 By homesteads old, with wide-flung barns 
 Swept through and through by swallows ; 
 
 By maple orchards, belts of pine 
 
 And larches climbing darkly 
 The mountain slopes, and, over all, 
 
 The great peaks rising starkly. 
 
 You should have seen that long hill-range 
 With gaps of brightness riven, 
 
 How through each pass and hollow streamed 
 The purpling lights of heaven,
 
 Chocorua's horn 
 Of shadow pierced the water
 
 AMONG THE HILLS 267 
 
 Rivers of gold-mist flowing down 
 
 From far celestial fountains, 
 The great sun flaming through the rifts 
 
 Beyond the wall of mountains ! 
 
 We paused at last where home-bound cows 
 Brought down the pasture's treasure, 
 
 And in the barn the rhythmic flails 
 Beat out a harvest measure. 
 
 We heard the night-hawk's sullen plunge, 
 
 The crow his tree-mates calling : 
 The shadows lengthening down the slopes 
 
 About our feet were falling. 
 
 And through them smote the level sun 
 
 In broken lines of splendor, 
 Touched the gray rocks and made the green 
 
 Of the shorn grass more tender. 
 
 The maples bending o'er the gate, 
 
 Their arch of leaves just tinted 
 With yellow warmth, the golden glow 
 
 Of coming autumn hinted. 
 
 Keen white between the farm-house showed, 
 
 And smiled on porch and trellis, 
 The fair democracy of flowers 
 
 That equals cot and palace. 
 
 And weaving garlands for her dog, 
 
 'Twixt ehidings and caresses, 
 A human flower of childhood shook 
 
 The sunshine from her tresses.
 
 268 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 On either hand we saw the signs 
 
 Of fancy and of shrewdness, 
 Where taste had wound its arms of vines 
 
 Round thrift's uncomely rudeness. 
 
 The sun-brown farmer in his frock 
 Shook hands, and called to Mary : 
 
 Bare-armed, as Juno might, she came, 
 White-aproned from her dairy. 
 
 Her air, her smile, her motions, told 
 
 Of womanly completeness ; 
 A music as of household songs 
 
 Was in her voice of sweetness. 
 
 Not fair alone in curve and line, 
 But something more and better, 
 
 The secret charm eluding art, 
 Its spirit, not its letter ; 
 
 An inborn grace that nothing lacked 
 
 Of culture or appliance, 
 The warmth of genial courtesy, 
 
 The calm of self-reliance. 
 
 Before her queenly womanhood 
 
 How dared our hostess utter 
 The paltry errand of her need 
 
 To buy her fresh-churned butter? 
 
 She led the way with housewife pride, 
 
 Her goodly store disclosing, 
 Full tenderly the golden balls 
 
 With practised hands disposing.
 
 AMONG THE HILLS 269 
 
 Then, while along the western hills 
 
 We watched the changeful glory 
 Of sunset, on our homeward way, 
 
 I heard her simple story. 
 
 The early crickets sang ; the stream 
 Plashed through my friend's narration : 
 
 Her rustic patois of the hills 
 Lost in my free translation. 
 
 " More wise," she said, " than those who swarm 
 
 Our hills in middle summer, 
 She came, when June's first roses blow, 
 To greet the early comer. 
 
 " From school and ball and rout she came, 
 
 The city's fair, pale daughter, 
 
 To drink the wine of mountain air 
 
 Beside the Bearcamp Water. 
 
 " Her step grew firmer on the hills 
 
 That watch our homesteads over ; 
 On cheek and lip, from summer fields, 
 She caught the bloom of clover. 
 
 " For health comes sparkling in the streams 
 
 From cool Chocorua stealing : 
 There 's iron in our Northern winds ; 
 Our pines are trees of healing. 
 
 " She sat beneath the broad-armed elms 
 
 That skirt the mowing-meadow, 
 And watched the gentle west-wind weave 
 The grass with shine and shadow.
 
 270 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 " Beside her, from the summer heat 
 To share her grateful screening, 
 With forehead bared, the farmer stood, 
 Upon his pitchfork leaning. 
 
 " Framed in its damp, dark locks, his face 
 
 Had nothing mean or common, 
 Strong, manly, true, the tenderness 
 And pride beloved of woman. 
 
 " She looked up, glowing with the health 
 
 The country air had brought her, 
 And, laughing, said : ' You lack a wife, 
 Your mother lacks a daughter. 
 
 " ' To mend your frock and bake your bread 
 
 You do not need a lady : 
 Be sure among these brown old homes 
 Is some one waiting ready, 
 
 " * Some fair, sweet girl with skilful hand 
 
 And cheerful heart for treasure, 
 
 Who never played with ivory keys, 
 
 Or danced the polka's measure.' 
 
 " He bent his black brows to a frown, 
 
 He set his white teeth tightly. 
 ' 'Tis well,' he said, ' for one like you 
 To choose for me so lightly. 
 
 " ' You think, because my life is rude 
 
 I take no note of sweetness : 
 I tell you love has naught to do 
 With meetness or unmeetness.
 
 AMONG THE HILLS 271 
 
 " * Itself its best excuse, it asks 
 
 No leave of pride or fashion 
 When silken zone or homespun frock 
 It stirs with throbs of passion. 
 
 " ' You think me deaf and blind : you bring 
 
 Your winning graces hither 
 As free as if from cradle-time 
 We two had played together. 
 
 " ' You tempt me with your laughing eyes, 
 
 Your cheek of sundown's blushes, 
 A motion as of waving grain, 
 A music as of thrushes. 
 
 " ' The plaything of your summer sport, 
 
 The spells you weave around me 
 You cannot at your will undo, 
 Nor leave me as you found me. 
 
 " ' You go as lightly as you came, 
 Your life is well without me ; 
 What care you that these hills will close 
 Like prison-walls about me? 
 
 " ' No mood is mine to seek a wife, 
 Or daughter for my mother : 
 Who loves you loses in that love 
 All power to love another ! 
 
 " ' I dare your pity or your scorn, 
 
 W r ith pride your own exceeding ; 
 I fling my heart into your lap 
 Without a word of pleading.'
 
 272 NA ERA Tl VE A ND LEG EN DA RY P OEMS 
 
 " She looked up in his face of pain 
 
 So archly, yet so tender : 
 ' And if I lend you mine,' she said, 
 
 4 Will you forgive the lender ? 
 
 " * Nor frock nor tan can hide the man ; 
 
 And see you not, my farmer, 
 How weak and fond a woman waits 
 Behind this silken armor ? 
 
 " ' I love you : on that love alone, 
 
 And not my worth, presuming, 
 Will you not trust for summer fruit 
 The tree in May-day blooming ? ' 
 
 " Alone the hangbird overhead, 
 
 His hair-swung cradle straining, 
 Looked down to see love's miracle, 
 The giving that is gaining. 
 
 " And so the farmer found a wife, 
 His mother found a daughter : 
 There looks no happier home than hers 
 On pleasant Bearcamp Water. 
 
 " Flowers spring to blossom where she walks 
 
 The careful ways of duty ; 
 Our hard, stiff lines of life with her 
 Are flowing curves of beauty. 
 
 " Our homes are cheerier for her sake, 
 Our door-yards brighter blooming, 
 And all about the social air 
 Is sweeter for her coming.
 
 AMONG THE HILLS 273 
 
 " Unspoken homilies of peace 
 
 Her daily life is preaching ; 
 
 The still refreshment of the dew 
 
 Is her unconscious teaching. 
 
 " And never tenderer hand than hers 
 
 Unknits the brow of ailing ; 
 Her garments to the sick man's ear 
 Have music in their trailing. 
 
 " And when, in pleasant harvest moons, 
 
 The youthful huskers gather, 
 Or sleigh-drives on the mountain ways 
 Defy the winter weather, 
 
 " In sugar-camps, when south and warm 
 
 The winds of March are blowing, 
 And sweetly from its thawing veins 
 The maple's blood is flowing, 
 
 " In summer, where some lilied pond 
 
 Its virgin zone is baring, 
 Or where the ruddy autumn fire 
 Lights up the apple-paring, 
 
 " The coarseness of a ruder time 
 
 Her finer mirth displaces, 
 A subtler sense of pleasure fills 
 Each rustic sport she graces. 
 
 " Her presence lends its warmth and health 
 
 To all who come before it. 
 If woman lost us Eden, such 
 As she alone restore it.
 
 274 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 " For larger life and wiser aims 
 
 The farmer is her debtor ; 
 Who holds to his another's heart 
 Must needs be worse or better. 
 
 " Through her his civic service shows 
 
 A purer-toned ambition ; 
 No double consciousness divides 
 The man and politician. 
 
 " In party's doubtful ways he trusts 
 
 Her instincts to determine ; 
 At the loud polls, the thought of her 
 Recalls Christ's Mountain Sermon. 
 
 " He owns her logic of the heart, 
 
 And wisdom of unreason, 
 Supplying, while he doubts and weighs, 
 The needed word in season. 
 
 " He sees with pride her richer thought, 
 
 Her fancy's freer ranges ; 
 And love thus deepened to respect 
 Is proof against all changes. 
 
 " And if she walks at ease in ways 
 
 His feet are slow to travel, 
 And if she reads with cultured eyes 
 What his may scarce unravel, 
 
 " Still clearer, for her keener sight 
 
 Of beauty and of wonder, 
 He learns the meaning of the hills 
 He dwelt from childhood under.
 
 AMONG THE HILLS 275 
 
 " And higher, warmed with summer lights, 
 
 Or winter-crowned and hoary, 
 The ridged horizon lifts for him 
 Its inner veils of glory. 
 
 " He has his own free, bookless lore, 
 
 The lessons nature taught him, 
 The wisdom which the woods and hills 
 And toiling men have brought him : 
 
 " The steady force of will whereby 
 
 Her flexile grace seems sweeter ; 
 The sturdy counterpoise which makes 
 Her woman's life completer ; 
 
 " A latent fire of soul which lacks 
 
 No breath of love to fan it ; 
 And wit, that, like his native brooks, 
 Plays over solid granite. 
 
 " How dwarfed against his manliness 
 
 She sees the poor pretension, 
 The wants, the aims, the follies, born 
 Of fashion and convention ! 
 
 " How life behind its accidents 
 
 Stands strong and self-sustaining, 
 The human fact transcending all 
 The losing and the gaining. 
 
 " And so in grateful interchange 
 
 Of teacher and of hearer, 
 Their lives their true distinctness keep 
 While daily drawing nearer.
 
 276 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 " And if the husband or the wife 
 
 In home's strong light discovers 
 Such slight defaults as failed to meet 
 The blinded eyes of lovers, 
 
 " Why need we care to ask ? who dreams 
 
 Without their thorns of roses, 
 
 Or wonders that the truest steel 
 
 The readiest spark discloses ? 
 
 " For still in mutual sufferance lies 
 
 The secret of true living ; 
 Love scarce is love that never knows 
 The sweetness of forgiving. 
 
 " We send the Squire to General Court, 
 
 He takes his young wife thither ; 
 No prouder man election day 
 
 Rides through the sweet June weather. 
 
 " He sees with eyes of manly trust 
 
 All hearts to her inclining ; 
 Not less for him his household light 
 That others share its shining." 
 
 Thus, while my hostess spake, there grew 
 
 Before me, warmer tinted 
 And outlined with a tenderer grace, 
 
 The picture that she hinted. 
 
 The sunset smouldered as we drove 
 Beneath the deep hill-shadows. 
 
 Below us wreaths of white fog walked 
 Like ghosts the haunted meadows.
 
 THE DOLE OF JARL THORKELL 277 
 
 Sounding the summer night, the stars 
 Dropped down their golden plummets ; 
 
 The pale arc of the Northern lights 
 Rose o'er the mountain summits, 
 
 Until, at last, beneath its bridge, 
 We heard the Bearcamp flowing, 
 
 And saw across the mapled lawn 
 The welcome home-lights glowing. 
 
 And, musing on the tale I heard, 
 'T were well, thought I, if often 
 
 To rugged farm-life came the gift 
 To harmonize and soften ; 
 
 If more and more we found the troth 
 
 Of fact and fancy plighted, 
 And culture's charm and labor's strength 
 
 In rural homes united, 
 
 The simple life, the homely hearth, 
 With beauty's sphere surrounding, 
 
 And blessing toil where toil abounds 
 With graces more abounding. 
 
 1868. 
 
 THE DOLE OF JARL THORKELL. 
 
 THE land was pale with famine 
 And racked with fever-pain ; 
 
 The frozen fiords were fishless, 
 The earth withheld her grain.
 
 278 NARRA TIVE AND LEGEND A R Y POEMS 
 
 Men saw the boding Fylgja 
 
 Before them come and go, 
 And, through their dreams, the Urdarmoon 
 
 From west to east sailed slow ! 
 
 Jarl Thorkell of Thevera 
 
 At Yule-time made his vow ; 
 On Rykdal's holy Doom-stone 
 
 He slew to Frey his cow. 
 
 To bounteous Frey he slew her ; 
 
 To Skuld, the younger Norn, 
 Who watches over birth and death, 
 
 He gave her calf unborn. 
 
 And his little gold-haired daughter 
 
 Took up the sprinkling-rod, 
 And smeared with blood the temple 
 
 And the wide lips of the god. 
 
 Hoarse below, the winter water 
 
 Ground its ice-blocks o'er and o'er ; 
 
 Jets of foam, like ghosts of dead waves, 
 Rose and fell along the shore. 
 
 The red torch of the Jokul, 
 
 Aloft in icy space, 
 Shone down on the bloody Horg-stones 
 
 And the statue's carven face. 
 
 And closer round and grimmer 
 
 Beneath its baleful light 
 The Jotun shapes of mountains 
 
 Came crowding through the night.
 
 THE DOLE OF JARL THORKELL 279 
 
 The gray-haired Hersir trembled 
 
 As a flame by wind is blown ; 
 A weird power moved his white lips, 
 
 And their voice was not his own ! 
 
 "The Msir thirst ! " he muttered ; 
 
 " The gods must have more blood 
 Before the tun shall blossom 
 Or fish shall fill the flood. 
 
 " The ^Esir thirst and hunger, 
 
 And hence our blight and ban ; 
 
 The mouths of the strong gods water 
 
 For the flesh and blood of man ! 
 
 " Whom shall we give the strong ones ? 
 
 Not warriors, sword on thigh ; 
 But let the nursling infant 
 And bedrid old man die." 
 
 " So be it ! " cried the young men, 
 
 " There needs nor doubt nor parle." 
 But, knitting hard his red brows, 
 In silence stood the Jarl. 
 
 A sound of woman's weeping 
 
 At the temple door was heard, 
 But the old men bowed their white heads, 
 
 And answered not a word. 
 
 Then the Dream-wife of Thingvalla, 
 
 A Vala young and fair, 
 Sang softly, stirring with her breath 
 
 The veil of her loose hair.
 
 280 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 She saug : " The winds from Alf heim 
 
 Bring never sound of strife ; 
 The gifts for Frey the meetest 
 
 Are not of death, but life. 
 
 " He loves the grass-green meadows, 
 The grazing kine's sweet breath ; 
 He loathes your bloody Horg-stones, 
 Your gifts that smell of death. 
 
 " No wrong by wrong is righted, 
 
 No pain is cured by pain ; 
 The blood that smokes from Doom-rings 
 Falls back in redder rain. 
 
 " The gods are what you make them, 
 
 As earth shall Asgard prove ; 
 And hate will come of hating, 
 And love will come of love. 
 
 " Make dole of skyr and black bread 
 
 That old and young may live ; 
 And look to Frey for favor 
 When first like Frey you give. 
 
 " Even now o'er Njord's sea-meadows 
 
 The summer dawn begins : 
 The tun shall have its harvest, 
 The fiord its glancing fins." 
 
 Then up and swore Jarl Thorkell : 
 
 " By Gimli and by Hel, 
 O Vala of Thingvalla, 
 
 Thou singest wise and well!
 
 THE DOLE OF JARL THORKELL 281 
 
 " Too dear the ^Esir's favors 
 
 Bought with our children's lives ; 
 Better die than shame in living 
 Our mothers and our wives. 
 
 " The full shall give his portion 
 
 To him who hath most need ; 
 Of curdled skyr and black bread, 
 Be daily dole decreed." 
 
 He broke from off his neck-chain 
 
 Three links of beaten gold ; 
 And each man, at his bidding, 
 
 Brought gifts for young and old. 
 
 Then mothers nursed their children, 
 And daughters fed their sires, 
 
 And Health sat down with Plenty 
 Before the next Yule fires. 
 
 The Horg-stones stand in Eykdal ; 
 
 The Doom-ring still remains ; 
 But the snows of a thousand winters 
 
 Have washed away the stains. 
 
 Christ ruleth now ; the 
 
 Have found their twilight dim ; 
 And, wiser than she dreamed, of old 
 
 The Yala sang of Him ! 
 
 1868.
 
 282 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 THE TWO KABBINS. 
 
 THE Eabbi Nathan twoscore years and ten 
 Walked blameless through the evil world, and 
 
 then, 
 
 Just as the almond blossomed in his hair, 
 Met a temptation all too strong to bear, 
 And miserably sinned. So, adding not 
 Falsehood to guilt, he left his seat, and taught 
 No more among the elders, but went out 
 From the great congregation girt about 
 With sackcloth, and with ashes on his head, 
 Making his gray locks grayer. Long he prayed, 
 Smiting his breast ; then, as the Book he laid 
 Open before him for the Bath-Col's choice, 
 Pausing to hear that Daughter of a Voice, 
 Behold the royal preacher's words : " A friend 
 Loveth at all times, yea, unto the end ; 
 And for the evil day thy brother lives." 
 Marvelling, he said : " It is the Lord who gives 
 Counsel in need. At Ecbatana dwells 
 Rabbi Ben Isaac, who all men excels 
 In righteousness and wisdom, as the trees 
 Of Lebanon the small weeds that the bees 
 Bow with their weight. I will arise, and lay 
 My sins before him." 
 
 And he went his way 
 
 Barefooted, fasting long, with many prayers ; 
 But even as one who, followed unawares, 
 Suddenly in the darkness feels a hand 
 Thrill with its touch his own, and his cheek fanned
 
 THE TWO RABBINS 283 
 
 By odors subtly sweet, and whispers near 
 
 Of words he loathes, yet cannot choose but hear, 
 
 So, while the Kabbi journeyed, chanting low 
 
 The wail of David's penitential woe, 
 
 Before him still the old temptation came, 
 
 And mocked him with the motion and the shame 
 
 Of such desires that, shuddering-, he abhorred 
 
 Himself ; and, crying mightily to the Lord 
 
 To free his soul and cast the demon out, 
 
 Smote with his staff the blankness round about. 
 
 At length, in the low light of a spent day, 
 The towers of Ecbatana far away 
 Rose on the desert's rim ; and Nathan, faint 
 And footsore, pausing where for some dead 
 
 saint 
 
 The faith of Islam reared a domed tomb, 
 Saw some one kneeling in the shadow, whom 
 He greeted kindly : " May the Holy One 
 Answer thy prayers, O stranger ! " Whereupon 
 The shape stood up with a loud cry, and then, 
 Clasped in each other's arms, the two gray men 
 Wept, praising Him whose gracious providence 
 Made their paths one. But straightway, as the 
 
 Of his transgression smote him, Nathan tore 
 Himself away : " O friend beloved, no more 
 Worthy am I to touch thee, for I came, 
 Foul from my sins, to tell thee all my shame. 
 Haply thy prayers, since naught availeth mine, 
 May purge my soul, and make it white like 
 
 thine. 
 Pity me, O Ben Isaac, I have sinned 1 "
 
 284 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 Awestruck Ben Isaac stood. The desert wind 
 
 Blew his long mantle backward, laying bare 
 
 The mournful secret of his shirt of hair. 
 
 " I too, O friend, if not in act," he said, 
 
 " In thought have verily sinned. Hast thou not 
 
 read, 
 
 ' Better the eye should see than that desire 
 Should wander ? ' Burning with a hidden fire 
 That tears and prayers quench not, I come to thee 
 For pity and for help, as thou to me. 
 Pray for me, O my friend ! " But Nathan cried, 
 " Pray thou for me, Ben Isaac ! " 
 
 Side by side 
 
 In the low sunshine by the turban stone 
 They knelt ; each made his brother's woe his own, 
 Forgetting, in the agony and stress 
 Of pitying love, his claim of selfishness ; 
 Peace, for his friend besought, his own became ; 
 His prayers were answered in another's name ; 
 And, when at last they rose up to embrace, 
 Each saw God's pardon in his brother's face ! 
 
 Long after, when his headstone gathered moss, 
 Traced on the targum-marge of Onkelos 
 In Rabbi Nathan's hand these words were read : 
 " Hope not the cure of sin till Self is dead ; 
 Forget it in love's service, and the, debt 
 Thou canst not pay the angels shall forget ; 
 Heaven's gate is shut to him who comes alone; 
 Save thou a soul, and it shall save thy own ! " 
 1868.
 
 NOREMBEGA 285 
 
 NOREMBEGA. 
 
 Norembega, or Norimbegue, is the name given by early French 
 fishermen and explorers to a fabulous country south of Cape 
 Breton, first discovered by Verrazzani in 1524. It was supposed 
 to have a magnificent city of the same name on a great river, prob- 
 ably the Penobscot. The site of this barbaric city is laid down 
 on a map published at Antwerp in 1570. In 1604 Champlain sailed 
 in search of the Northern Eldorado, twenty-two leagues up the 
 Penobscot from the Isle Haute. He supposed the river to be that 
 of Norembega, but wisely came to the conclusion that those trav- 
 ellers who told of the great city had never seen it. He saw no 
 evidences of anything like civilization, but mentions the finding of 
 a cross, very old and mossy, in the woods. 
 
 THE winding way the serpent takes 
 
 The mystic water took, 
 From where, to count its beaded lakes, 
 
 The forest sped its brook. 
 
 A narrow space 'twixt shore and shore, 
 
 For sun or stars to fall, 
 While evermore, behind, before, 
 
 Closed in the forest wall. 
 
 The dim wood hiding underneath 
 
 Wan flowers without a name ; 
 Life tangled with decay and death, 
 
 League after league the same. 
 
 Unbroken over swamp and hill 
 
 The rounding shadow lay, 
 Save where the river cut at will 
 
 A pathway to the day.
 
 286 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 Beside that track of air and light, 
 
 Weak as a child unweaned, 
 At shut of day a Christian knight 
 
 Upon his henchman leaned. 
 
 The embers of the sunset's fires 
 
 Along the clouds burned down ; 
 " I see," he said, " the domes and spires 
 Of Norembega town." 
 
 " Alack ! the domes, O master mine, 
 
 Are golden clouds on high ; 
 Yon spire is but the branchless pine 
 That cuts the evening sky." 
 
 " Oh, hush and hark 1 What sounds are these 
 
 But chants and holy hymns ? " 
 " Thou hear'st the breeze that stirs the trees 
 
 Through all their leafy limbs." 
 
 " Is it a chapel bell that fills 
 
 The air with its low tone ? " 
 " Thou hear'st the tinkle of the rills, 
 
 The insect's vesper drone." 
 
 " The Christ be praised ! He sets for me 
 
 A blessed cross in sight ! " 
 " Now, nay, 't is but yon blasted tree 
 
 With two gaunt arms outright ! " 
 
 " Be it wind so sad or tree so stark, 
 
 It mattereth not, my knave ; 
 Methinks to funeral hymns I hark, 
 The cross is for my grave !
 
 NOREMDEGA 287 
 
 " My life is sped ; I shall not see 
 
 My home-set sails again ; 
 The sweetest eyes of Normandie 
 Shall watch for me in vain. 
 
 " Yet onward still to ear and eye 
 
 The baffling marvel calls ; 
 I fain would look before I die 
 On Norembega's walls. 
 
 " So, haply, it shall be thy part 
 
 At Christian feet to lay 
 The mystery of the desert's heart 
 My dead hand plucked away. 
 
 " Leave me an hour of rest ; go thou 
 
 And look from yonder heights ; 
 Perchance the valley even now 
 Is starred with city lights." 
 
 The henchman climbed the nearest hill, 
 
 He saw nor tower nor town, 
 But, through the drear woods, lone and still, 
 
 The river rolling down. 
 
 He heard the stealthy feet of things 
 
 Whose shapes he could not see, 
 A flutter as of evil wings, 
 
 The fall of a dead tree. 
 
 The pines stood black against the moon, 
 
 A sword of fire beyond ; 
 He heard the wolf howl, and the loon 
 
 Laugh from his reedy pond.
 
 288 NA RRA TIVE AND LEGEND A R Y POEMS 
 
 He turned him back : " O master dear, 
 
 We are but men misled ; 
 And thou hast sought a city here 
 
 To find a grave instead." 
 
 " As God shall will ! what matters where 
 
 A true man's cross may stand, 
 So Heaven be o'er it here as there 
 In pleasant Norman land ? 
 
 " These woods, perchance, no secret hide 
 
 Of lordly tower and hall ; 
 Yon river in its wanderings wide 
 Has washed no city wall ; 
 
 " Yet mirrored in the sullen stream 
 
 The holy stars are given : 
 Is Norembega, then, a dream 
 Whose waking is in Heaven ? 
 
 " No builded wonder of these lands 
 
 My weary eyes shall see ; 
 A city never made with hands 
 Alone awaiteth me 
 
 " * Urls Syon mystica ; ' I see 
 Its mansions passing fair, 
 * Condita ccelo ; ' let me be, 
 Dear Lord, a dweller there ! " 
 
 Above the dying exile hung 
 
 The vision of the bard, 
 As faltered on his failing tongue 
 
 The song of good Bernard.
 
 MIRIAM 289 
 
 The henchman dug at dawn a grave 
 
 Beneath the hemlocks brown, 
 And to the desert's keeping gave 
 
 The lord of fief and town. 
 
 Years after, when the Sieur Champlain 
 
 Sailed up the unknown stream, 
 And Norembega proved again 
 
 A shadow and a dream, 
 
 He found the Norman's nameless grave 
 
 Within the hemlock's shade, 
 And, stretching wide its arms to save, 
 
 The sign that God had made, 
 
 The cross-boughed tree that marked the spot 
 
 And made it holy ground : 
 He needs the earthly city not 
 
 Who hath the heavenly found. 
 
 MIRIAM. 
 
 TO FREDERICK A. P. BARNARD. 
 
 THE years are many since, in youth and hope, 
 Under the Charter Oak, our horoscope 
 We drew thick-studded with all favoring stars. 
 Now, with gray beards, and faces seamed with scars 
 From life's hard battle, meeting once again, 
 We smile, half sadly, over dreams so vain ; 
 Knowing, at last, that it is not in man 
 Who walketh to direct his steps, or plan
 
 290 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 His permanent house of life. Alike we loved 
 
 The muses' haunts, and all our fancies moved 
 
 To measures of old song. How since that day 
 
 Our feet have parted from the path that lay 
 
 So fair before us ! Rich, from lifelong search 
 
 Of truth, within thy Academic porch 
 
 Thou sittest now, lord of a realm of fact, 
 
 Thy servitors the sciences exact ; 
 
 Still listening with thy hand on Nature's keys, 
 
 To hear the Samian's spheral harmonies 
 
 And rhythm of law. I called from dream and 
 
 song, 
 
 Thank God ! so early to a strife so long, 
 That, ere it closed, the black, abundant hair 
 Of boyhood rested silver-sown and spare 
 On manhood's temples, now at sunset-chime 
 Tread with fond feet the path of morning time. 
 And if perchance too late I linger where 
 The flowers have ceased to blow, and trees are bare, 
 Thou, wiser in thy choice, wilt scarcely blame 
 The friend who shields his folly with thy name. 
 AMESBUKY, 10th mo., 1870. 
 
 One Sabbath day my friend and I 
 
 After the meeting, quietly 
 
 Passed from the crowded village lanes, 
 
 White with dry dust for lack of rains, 
 
 And climbed the neighboring slope, with feet 
 
 Slackened and heavy from the heat, 
 
 Although the day was wellnigh done, 
 
 And the low angle of the sun
 
 MIRIAM 291 
 
 Along the naked hillside cast 
 
 Our shadows as of giants vast. 
 
 We reached, at length, the topmost swell, 
 
 Whence, either way, the green turf fell 
 
 In terraces of nature down 
 
 To fruit-hung orchards, and the town 
 
 With white, pretenceless houses, tall 
 
 Church-steeples, and, o'ershadowing all, 
 
 Huge mills whose windows had the look 
 
 Of eager eyes that ill could brook 
 
 The Sabbath rest. We traced the track 
 
 Of the sea-seeking river back, 
 
 Glistening for miles above its mouth, 
 
 Through the long valley to the south, 
 
 And, looking eastward, cool to view, 
 
 Stretched the illimitable blue 
 
 Of ocean, from its curved coast-line ; 
 
 Sombred and still, the warm sunshine 
 
 Filled with pale gold-dust all the reach 
 
 Of slumberous woods from hill to beach, 
 
 Slanted on walls of thronged retreats 
 
 From city toil and dusty streets, 
 
 On grassy bluff, and dune of sand, 
 
 And rocky islands miles from land ; 
 
 Touched the far-glancing sails, and showed 
 
 White lines of foam where long waves flowed 
 
 Dumb in the distance. In the north, 
 
 Dim through their misty hair, looked forth 
 
 The space-dwarfed mountains to the sea, 
 
 From mystery to mystery ! 
 
 So, sitting on that green hill-slope, 
 We talked of human life, its hope
 
 292 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 And fear, and unsolved doubts, and what 
 
 It might have been, and yet was not. 
 
 And, when at last the evening air 
 
 Grew sweeter for the bells of prayer 
 
 Ringing in steeples far below, 
 
 We watched the people churchward go, 
 
 Each to his place, as if thereon 
 
 The true shekinah only shone ; 
 
 And my friend queried how it came 
 
 To pass that they who owned the same 
 
 Great Master still could not agree 
 
 To worship Him in company. 
 
 Then, broadening in his thought, he ran 
 
 Over the whole vast field of man, 
 
 The varying forms of faith and creed 
 
 That somehow served the holders' need ; 
 
 In which, unquestioned, undenied, 
 
 Uncounted millions lived and died ; 
 
 The bibles of the ancient folk, 
 
 Through which the heart of nations spoke ; 
 
 The old moralities which lent 
 
 To home its sweetness and content, 
 
 And rendered possible to bear 
 
 The life of peoples everywhere : 
 
 And asked if we, who boast of light, 
 
 Claim not a too exclusive right 
 
 To truths which must for all be meant, 
 
 Like rain and sunshine freely sent. 
 
 In bondage to the letter still, 
 
 We give it power to cramp and kill, 
 
 To tax God's fulness with a scheme 
 
 Narrower than Peter's house-top dream, 
 
 His wisdom and his love with plans
 
 MIRIAM 293 
 
 Poor and inadequate as man's. 
 
 It must be that He witnesses 
 
 Somehow to all men that He is : 
 
 That something of His saving grace 
 
 Reaches the lowest of the race, 
 
 Who, through strange creed and rite, may draw 
 
 The hints of a diviner law. 
 
 We walk in clearer light ; but then, 
 
 Is He not God ? are they not men ? 
 
 Are His responsibilities 
 
 For us alone and not for these ? 
 
 And I made answer : " Truth is one ; 
 And, in all lands beneath the sun, 
 Whoso hath eyes to see may see 
 The tokens of its unity. 
 No scroll of creed its fulness wraps, 
 We trace it not by school-boy maps, 
 Free as the sun and air it is 
 Of latitudes and boundaries. 
 In Vedic verse, in dull Koran, 
 Are messages of good to man ; 
 The angels to our Aryan sires 
 Talked by the earliest household fires ; 
 The prophets of the elder day, 
 The slant-eyed sages of Cathay, 
 Read not the riddle all amiss 
 Of higher life evolved from this. 
 
 " Nor doth it lessen what He taught, 
 Or make the gospel Jesus brought 
 Less precious, that His lips retold 
 Some portion of that truth of old ;
 
 294 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 Denying not the proven seers, 
 
 The tested wisdom of the years ; 
 
 Confirming with his own impress 
 
 The common law of righteousness. 
 
 We search the world for truth ; we cull 
 
 The good, the pure, the beautiful, 
 
 From graven stone and written scroll, 
 
 From all old flower-fields of the soul ; 
 
 And, weary seekers of the best, 
 
 We come back laden from our quest, 
 
 To find that all the sages said 
 
 Is in the Book our mothers read, 
 
 And all our treasure of old thought 
 
 In His harmonious fulness wrought 
 
 Who gathers in one sheaf complete 
 
 The scattered blades of God's sown wheat, 
 
 The common growth that maketh good 
 
 His all-embracing Fatherhood. 
 
 " Wherever through the ages rise 
 The altars of self-sacrifice, 
 Where love its arms has opened wide, 
 Or man for man has calmly died, 
 I see the same white wings outspread 
 That hovered o'er the Master's head ! 
 Up from undated time they come, 
 The martyr souls of heathendom, 
 And to His cross and passion bring 
 Their fellowship of suffering. 
 I trace His presence in the blind 
 Pathetic gropings of my kind, 
 In prayers from sin and sorrow wrung, 
 In cradle-hymns of life they sung,
 
 MIRIAM 295 
 
 Each, in its measure, but a part 
 
 Of the unmeasured Over-Heart ; 
 
 And with a stronger faith confess 
 
 The greater that it owns the less. 
 
 Good cause it is for thankfulness 
 
 That the world-blessing of His life 
 
 With the long past is not at strife ; 
 
 That the great marvel of His death 
 
 To the one order witnesseth, 
 
 No doubt of changeless goodness wakes, 
 
 No link of cause and sequence breaks, 
 
 But, one with nature, rooted is 
 
 In the eternal verities ; 
 
 Whereby, while differing in degree 
 
 As finite from infinity, 
 
 The pain and loss for others borne, 
 
 Love's crown of suffering meekly worn, 
 
 The life man giveth for his friend 
 
 Become vicarious in the end ; 
 
 Their healing place in nature take, 
 
 And make life sweeter for their sake. 
 
 " So welcome I from every source 
 The tokens of that primal Force, 
 Older than heaven itself, yet new 
 As the young heart it reaches to, 
 Beneath whose steady impulse rolls 
 The tidal wave of human souls ; 
 Guide, comforter, and inward word, 
 The eternal spirit of the Lord ! 
 Nor fear I aught that science brings 
 From searching through material things ; 
 Content to let its glasses prove,
 
 296 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 Not by the letter's oldness move, 
 
 The myriad worlds on worlds that course 
 
 The spaces of the universe ; 
 
 Since everywhere the Spirit walks 
 
 The garden of the heart, and talks 
 
 With man, as under Eden's trees, 
 
 In all his varied languages. 
 
 Why mourn above some hopeless flaw 
 
 In the stone tables of the law, 
 
 When scripture every day afresh 
 
 Is traced on tablets of the flesh ? 
 
 By inward sense, by outward signs, 
 
 God's presence still the heart divines ; 
 
 Through deepest joy of Him we learn, 
 
 In sorest grief to Him we turn, 
 
 And reason stoops its pride to share 
 
 The child-like instinct of a prayer." 
 
 And then, as is my wont, I told 
 A story of the days of old, 
 Not found in printed books, in sooth, 
 A fancy, with slight hint of truth, 
 Showing how differing faiths agree 
 In one sweet law of charity. 
 Meanwhile the sky had golden grown, 
 Our faces in its glory shone ; 
 But shadows down the valley swept, 
 And gray below the ocean slept, 
 As time and space I wandered o'er 
 To tread the Mogul's marble floor, 
 And see a fairer sunset fall 
 On Jumna's wave and Agra's wall.
 
 MIRIAM 297 
 
 The good Shah Akbar (peace be his alway !) 
 Came forth from the Divan at close of day 
 Bowed with the burden of his many cares, 
 Worn with the hearing of unnumbered prayers, 
 Wild cries for justice, the importunate 
 Appeals of greed and jealousy and hate, 
 And all the strife of sect and creed and rite, 
 Santon and Gouroo waging holy fight : 
 For the wise monarch, claiming not to be 
 Allah's avenger, left his people free, 
 With a faint hope, his Book scarce justified, 
 That all the paths of faith, though severed wide, 
 O'er which the feet of prayerful reverence passed, 
 Met at the gate of Paradise at last. 
 
 He sought an alcove of his cool hareem, 
 Where, far beneath, he heard the Jumna's stream 
 Lapse soft and low along his palace wall, 
 And all about the cool sound of the fall 
 Of fountains, and of water circling free 
 Through marble ducts along the balcony ; 
 The voice of women in the distance sweet, 
 And, sweeter still, of one who, at his feet, 
 Soothed his tired ear with songs of a far land 
 Where Tagus shatters on the salt sea-sand 
 The mirror of its cork-grown hills of drouth 
 And vales of vine, at Lisbon's harbor-mouth. 
 
 The date-palms rustled not ; the peepul laid 
 Its topmost boughs against the balustrade, 
 Motionless as the mimic leaves and vines 
 That, light and graceful as the shawl-designs
 
 298 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 Of Delhi or Umritsir, twined in stone ; 
 And the tired monarch, who aside had thrown 
 The day's hard burden, sat from care apart, 
 And let the quiet steal into his heart 
 From the still hour. Below him Agra slept, 
 By the long light of sunset overswept : 
 The river flowing through a level land, 
 By mango-groves and banks of yellow sand, 
 Skirted with lime and orange, gay kiosks, 
 Fountains at play, tall minarets of mosques, 
 Fair pleasure-gardens, with their flowering trees 
 Relieved against the mournful cypresses ; 
 And, air-poised lightly as the blown sea-foam, 
 The marble wonder of some holy dome 
 Hung a white moonrise over the still wood, 
 Glassing its beauty in a stiller flood. 
 
 Silent the monarch gazed, until the night 
 Swift-falling hid the city from his sight ; 
 Then to the woman at his feet he said : 
 " Tell me, O Miriam, something thou hast read 
 In childhood of the Master of thy faith, 
 Whom Islam also owns. Our Prophet saith : 
 ' He was a true apostle, yea, a Word 
 And Spirit sent before me from the Lord.' 
 Thus the Book witnesseth ; and well I know 
 By what thou art, O dearest, it is so. 
 As the lute's tone the maker's hand betrays, 
 The sweet disciple speaks her Master's praise." 
 
 Then Miriam, glad of heart, (for in some sort 
 She cherished in the Moslem's liberal court 
 The sweet traditions of a Christian child ; 
 And, through her life of sense, the undefiled
 
 MIRIAM 299 
 
 And chaste ideal of the sinless One 
 
 Gazed on her with an eye she might not shun, 
 
 The sad, reproachful look of pity, born 
 
 Of love that hath no part in wrath or scorn,) 
 
 Began, with low voice and moist eyes, to tell 
 
 Of the all-loving Christ, and what befell 
 
 When the fierce zealots, thirsting for her blood, 
 
 Dragged to his feet a shame of womanhood. 
 
 How, when his searching answer pierced within 
 
 Each heart, and touched the secret of its sin, 
 
 And her accusers fled his face before, 
 
 He bade the poor one go and sin no more. 
 
 And Akbar said, after a moment's thought, 
 
 " Wise is the lesson by thy prophet taught ; 
 
 Woe unto him who judges and forgets 
 
 What hidden evil his own heart besets ! 
 
 Something of this large charity I find 
 
 In all the sects that sever human kind ; 
 
 I would to Allah that their lives agreed 
 
 More nearly with the lesson of their creed ! 
 
 Those yellow Lamas who at Meerut pray 
 
 By wind and water power, and love to say : 
 
 4 He who forgiveth not shall, unforgiven, 
 
 Fail of the rest of Buddha,' and who even 
 
 Spare the black gnat that stings them, vex my ears 
 
 With the poor hates and jealousies and fears 
 
 Nursed in their human hives. That lean, fierce 
 
 priest 
 
 Of thy own people, (be his heart increased 
 By Allah's love !) his black robes smelling yet 
 Of Goa's roasted Jews, have I not met 
 Meek-faced, barefooted, crying in the street 
 The saying of his prophet true and sweet, 
 * He who is merciful shall mercy meet ! ' '
 
 300 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 But, next day, so it chanced, as night began 
 To fall, a murmur through the hareem ran 
 That one, recalling in her dusky face 
 The full-lipped, mild-eyed beauty of a race 
 Known as the blameless Ethiops of Greek song, 
 Plotting to do her royal master wrong, 
 Watching, reproachful of the lingering light, 
 The evening shadows deepen for her flight, 
 Love-guided, to her home in a far land, 
 Now waited death at the great Shah's command. 
 
 Shapely as that dark princess for whose smile 
 A world was bartered, daughter of the Nile 
 Herself, and veiling in her large, soft eyes 
 The passion and the languor of her skies, 
 The Abyssinian knelt low at the feet 
 Of her stern lord : " O king, if it be meet, 
 And for thy honor's sake," she said, " that I, 
 Who am the humblest of thy slaves, should die, 
 I will not tax thy mercy to forgive. 
 Easier it is to die than to outlive 
 All that life gave me, him whose wrong of thee 
 Was but the outcome of his love for me, 
 Cherished from childhood, when, beneath the shade 
 Of templed Axum, side by side we played. 
 Stolen from his arms, my lover followed me 
 Through weary seasons over land and sea ; 
 And two days since, sitting disconsolate 
 Within the shadow of the hareem gate, 
 Suddenly, as if dropping from the sky, 
 Down from the lattice of the balcony 
 Fell the sweet song by Tigre's cowherds sung 
 In the old music of his native tongue.
 
 MIRIAM 301 
 
 He knew my voice, for love is quick of ear, 
 Answering in song. 
 
 This night he waited near 
 To fly with me. The fault was mine alone : 
 He knew thee not, he did but seek his own ; 
 Who, in the very shadow of thy throne, 
 Sharing thy bounty, knowing all thou art, 
 Greatest and best of men, and in her heart 
 Grateful to tears for favor undeserved, 
 Turned ever homeward, nor one moment swerved 
 From her young love. He looked into my eyes, 
 He heard my voice, and could not otherwise 
 Than he hath done ; yet, save one wild embrace 
 When first we stood together face to face, 
 And all that fate had done since last we met 
 Seemed but a dream that left us children yet, 
 He hath not wronged thee nor thy royal bed ; 
 Spare him, O king ! and slay me in his stead ! " 
 
 But over Akbar's brows the frown hung black, 
 And, turning to the eunuch at his back, 
 " Take them," he said, " and let the Jumna's waves 
 Hide both my shame and these accursed slaves ! " 
 His loathly length the unsexed bondman bowed : 
 " On my head be it ! " 
 
 Straightway from a cloud 
 Of dainty shawls and veils of woven mist 
 The Christian Miriam rose, and, stooping, kissed 
 The monarch's hand. Loose down her shoulders 
 
 bare 
 
 Swept all the rippled darkness of her hair, 
 Veiling the bosom that, with high, quick swell 
 Of fear and pity, through it rose and fell.
 
 302 NA RRA TIVE AND LEGEND A R Y POEMS 
 
 " Alas ! " she cried, " hast thou forgotten quite 
 The words of Him we spake of yesternight ? 
 Or thy own prophet's, ' Whoso doth endure 
 And pardon, of eternal life is sure ' ? 
 O great and good ! be thy revenge alone 
 Felt in thy mercy to the erring shown ; 
 Let thwarted love and youth their pardon plead, 
 Who sinned but in intent, and not in deed ! " 
 
 One moment the strong frame of Akbar shook 
 With the great storm of passion. Then his look 
 Softened to her uplifted face, that still 
 Pleaded more strongly than all words, until 
 Its pride and anger seemed like overblown, 
 Spent clouds of thunder left to tell alone 
 Of strife and overcoming. With bowed head, 
 And smiting on his bosom : " God," he said, 
 " Alone is great, and let His holy name 
 Be honored, even to His servant's shame ! 
 Well spake thy prophet, Miriam, he alone 
 Who hath not sinned is meet to cast a stone 
 At such as these, who here their doom await, 
 Held like myself in the strong grasp of fate. 
 They sinned through love, as I through love for- 
 give; 
 Take them beyond my realm, but let them live ! " 
 
 And, like a chorus to the words of grace, 
 The ancient Fakir, sitting in his place, 
 Motionless as an idol and as grim, 
 In the pavilion Akbar built for him 
 Under the court-yard trees, (for he was wise, 
 Knew Menu's laws, and through his close-shut eyes
 
 MIRIAM 303 
 
 Saw things far off, and as an open book 
 Into the thoughts of other men could look,) 
 Began, half chant, half howling, to rehearse 
 The fragment of a holy Vedic verse ; 
 And thus it ran : " He who all things forgives 
 Conquers himself and all things else, and lives 
 Above the reach of wrong or hate or fear, 
 Calm as the gods, to whom he is most dear." 
 
 Two leagues from Agra still the traveller sees 
 The tomb of Akbar through its cypress-trees ; 
 And, near at hand, the marble walls that hide 
 The Christian Begum sleeping at his side. 
 And o'er her vault of burial (who shall tell 
 If it be chance alone or miracle ?) 
 The Mission press with tireless hand unrolls 
 The words of Jesus on its lettered scrolls, 
 Tells, in all tongues, the tale of mercy o'er, 
 And bids the guilty, " Go and sin no more ! " 
 
 It now was dew-fall ; very still 
 The night lay on the lonely hill, 
 Down which our homeward steps we bent, 
 And, silent, through great silence went, 
 Save that the tireless crickets played 
 Their long, monotonous serenade. 
 A young moon, at its narrowest, 
 Curved sharp against the darkening west ; 
 And, momently, the beacon's star, 
 Slow wheeling o'er its rock afar, 
 From out the level darkness shot 
 One instant and again was not.
 
 304 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 And then my friend spake quietly 
 
 The thought of both : " Yon crescent see ! 
 
 Like Islam's symbol-moon it gives 
 
 Hints of the light whereby it lives : 
 
 Somewhat of goodness, something true 
 
 From sun and spirit shining through 
 
 All faiths, all worlds, as through the dark 
 
 Of ocean shines the lighthouse spark, 
 
 Attests the presence everywhere 
 
 Of love and providential care. 
 
 The faith the old Norse heart confessed 
 
 In one dear name, the hopef ulest 
 
 And tenderest heard from mortal lips 
 
 In pangs of birth or death, from ships 
 
 Ice-bitten in the winter sea, 
 
 Or lisped beside a mother's knee, 
 
 The wiser world hath not outgrown, 
 
 And the All-Father is our own ! " 
 
 NAUHAUGHT, THE DEACON. 
 
 NAUHAUGHT, the Indian deacon, who of old 
 Dwelt, poor but blameless, where his narrowing 
 
 Cape 
 
 Stretches its shrunk arm out to all the winds 
 And the relentless smiting of the waves, 
 Awoke one morning from a pleasant dream 
 Of a good angel dropping in his hand 
 A fair, broad gold-piece, in the name of God. 
 
 He rose and went forth with the early day 
 Far inland, where the voices of the waves
 
 NAUHAUGHT, THE DEACON 305 
 
 Mellowed and mingled with the whispering leaves, 
 As, through the tangle of the low, thick woods, 
 He searched his traps. Therein nor beast nor 
 
 bird 
 
 He found ; though meanwhile in the reedy pools 
 The otter plashed, and underneath the pines 
 The partridge drummed : and as his thoughts went 
 
 back 
 
 To the sick wife and little child at home, 
 What marvel that the poor man felt his faith 
 Too weak to bear its burden, like a rope 
 That, strand by strand uncoiling, breaks above 
 The hand that grasps it. " Even now, O Lord ! 
 Send me," he prayed, " the angel of my dream ! 
 Nauhaught is very poor ; he cannot wait." 
 
 Even as he spake he heard at his bare feet 
 A low, metallic clink, and, looking down, 
 He saw a dainty purse with disks of gold 
 Crowding its silken net. Awhile he held 
 The treasure up before his eyes, alone 
 With his great need, feeling the wondrous coins 
 Slide through his eager fingers, one by one. 
 So then the dream was true. The angel brought 
 One broad piece only ; should he take all these ? 
 Who would be wiser, in the blind, dumb woods ? 
 The loser, doubtless rich, would scarcely miss 
 This dropped crumb from a table always full. 
 Still, while he mused, he seemed to hear the cry 
 Of a starved child ; the sick face of his wife 
 Tempted him. Heart and flesh in fierce revolt 
 Urged the wild license of his savage youth 
 Against his later scruples. Bitter toil,
 
 306 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 Prayer, fasting, dread of blame, and pitiless eyes 
 To watch his halting, had he lost for these 
 The freedom of the woods ; the hunting-grounds 
 Of happy spirits for a walled-in heaven , 
 Of everlasting psalms ? One healed the sick 
 Very far off thousands of moons ago : 
 Had he not prayed him night and day to come 
 And cure his bed-bound wife ? Was there a hell ? 
 Were all his fathers' people writhing there 
 Like the poor shell-fish set to boil alive 
 Forever, dying never ? If he kept 
 This gold, so needed, would the dreadful God 
 Torment him like a Mohawk's captive stuck 
 With slow-consuming splinters ? Would the saints 
 And the white angels dance and laugh to see 
 
 him 
 
 Burn like a pitch-pine torck ? His Christian garb 
 Seemed falling from him ; with the fear and 
 
 shame 
 
 Of Adam naked at the cool of day, 
 He gazed around. A black snake lay in coil 
 On the hot sand, a crow with sidelong eye 
 Watched from a dead bough. All his Indian lore 
 Of evil blending with a convert's faith 
 In the supernal terrors of the Book, 
 He saw the Tempter in the coiling snake 
 And ominous, black-winged bird ; and all the while 
 The low rebuking of the distant waves 
 Stole in upon him like the voice of God 
 Among the trees of Eden. Girding up 
 His soul's loins with a resolute hand, he thrust 
 The base thought from him : " Nauhaught, be a 
 
 man!
 
 NAUHAUGHT, THE DEACON 307 
 
 Starve, if need be : but, while you live, look out 
 From honest eyes on all men, unashamed. 
 God help me ! I am deacon of the church, 
 A baptized, praying Indian ! Should I do 
 This secret meanness, even the barken knots 
 Of the old trees would turn to eyes to see it, 
 The birds would tell of it, and all the leaves 
 Whisper above me : ' Nauhaught is a thief ! ' 
 The sun would know it, and the stars that hide 
 Behind his light would watch me, and at night 
 Follow me with their sharp, accusing eyes. 
 Yea, thou, God, seest me ! " Then Nauhaught 
 
 drew 
 
 Closer his belt of leather, dulling thus 
 The pain of hunger, and walked bravely back 
 To the brown fishing-hamlet by the sea ; 
 And, pausing at the inn-door, cheerily asked : 
 " Who hath lost aught to-day ? " 
 
 " I," said a voice ; 
 
 " Ten golden pieces, in a silken purse, 
 My daughter's handiwork." He looked, and lo ! 
 One stood before him in a coat of frieze, 
 And the glazed hat of a seafaring man, 
 Shrewd-faced, broad-shouldered, with no trace of 
 
 wings. 
 Marvelling, he dropped within the stranger's 
 
 hand 
 
 The silken web, and turned to go his way. 
 But the man said : " A tithe at least is yours ; 
 Take it in God's name as an honest man." 
 And as the deacon's dusky fingers closed 
 Over the golden gift, " Yea, in God's name 
 I take it, with a poor man's thanks," he said.
 
 308 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 So down the street that, like a river of sand, 
 Ran, white in sunshine, to the summer sea, 
 He sought his home, singing and praising God ; 
 And when his neighbors in their careless way 
 Spoke of the owner of the silken purse 
 A Wellfleet skipper, known in every port 
 That the Cape opens in its sandy wall 
 He answered, with a wise smile, to himself : 
 "I saw the angel where they see a man." 
 1870. 
 
 THE SISTERS. 
 
 ANNIE and Ehoda, sisters twain, 
 Woke in the night to the sound of rain, 
 
 The rush of wind, the ramp and roar 
 Of great waves climbing a rocky shore. 
 
 Annie rose up in her bed-gown white, 
 And looked out into the storm and night. 
 
 " Hush, and hearken ! " she cried in fear, 
 " Hearest thou nothing, sister dear ? " 
 
 " I hear the sea, and the plash of rain, 
 And roar of the northeast hurricane. 
 
 " Get thee back to the bed so warm, 
 No good comes of watching a storm. 
 
 " What is it to thee, I fain would know, 
 That waves are roaring and wild winds blow ?
 
 THE SISTERS 309 
 
 "No lover of thine 's afloat to miss 
 The harbor-lights on a night like this." 
 
 " But I heard a voice cry out my name, 
 Up from the sea on the wind it came ! 
 
 " Twice and thrice have I heard it call, 
 And the voice is the voice of Estwick Hall ! " 
 
 On her pillow the sister tossed her head. 
 " Hall of the Heron is safe," she said. 
 
 " In the tautest schooner that ever swam 
 He rides at anchor in Anisquam. 
 
 "And, if in peril from swamping sea 
 Or lee shore rocks, would he call on thee? " 
 
 But the girl heard only the wind and tide, 
 And wringing her small white hands she cried : 
 
 " O sister Ehoda, there 's something wrong ; 
 I hear it again, so loud and long. 
 
 " * Annie ! Annie ! ' I hear it call, 
 
 And the voice is the voice of Estwick Hall ! " 
 
 Up sprang the elder, with eyes aflame, 
 " Thou liest ! He never would call thy name ! 
 
 " If he did, I would pray the wind and sea 
 To keep him forever from thee and me ! "
 
 310 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 Then out of the sea blew a dreadful blast ; 
 Like the cry of a dying man it passed. 
 
 The young girl hushed on her lips a groan, 
 But through her tears a strange light shoiie, 
 
 The solemn joy of her heart's release 
 To own and cherish its love in peace. 
 
 " Dearest ! " she whispered, under breath, 
 " Life was a lie, but true is death. 
 
 " The love I hid from myself away 
 Shall crown me now in the light of day. 
 
 " My ears shall never to wooer list, 
 Never by lover my lips be kissed. 
 
 " Sacred to thee am I henceforth, 
 Thou in heaven and I on earth ! " 
 
 She came and stood by her sister's bed : 
 " Hall of the Heron is dead ! " she said. 
 
 " The wind and the waves their work have done, 
 We shall see him no more beneath the sun. 
 
 " Little will reck that heart of thine, 
 It loved him not with a love like mine. 
 
 " I, for his sake, were he but here, 
 Could hem and 'broider thy bridal gear,
 
 MARGUERITE 311 
 
 " Though hands should tremble and eyes be wet, 
 And stitch for stitch in my heart be set. 
 
 " But now my soul with his soul I wed ; 
 Thine the living, and mine the dead ! " 
 
 1871. 
 
 MARGUERITE. 
 
 MASSACHUSETTS BAY, 1760. 
 
 Upwards of one thousand of the Acadian peasants forcibly taken 
 from their homes on the Gaspereau and Basin of Minus were as- 
 signed to the several towns of the Massachusetts colony, the chil- 
 dren being bound by the authorities to service or labor. 
 
 THE robins sang in the orchard, the buds into 
 
 blossoms grew ; 
 Little of human sorrow the buds and the robins 
 
 knew! 
 
 Sick, in an alien household, the poor French neu- 
 tral lay ; 
 
 Into her lonesome garret fell the light of the April 
 day, 
 
 Through the dusty window, curtained by the spi- 
 der's warp and woof, 
 
 On the loose-laid floor of hemlock, on oaken ribs 
 of roof, 
 
 The bedquilt's faded patchwork, the teacups on the 
 
 stand, 
 The wheel with flaxen tangle, as it dropped from 
 
 her sick hand !
 
 312 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 What to her was the song of the robin, or warm 
 
 morning light, 
 As she lay in the trance of the dying, heedless of 
 
 sound or sight ? 
 
 Done was the work of her hands, she had eaten her 
 
 bitter bread ; 
 The world of the alien people lay behind her dim 
 
 and dead. 
 
 But her soul went back to its child-time ; she saw 
 
 the sun o'erflow 
 With gold the Basin of Minas, and set over Gas- 
 
 pereau ; 
 
 The low, bare flats at ebb-tide, the rush of the sea 
 
 at flood, 
 Through inlet and creek and river, from dike to 
 
 upland wood ; 
 
 The gulls in the red of morning, the fish-hawk's 
 
 rise and fall, 
 The drift of the fog in moonshine, over the dark 
 
 coast-wall. 
 
 She saw the face of her mother, she heard the song 
 
 she sang ; 
 And far off, faintly, slowly, the bell for vespers 
 
 rang! 
 
 By her bed the hard-faced mistress sat, smoothing 
 
 the wrinkled sheet, 
 Peering into the face, so helpless, and feeling the 
 
 ice-cold feet.
 
 MARGUERITE 313 
 
 With a vague remorse atoning for her greed and 
 
 long abuse, 
 By care no longer heeded and pity too late for use. 
 
 Up the stairs of the garret softly the son of the 
 
 mistress stepped, 
 Leaned over the head-board, covering his face with 
 
 his hands, and wept. 
 
 Outspake the mother, who watched him sharply, 
 
 with brow a-frown : 
 " What ! love you the Papist, the beggar, the 
 
 charge of the town ? " 
 
 " Be she Papist or beggar who lies here, I know 
 
 and God knows 
 I love her, and fain would go with her wherever 
 
 "O mother! that sweet face came pleading, for 
 
 love so athirst. 
 You saw but the town-charge ; I knew her God's 
 
 angel at first." 
 
 Shaking her gray head, the mistress hushed down 
 
 a bitter cry ; 
 And awed by the silence and shadow of death 
 
 drawing nigh, 
 
 She murmured a psalm of the Bible ; but closer 
 
 the young girl pressed, 
 With the last of her life in her fingers, the cross 
 
 to her breast.
 
 314 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 " My son, come away," cried the mother, her voice 
 
 cruel grown. 
 " She is joined to her idols, like Ephraim ; let her 
 
 alone! " 
 
 But he knelt with his hand on her forehead, his 
 
 lips to her ear, 
 And he called back the soul that was passing : 
 
 "Marguerite, do you hear? " 
 
 She paused on the threshold of Heaven ; love, pity, 
 
 surprise, 
 Wistful, tender, lit up for an instant the cloud of 
 
 her eyes. 
 
 With his heart on his lips he kissed her, but never 
 
 her cheek grew red, 
 And the words the living long for he spake in the 
 
 ear of the dead. 
 
 And the robins sang in the orchard, where buds to 
 
 blossoms grew ; 
 Of the folded hands and the still face never the 
 
 robins knew ! 
 1871. 
 
 THE ROBIN. 
 
 MY old Welsh neighbor over the way 
 Crept slowly out in the sun of spring, 
 
 Pushed from her ears the locks of gray, 
 And listened to hear the robin sing.
 
 THE ROBIN 815 
 
 Her grandson, playing at marbles, stopped, 
 And, cruel in sport as boys will be, 
 
 Tossed a stone at the bird, who hopped 
 From bough to bough in the apple-tree. 
 
 " Nay ! " said the grandmother ; " have you not 
 
 heard, 
 
 My poor, bad boy ! of the fiery pit, 
 And how, drop by drop, this merciful bird 
 Carries the water that quenches it ? 
 
 " He brings cool dew in his little bill, 
 
 And lets it fall on the souls of sin : 
 You can see the mark on his red breast still 
 Of fires that scorch as he drops it in. 
 
 " My poor Bron rhuddyn ! my breast - burned 
 
 bird, 
 
 Singing so sweetly from limb to linib, 
 Very dear to the heart of Our Lord 
 Is he who pities the lost like Him ! " 
 
 " Amen ! " I said to the beautiful myth ; 
 
 " Sing, bird of God, in my heart as well : 
 Each good thought is a drop wherewith 
 To cool and lessen the fires of hell. 
 
 " Prayers of love like rain-drops fall, 
 
 Tears of pity are cooling dew, 
 And dear to the heart of Our Lord are all 
 
 Who suffer like Him in the good they do ! " 
 1871.
 
 316 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 THE PENNSYLVANIA. PILGRIM. 
 INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 
 
 THE beginning of German emigration to America 
 may be traced to the personal influence of William 
 Penn, who in 1677 visited the Continent, and made the 
 acquaintance of an intelligent and highly cultivated cir- 
 cle of Pietists, or Mystics, who, reviving in the seven- 
 teenth century the spiritual faith and worship of Tauler 
 and the " Friends of God " in the fourteenth, gathered 
 about the pastor Spener, and the young and beautiful 
 Eleonora Johanna Von Merlau. In this circle origi- 
 nated the Frankfort Land Company, which bought of 
 William Penn, the Governor of Pennsylvania, a tract of 
 land near the new city of Philadelphia. 
 
 The company's agent in the New World was a rising 
 young lawyer, Francis Daniel Pastorius, son of Judge 
 Pastorius, of Windsheim, who, at the age of seventeen, 
 entered the University of Altorf. He studied law at 
 Strasburg, Basle, and Jena, and at Ratisbon, the seat of 
 the Imperial Government, obtained a practical know- 
 ledge of international polity. Successful in all his ex- 
 aminations and disputations, he received the degree of 
 Doctor of Law at Nuremberg in 1676. In 1679 he was 
 a law-lecturer at Frankfort, where he became deeply 
 interested in the teachings of Dr. Spener. In 1680-81 
 he travelled in France, England, Ireland, and Italy with 
 his friend Herr Von Rodeck. " I was," he says, " glad 
 to enjoy again the company of my Christian friends, 
 rather than be with Von Rodeck feasting and dancing." 
 In 1683, in company with a small number of German 
 Friends, he emigrated to America, settling upon the 
 Frankfort Company's tract between the Schuylkill and 
 the Delaware rivers. The township was divided into
 
 THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM 317 
 
 four hamlets, namely, Germantown, Krisheim, Crefield, 
 and Somuierhausen. Soon after liis arrival he united 
 himself with the Society of Friends, and became one of 
 its most able and devoted members, as well as the recog- 
 nized head and lawgiver of the settlement. He married, 
 two years after his arrival, Ann eke (Anna), daughter of 
 Dr. Klosterman, of Muhlheim. 
 
 In the year 1688 he drew up a memorial against 
 slaveholding, which was adopted by the Germantown 
 Friends and sent up to the Monthly Meeting, and thence 
 to the Yearly Meeting at Philadelphia. It is noteworthy 
 as the first protest made by a religious body against 
 Negro Slavery. The original document was discovered 
 in 1844 by the Philadelphia antiquarian, Nathan Kite, 
 and published in The Friend (Vol. XVIII. No. 16). It 
 is a bold and direct appeal to the best instincts of the 
 heart. " Have not," he asks, " these negroes as much 
 right to fight for their freedom as you have to keep them 
 slaves ? " 
 
 Under the wise direction of Pastorius, the German- 
 town settlement grew and prospered. The inhabitants 
 planted orchards and vineyards, and surrounded them- 
 selves with souvenirs of their old home. A large num- 
 ber of them were linen-weavers, as well as small farm- 
 ers. The Quakers were the principal sect, but men of 
 all religions were tolerated, and lived together in har- 
 mony. In 1692 Richard Frame published, in what he 
 called verse, a Description of Pennsylvania, in which 
 he alludes to the settlement : 
 
 " The German town of which I spoke before, 
 Which is at least in length one mile or more, 
 Where lives High German people and Low Dutch, 
 Whose trade in weaving linen cloth is much, 
 There grows the flax, as also you may know 
 That from the same they do divide the tow. 
 Their trade suits well their habitation, 
 We find convenience for tjieir occupation."
 
 318 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 Pastorius seems to have been on intimate terms with 
 William Penn, Thomas Lloyd, Chief Justice Logan, 
 Thomas Story, and other leading men in the Province 
 belonging to his own religious society, as also with Kel- 
 pius, the learned Mystic of the Wissahickon, with the 
 pastor of the Swedes' church, and the leaders of the 
 Mennonites. He wrote a description of Pennsylvania, 
 which was published at Frankfort and Leipsic in 1700 
 and 1701. His Lives of the Saints, etc., written in Ger- 
 man and dedicated to Professor Schurmberg, his old 
 teacher, was published in 1690. He left behind him 
 many unpublished manuscripts covering a very wide 
 range of subjects, most of which are now lost. One huge 
 manuscript folio, entitled Hive Beestock, Melliotropheum 
 Alucar, or Husca Apium, still remains, containing one 
 thousand pages with about one hundred lines to a page. 
 It is a medley of knowledge and fancy, history, phi- 
 losophy, and poetry, written in seven languages. A 
 large portion of his poetry is devoted to the pleasures 
 of gardening, the description of flowers, and the care 
 of bees. The following specimen of his punning Latin 
 is addressed to an orchard-pilferer : 
 
 " Quisquis in haec furtim reptas viridaria nostra 
 Tangere fallaci poma caveto manu, 
 Si non obsequeris faxit Deus omne quod opto, 
 Cum malis nostris ut mala cuncta feras.' 1 
 
 Professor Oswald Seidensticker, to whose papers in 
 Der Deutsche Pioneer and that able periodical the 
 Penn Monthly, of Philadelphia, I am indebted for 
 many of the foregoing facts in regard to the German 
 pilgrims of the New World, thus closes his notice of 
 Pastorius : 
 
 " No tombstone, not even a record of burial, indicates 
 where his remains have found their last resting-place, 
 and the pardonable desire to associate the homage due 
 to this distinguished man with some visible memento can-
 
 THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM 319 
 
 not be gratified. There is no reason to suppose that he 
 was interred in any other place than the Friends' old 
 burying-ground in Germantown, though the fact is not 
 attested by any definite source of information. After 
 all, this obliteration of the last trace of his earthly ex- 
 istence is but typical of what has overtaken the times 
 which he represents ; that Germantown which he 
 founded, which saw him live and move, is at present but 
 a quaint idyl of the past, almost a myth, barely remem- 
 bered and little cared for by the keener race that has 
 succeeded." 
 
 The Pilgrims of Plymouth have not lacked historian 
 and poet. Justice has been done to their faith^courage, 
 and self-sacrifice, and to the mighty influence of their 
 endeavors to establish righteousness on the earth. The 
 Quaker pilgrims of Pennsylvania, seeking the same ob- 
 ject by different means, have not been equally fortunate. 
 The power of their testimony for truth and holiness, 
 peace and freedom, enforced only by what Milton calls 
 " the unresistible might of meekness," has been felt 
 through two centuries in the amelioration of penal sever- 
 ities, the abolition of slavery, the reform of the erring, 
 the relief of the poor and suffering, felt, in brief, in 
 every step of human progress. But of the men them- 
 selves, with the single exception of William Penn, 
 scarcely anything is known. Contrasted, from the out- 
 set, with the stern, aggressive Puritans of New England, 
 they have come to be regarded as " a feeble folk," with 
 a personality as doubtful as their unrecorded graves. 
 They were not soldiers, like Miles Standish ; they had no 
 figure so picturesque as Vane, no leader so rashly brave 
 and haughty as Endicott. No Cotton Mather wrote 
 their Magnalia ; they had no awful drama of supernat- 
 uralism in which Satan and his angels were actors ; 
 and the only witch mentioned in their simple annals 
 was a poor old Swedish woman, who, on complaint of
 
 320 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 her countrywomen, was tried and acquitted of every- 
 thing but imbecility and folly. Nothing but common- 
 place offices of civility came to pass between them and 
 the Indians ; indeed, their enemies taunted them with 
 the fact that the savages did not regard them as Chris- 
 tians, but just such men as themselves. Yet it must be 
 apparent to every careful observer of the progress of 
 American civilization that its two principal currents had 
 their sources in the entirely opposite directions of the 
 Puritan and Quaker colonies. To use the words of a 
 late writer : l " The historical forces, with which no oth- 
 ers may be compared in their influence on the people, 
 have been those of the Puritan and the Quaker. The 
 strength of the one was in the confession of an invisible 
 Presence, a righteous, eternal Will, which would estab- 
 lish righteousness on earth ; and thence arose the convic- 
 tion of a direct personal responsibility, which could be 
 tempted by no external splendor and could be shaken by 
 no internal agitation, and could not be evaded or trans- 
 ferred. The strength of the other was the witness in 
 the human spirit to an eternal Word, an Inner Voice 
 which spoke to each alone, while yet it spoke to every 
 man ; a Light which each was to follow, and which yet 
 was the light of the world ; and all other voices were 
 silent before this, and the solitary path whither it led 
 was more sacred than the worn ways of cathedral-aisles." 
 It will be sufficiently apparent to the reader that, in 
 the poem which follows, I have attempted nothing be- 
 yond a study of the life and times of the Pennsylvania 
 colonist, a simple picture of a noteworthy man and 
 his locality. The colors of my sketch are all very sober, 
 toned down to the quiet and dreamy atmosphere through 
 which its subject is visible. Whether, in the glare and 
 tumult of the present time, such a picture will find favor 
 may well be questioned. I only know that it has be- 
 1 Mulford's Nation, pp. 267, 268.
 
 THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM 321 
 
 guiled for me some hours of weariness, and that, what- 
 ever may be its measure of public appreciation, it has 
 been to me its own reward. 
 
 J. G. W. 
 
 AMESBUKY, 5th mo.. 1872. 
 
 HAIL to posterity ! 
 Hail, future men of Germanopolis ! 
 
 Let the young generations yet to be 
 Look kindly upon this. 
 
 Think how your fathers left their native land, 
 Dear German -land! O sacred hearths and 
 
 homes ! 
 And, where the wild beast roams, 
 
 In patience planned 
 New forest-homes beyond the mighty sea, 
 
 There undisturbed and free 
 To live as brothers of one family. 
 What pains and cares befell, 
 
 What trials and what fears, 
 Remember, and wherein we have done well 
 Follow our footsteps, men of coming years ! 
 Where we have failed to do 
 
 Aright, or wisely live, 
 Be warned by us, the better way pursue, 
 And, knowing we were human, even as you, 
 
 Pity us and forgive ! 
 Farewell, Posterity ! 
 Farewell, dear Germany ! 
 Forevermore farewell ! 
 
 From the Latin of FRANCIS DANIBL PASTOBIUS in the Germanlown 
 Records. 1688. 
 
 VOL. I. 21
 
 322 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 PRELUDE. 
 
 I SING the Pilgrim of a softer clime 
 
 And milder speech than those brave men's who 
 
 brought 
 To the ice and iron of our winter time 
 
 A will as firm, a creed as stern, and wrought 
 
 With one mailed hand, and with the other fought. 
 Simply, as fits my theme, in homely rhyme 
 
 I sing the blue-eyed German Spener taught, 
 Through whose veiled, mystic faith the Inward 
 Light, 
 
 Steady and still, an easy brightness, shone, 
 Transfiguring all things in its radiance white. 
 The garland which his meekness never sought 
 
 I bring him ; over fields of harvest sown 
 
 With seeds of blessing, now to ripeness grown, 
 I bid the sower pass before the reapers' sight. 
 
 Never in tenderer quiet lapsed the day 
 From Pennsylvania's vales of spring away, 
 Where, forest-walled, the scattered hamlets lay 
 
 Along the wedded rivers. One long bar 
 Of purple cloud, on which the evening star 
 Shone like a jewel on a scimitar, 
 
 Held the sky's golden gateway. Through the deep 
 Hush of the woods a murmur seemed to creep, 
 The Schuylkill whispering in a voice of sleep.
 
 THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM 323 
 
 All else was still. The oxen from their ploughs 
 Rested at last, and from their long day's browse 
 Came the dun files of Krisheim's home -bound 
 
 And the young city, round whose virgin zone 
 The rivers like two mighty arms were thrown, 
 Marked by the smoke of evening fires alone, 
 
 Lay in the distance, lovely even then 
 With its fair women and its stately men 
 Gracing the forest court of William Penn, 
 
 Urban yet sylvan ; in its rough-hewn frames 
 Of oak and pine the dryads held their claims, 
 And lent its streets their pleasant woodland names. 
 
 Anna Pastorius down the leafy lane 
 
 Looked city-ward, then stooped to prune again 
 
 Her vines and simples, with a sigh of pain. 
 
 For fast the streaks of ruddy sunset paled 
 In the oak clearing, and, as daylight failed, 
 Slow, overhead, the dusky night-birds sailed. 
 
 Again she looked : between green walls of shade, 
 With low-bent head as if with sorrow weighed, 
 Daniel Pastorius slowly came and said, 
 
 " God's peace be with thee, Anna ! " Then he 
 
 stood 
 
 Silent before her, wrestling with the mood 
 Of one who sees the evil and not good.
 
 324 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 " What is it, my Pastorius ? " As she spoke, 
 A slow, faint smile across his features broke, 
 Sadder than tears. " Dear heart," he said, " our 
 folk 
 
 "Are even as others. Yea, our goodliest Friends 
 Are frail ; our elders have their selfish ends, 
 And few dare trust the Lord to make amends 
 
 " For duty's loss. So even our feeble word 
 For the dumb slaves the startled meeting heard 
 As if a stone its quiet waters stirred ; 
 
 " And, as the clerk ceased reading, there began 
 A ripple of dissent which downward ran 
 In widening circles, as from man to man. 
 
 " Somewhat was said of running before sent, 
 Of tender fear that some their guide outwent, 
 Troublers of Israel. I was scarce intent 
 
 " On hearing, for behind the reverend row 
 Of gallery Friends, in dumb and piteous show, 
 I saw, methought, dark faces full of woe. 
 
 " And, in the spirit, I was taken where 
 They toiled and suffered ; I was made aware 
 Of shame and wrath and anguish and despair ! 
 
 " And while the meeting smothered our poor plea 
 With cautious phrase, a Voice there seemed 
 
 to be, 
 ' As ye have done to these ye do to me ! '
 
 THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM 325 
 
 " So it all passed ; and the old tithe went on 
 Of anise, mint, and cumin, till the sun 
 Set, leaving still the weightier work undone. 
 
 " Help, for the good man faileth ! Who is strong, 
 If these be weak ? Who shall rebuke the wrong, 
 If these consent ? How long, O Lord ! how 
 long ! " 
 
 He ceased ; and, bound in spirit with the bound, 
 With folded arms, and eyes that sought the 
 
 ground, 
 Walked musingly his little garden round. 
 
 About him, beaded with the falling dew, 
 
 Rare plants of power and herbs of healing grew, 
 
 Such as Van Helmont and Agrippa knew. 
 
 For, by the lore of Gorlitz' gentle sage, 
 With the mild mystics of his dreamy age 
 He read the herbal signs of nature's page, 
 
 As once he heard in sweet Von Merlau's 12 bowers 
 Fair as herself, in boyhood's happy hours, 
 The pious Spener read his creed in flowers. 
 
 " The dear Lord give us patience ! " said his wife, 
 
 Touching with finger-tip an aloe, rife 
 
 With leaves sharp-pointed like an Aztec knife 
 
 Or Carib spear, a gift to William Penn 
 From the rare gardens of John Evelyn, 
 Brought from the Spanish Main by merchantmen.
 
 326 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 " See this strange plant its steady purpose hold, 
 And, year by year, its patient leaves unfold, 
 Till the young eyes that watched it first are old. 
 
 " But some time, thou hast told me, there shall 
 
 come 
 
 A sudden beauty, brightness, and perfume, 
 The century-moulded bud shall burst in bloom. 
 
 " So may the seed which hath been sown to-day 
 Grow with the years, and, after long delay, 
 Break into bloom, and God's eternal Yea 
 
 " Answer at last the patient prayers of them 
 Who now, by faith alone, behold its stem 
 Crowned with the flowers of Freedom's diadem. 
 
 " Meanwhile, to feel and suffer, work and wait, 
 Remains for us. The wrong indeed is great, 
 But love and patience conquer soon or late." 
 
 " Well hast thou said, my Anna ! " Tenderer 
 Than youth's caress upon the head of her 
 Pastorius laid his hand. " Shall we demur 
 
 " Because the vision tarrieth ? In an hour 
 
 We dream not of, the slow-grown bud may flower, 
 
 And what was sown in weakness rise in power ! " 
 
 Then through the vine-draped door whose legend 
 
 read, 
 
 " Procul este profani ! " Anna led 
 To where their child upon his little bed
 
 THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM 327 
 
 Looked up and smiled. " Dear heart," she said, 
 
 " if we 
 
 Must bearers of a heavy burden be, 
 Our boy, God willing, yet the day shall see 
 
 " When from the gallery to the farthest seat, 
 Slave and slave-owner shall no longer meet, 
 But all sit equal at the Master's feet." 
 
 On the stone hearth the blazing walnut block 
 Set the low walls a-glimmer, showed the cock 
 Kebuking Peter on the Van Wyck clock, 
 
 Shone on old tomes of law and physic, side 
 By side with Fox and Behmen, played at hide 
 And seek with Anna, midst her household pride 
 
 Of flaxen webs, and on the table, bare 
 Of costly cloth or silver cup, but where, 
 Tasting the fat shads of the Delaware, 
 
 The courtly Penn had praised the goodwife's 
 
 cheer, 
 
 And quoted Horace o'er her home-brewed beer, 
 Till even grave Pastorius smiled to hear. 
 
 In such a home, beside the Schuylkill's wave, 
 He dwelt in peace with God and man, and gave 
 Food to the poor and shelter to the slave. 
 
 For all too soon the New World's scandal shamed 
 The righteous code by Penn and Sidney framed, 
 And men withheld the human rights they claimed.
 
 328 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 And slowly wealth and station sanction lent, 
 And hardened avarice, on its gains intent, 
 Stifled the inward whisper of dissent. 
 
 Yet all the while the burden rested sore 
 On tender hearts. At last Pastorius bore 
 Their warning message to the Church's door 
 
 In God's name ; and the leaven of the word 
 Wrought ever after in the souls who heard, 
 And a dead conscience in its grave-clothes 
 stirred 
 
 To troubled life, and urged the vain excuse 
 Of Hebrew custom, patriarchal use, 
 Good in itself if evil in abuse. 
 
 Gravely Pastorius listened, not the less 
 Discerning through the decent fig-leaf dress 
 Of the poor plea its shame of selfishness. 
 
 One Scripture rule, at least, was unforgot ; 
 He hid the outcast, and bewrayed him not ; 
 And, when his prey the human hunter sought, 
 
 He scrupled not, while Anna's wise delay 
 
 And proffered cheer prolonged the master's stay, 
 
 To speed the black guest safely on his way. 
 
 Yet, who shall guess his bitter grief who lends 
 His life to some great cause, and finds his 
 
 friends 
 Shame or betray it for their private ends ?
 
 THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM 329 
 
 How felt the Master when his chosen strove 
 In childish folly for their seats above ; 
 And that fond mother, blinded by her love, 
 
 Besought him that her sons, beside his throne, 
 Might sit on either hand ? Amidst his own 
 A stranger oft, companionless and lone, 
 
 God's priest and prophet stands. The martyr's 
 
 pain 
 
 Is not alone from scourge and cell and chain ; 
 Sharper the pang when, shouting in his train, 
 
 His weak disciples by their lives deny 
 The loud hosannas of their daily cry, 
 And make their echo of his truth a lie. 
 
 His forest home no hermit's cell he found, 
 Guests, motley-minded, drew his hearth around, 
 And held armed truce upon its neutral ground. 
 
 There Indian chiefs with battle-bows unstrung, 
 Strong, hero-limbed, like those whom Homer 
 
 sung, 
 Pastorius fancied, when the world was young, 
 
 Came with their tawny women, lithe and tall, 
 Like bronzes in his friend Von Rodeck's hall, 
 Comely, if black, and not unpleasing all. 
 
 There hungry folk in homespun drab and gray 
 Drew round his board on Monthly Meeting day, 
 Genial, half merry in their friendly way.
 
 330 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 Or, haply, pilgrims from the Fatherland, 
 Weak, timid, homesick, slow to understand 
 The New World's promise, sought his helping 
 hand. 
 
 Or painful Kelpius 13 from his hermit den 
 By Wissahickon, maddest of good men, 
 Dreamed o'er the Chiliast dreams of Petersen. 
 
 Deep in the woods, where the small river slid 
 Snake-like in shade, the Helmstadt Mystic hid, 
 Weird as a wizard, over arts forbid, 
 
 Reading the books of Daniel and of John, 
 
 And Behmen's Morning-Redness, through the 
 
 Stone 
 Of Wisdom, vouchsafed to his eyes alone, 
 
 Whereby he read what man ne'er read before, 
 And saw the visions man shall see no more, 
 Till the great angel, striding sea and shore, 
 
 Shall bid all flesh await, on land or ships, 
 The warning trump of the Apocalypse, 
 Shattering the heavens before the dread eclipse. 
 
 Or meek-eyed Mennonist his bearded chin 
 Leaned o'er the gate ; or Ranter, pure within, 
 Aired his perfection in a world of sin. 
 
 Or, talking of old home scenes, Op der Graaf 
 Teased the low back-log with his shodden staff, 
 Till the red embers broke into a laugh
 
 THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM 331 
 
 And dance of flame, as if they fain would 
 
 cheer 
 
 The rugged face, half tender, half austere, 
 Touched with the pathos of a homesick tear ! 
 
 Or Sluyter, 14 saintly familist, whose word 
 As law the Brethren of the Manor heard, 
 Announced the speedy terrors of the Lord, 
 
 And turned, like Lot at Sodom, from his race, 
 Above a wrecked world with complacent face 
 Eiding secure upon his plank of grace ! 
 
 Haply, from Finland's birchen groves exiled, 
 Manly in thought, in simple ways a child, 
 His white hair floating round his visage mild, 
 
 The Swedish pastor sought the Quaker's door, 
 Pleased from his neighbor's lips to hear once 
 
 more 
 His long-disused and half -forgotten lore. 
 
 For both could baffle Babel's lingual curse, 
 And speak in Bion's Doric, and rehearse 
 Cleanthes' hymn or Virgil's sounding verse. 
 
 And oft Pastorius and the meek old man 
 Argued as Quaker and as Lutheran, 
 Ending in Christian love, as they began. 
 
 With lettered Lloyd on pleasant morns he strayed 
 Where Sommerhausen over vales of shade 
 Looked miles away, by every flower delayed,
 
 332 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 Or song of bird, happy and free with one 
 Who loved, like him, to let his memory run 
 Over old fields of learning, and to sun 
 
 Himself in Plato's wise philosophies, 
 And dream with Philo over mysteries 
 Whereof the dreamer never finds the keys ; 
 
 To touch all themes of thought, nor weakly 
 
 stop 
 
 For doubt of truth, but let the buckets drop 
 Deep down and bring the hidden waters up. 15 
 
 For there was freedom in that wakening time 
 Of tender souls ; to differ was not crime ; 
 The varying bells made up the perfect chime. 
 
 On lips unlike was laid the altar's coal, 
 The white, clear light, tradition-colored, stole 
 Through the stained oriel of each human soul. 
 
 Gathered from many sects, the Quaker brought 
 His old beliefs, adjusting to the thought 
 That moved his soul the creed his fathers 
 taught. 
 
 One faith alone, so broad that all mankind 
 Within themselves its secret witness find, 
 The soul's communion with the Eternal Mind, 
 
 The Spirit's law, the Inward Rule and Guide, 
 Scholar and peasant, lord and serf, allied, 
 The polished Penn and Cromwell's Ironside.
 
 THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM 333 
 
 As still in Hemskerck's Quaker Meeting, 16 face 
 
 By face in Flemish detail, we may trace 
 
 How loose-mouthed boor and fine ancestral grace 
 
 Sat in close contrast, the clipt-headed churl, 
 Broad market- dame, and simple serving-girl 
 By skirt of silk and periwig in curl ! 
 
 For soul touched soul; the spiritual treasure- 
 trove 
 
 Made all men equal, none could rise above 
 Nor sink below that level of God's love. 
 
 So, with his rustic neighbors sitting down, 
 The homespun frock beside the scholar's gown, 
 Pastorius to the manners of the town 
 
 Added the freedom of the woods, and sought 
 The bookless wisdom by experience taught, 
 And learned to love his new-found home, while 
 not 
 
 Forgetful of the old ; the seasons went 
 Their rounds, and somewhat to his spirit lent 
 Of their own calm and measureless content. 
 
 Glad even to tears, he heard the robin sing 
 His song of welcome to the Western spring, 
 And bluebird borrowing from the sky his wing. 
 
 And when the miracle of autumn came, 
 And all the woods with many-colored flame 
 Of splendor, making summer's greenness tame,
 
 334 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 Burned, unconsumed, a voice without a sound 
 Spake to him from each kindled bush around, 
 And made the strange, new landscape holy 
 ground ! 
 
 And when the bitter north-wind, keen and swift. 
 Swept the white street and piled the dooryard 
 
 drift, 
 He exercised, as Friends might say, his gift 
 
 Of verse, Dutch, English, Latin, like the hash 
 
 Of corn and beans in Indian succotash ; 
 
 Dull, doubtless, but with here and there a flash 
 
 Of wit and fine conceit, the good man's play 
 Of quiet fancies, meet to while away 
 The slow hours measuring off an idle day. 
 
 At evening, while his wife put on her look 
 Of love's endurance, from its niche he took 
 The written pages of his ponderous book. 
 
 And read, in half the languages of man, 
 His " Rusca Apium," which with bees began, 
 And through the gamut of creation ran. 
 
 Or, now and then, the missive of some friend 
 In gray Altorf or storied Niirnberg penned 
 Dropped in upon him like a guest to spend 
 
 The night beneath his roof-tree. Mystical 
 The fair Von Merlau spake as waters fall 
 And voices sound in dreams, and yet withal
 
 THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM 335 
 
 Human and sweet, as if each far, low tone, 
 
 Over the roses of her gardens blown 
 
 Brought the warm sense of beauty all her own. 
 
 Wise Spener questioned what his friend could trace 
 Of spiritual influx or of saving grace 
 In the wild natures of the Indian race. 
 
 And learned Schurmberg, fain, at times, to look* 
 From Talmud, Koran, Veds, and Pentateuch, 
 Sought out his pupil in his far-off nook, 
 
 To query with him of climatic change, 
 
 Of bird, beast, reptile, in his forest range, 
 
 Of flowers and fruits and simples new and strange. 
 
 And thus the Old and New World reached their 
 
 hands 
 
 Across the water, and the friendly lands 
 Talked with each other from their severed strands. 
 
 Pastorius answered all : while seed and root 
 Sent from his new home grew to. flower and 
 
 fruit 
 Along the Rhine and at the Spessart's foot ; 
 
 And, in return, the flowers his boyhood knew 
 Smiled at his door, the same in form and hue, 
 And on his vines the Rhenish clusters grew. 
 
 No idler he ; whoever else might shirk, 
 He set his hand to every honest work, 
 Farmer and teacher, court and meeting clerk.
 
 336 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 Still on the town seal his device is found, 
 Grapes, flax, and thread-spool on a trefoil ground, 
 With " Vinum, Linum et Textrinum " wound. 
 
 One house sufficed for gospel and for law, 
 Where Paul and Grotius, Scripture text and 
 
 saw, 
 Assured the good, and held the rest in awe. 
 
 Whatever legal maze he wandered through, 
 He kept the Sermon on the Mount in view, 
 And justice always into mercy grew. 
 
 No whipping-post he needed, stocks, nor jail, 
 Nor ducking-stool ; the orchard-thief grew pale 
 At his rebuke, the vixen ceased to rail, 
 
 The usurer's grasp released the forfeit land ; 
 The slanderer faltered at the witness-stand, 
 And all men took his counsel for command. 
 
 Was it caressing air, the brooding love 
 
 Of tenderer skies than German land knew of, 
 
 Green calm below, blue quietness above, 
 
 Still flow of water, deep repose of wood 
 That, with a sense of loving Fatherhood 
 And childlike trust in the Eternal Good, 
 
 Softened all hearts, and dulled the edge of 
 
 hate, 
 
 Hushed strife, and taught impatient zeal to wait 
 The slow assurance of the better state ?
 
 THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM 337 
 
 Who knows what goadings in their sterner way 
 O'er jagged ice, relieved by granite gray, 
 Blew round the men of Massachusetts Bay ? 
 
 What hate of heresy the east-wind woke ? 
 What hints of pitiless power and terror spoke 
 In waves that on their iron coast-line broke ? 
 
 Be it as it may : within the Land of Penn 
 
 The sectary yielded to the citizen, 
 
 And peaceful dwelt the many-creeded men. 
 
 Peace brooded over all. No trumpet stung 
 The air to madness, and no steeple flung 
 Alarums down from bells at midnight rung. 
 
 The land slept well. The Indian from his face 
 Washed all his war-paint off, and in the place 
 Of battle-marches sped the peaceful chase, 
 
 Or wrought for wages at the white man's side, 
 Giving to kindness what his native pride 
 And lazy freedom to all else denied. 
 
 And well the curious scholar loved the old 
 Traditions that his swarthy neighbors told 
 By wigwam-fires when nights were growing cold, 
 
 Discerned the fact round which their fancy 
 
 drew 
 Its dreams, and held their childish faith more 
 
 true 
 To God and man than half the creeds he knew. 17
 
 338 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 The desert blossomed round him ; wheat-fields 
 
 roUed 
 
 Beneath the warm wind waves of green and gold ; 
 The planted ear returned its hundred-fold. 
 
 Great clusters ripened in a warmer sun 
 
 Than that which by the Rhine stream shines upon 
 
 The purpling hillsides with low vines o'errun. 
 
 About each rustic porch the humming-bird 
 Tried with light bill, that scarce a petal stirred, 
 The Old World flowers to virgin soil transferred ; 
 
 And the first-fruits of pear and apple, bending 
 The young boughs down, their gold and russet 
 
 blending, 
 Made glad his heart, familiar odors lending 
 
 To the fresh fragrance of the birch and pine, 
 
 Life-everlasting, bay, and eglantine, 
 
 And all the subtle scents the woods combine. 
 
 Fair First-Day mornings, steeped in summer calm, 
 Warm, tender, restful, sweet with woodland balm, 
 Came to him, like some mother-hallowed psalm 
 
 To the tired grinder at the noisy wheel 
 Of labor, winding off from memory's reel 
 A golden thread of music. With no peal 
 
 Of bells to call them to the house of praise, 
 The scattered settlers through green forest-ways 
 Walked meeting-ward. In reverent amaze
 
 THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM 339 
 
 The Indian trapper saw them, from the dim 
 
 Shade of the alders on the rivulet's rim, 
 
 Seek the Great Spirit's house to talk with Him. 
 
 There, through the gathered stillness multiplied 
 And made intense by sympathy, outside 
 The sparrows sang, and the gold-robin cried, 
 
 A-swing upon his elm. A faint perfume 
 Breathed through the open windows of the 
 
 room 
 From locust-trees, heavy with clustered bloom. 
 
 Thither, perchance, sore-tried confessors came, 
 Whose fervor jail nor pillory could tame, 
 Proud of the cropped ears meant to be their 
 shame, 
 
 Men who had eaten slavery's bitter bread 
 In Indian isles ; pale women who had bled 
 Under the hangman's lash, and bravely said 
 
 God's message through their prison's iron bars ; 
 And gray old soldier-converts, seamed with scars 
 From every stricken field of England's wars. 
 
 Lowly before the Unseen Presence knelt 
 Each waiting heart, till haply some one felt 
 On his moved lips the seal of silence melt. 
 
 Or, without spoken words, low breathings stole 
 Of a diviner life from soul to soul, 
 Baptizing in one tender thought the whole.
 
 340 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 When shaken hands announced the meeting o'er, 
 The friendly group still lingered at the door, 
 Greeting, inquiring, sharing all the store 
 
 Of weekly tidings. Meanwhile youth and inaid 
 Down the green vistas of the woodland strayed, 
 Whispered and smiled and oft their feet de- 
 layed. 
 
 Did the boy's whistle answer back the thrushes ? 
 Did light girl laughter ripple through the bushes, 
 As brooks make merry over roots and rushes ? 
 
 Uu vexed the sweet air seemed. Without a 
 
 wound 
 
 The ear of silence heard, and every sound 
 Its place in nature's fine accordance found. 
 
 And solemn meeting, summer sky and wood, 
 Old kindly faces, youth and maidenhood 
 Seemed, like God's new creation, very good ! 
 
 And, greeting all with quiet smile and word, 
 Pastorius went his way. The unscared bird 
 Sang at his side ; scarcely the squirrel stirred 
 
 At his hushed footstep on the mossy sod ; 
 And, wheresoe'er the good man looked or trod, 
 He felt the peace of nature and of God. 
 
 His social life wore no ascetic form, 
 
 He loved all beauty, without fear of harm, 
 
 And in his veins his Teuton blood ran warm.
 
 THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM 341 
 
 Strict to himself, of other men no spy, 
 He made his own no circuit-judge to try 
 The freer conscience of his neighbors by. 
 
 With love rebuking, by his life alone, 
 Gracious and sweet, the better way was shown, 
 The joy of one, who, seeking not his own, 
 
 And faithful to all scruples, finds at last 
 The thorns and shards of duty overpast, 
 And daily life, beyond his hope's forecast, 
 
 Pleasant and beautiful with sight and sound, 
 And flowers upspringing in its narrow round, 
 And all his days with quiet gladness crowned. 
 
 He sang not ; but, if sometimes tempted strong, 
 He hummed what seemed like Altorf's Burschen- 
 
 song; 
 His good wife smiled, and did not count it wrong. 
 
 For well he loved his boyhood's brother band ; 
 His Memory, while he trod the New World's 
 
 strand, 
 A double-ganger walked the Fatherland ! 
 
 If, when on frosty Christmas eves the light 
 Shone on his quiet hearth, he missed the sight 
 Of Yule-log, Tree, and Christ-child all in white ; 
 
 And closed his eyes, and listened to the sweet 
 Old wait-songs sounding down his native street, 
 And watched again the dancers' mingling feet ;
 
 342 NA RRA TI VE A ND LE GEN DA RY P OEMS 
 
 Yet not the less, when once the vision passed, 
 
 He held the plain and sober maxims fast 
 
 Of the dear Friends with whom his lot was cast. 
 
 Still all attuned to nature's melodies, 
 
 He loved the bird's song in his dooryard trees, 
 
 And the low hum of home-returning bees ; 
 
 The blossomed flax, the tulip-trees in bloom 
 Down the long street, the beauty and perfume 
 Of apple-boughs, the mingling light and gloom 
 
 Of Sommerhausen's woodlands, woven through 
 With sun - threads ; and the music the wind 
 
 drew, 
 Mournful and sweet, from leaves it overblew. 
 
 And evermore, beneath this outward sense, 
 And through the common sequence of events, 
 He felt the guiding hand of Providence 
 
 Reach out of space. A Voice spake in his ear, 
 And lo ! all other voices far and near 
 Died at that whisper, full of meanings clear. 
 
 The Light of Life shone round him; one by 
 
 one 
 
 The wandering lights, that all-misleading run, 
 Went out like candles paling in the sun. 
 
 That Light he followed, step by step, where'er 
 
 It led, as in the vision of the seer 
 
 The wheels moved as the spirit in the clear
 
 THE PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM 343 
 
 And terrible crystal moved, with all their eyes 
 Watching the living splendor sink or rise, 
 Its will their will, knowing no otherwise. 
 
 Within himself he found the law of right, 
 He walked by faith and not the letter's sight, 
 And read his Bible by the Inward Light. 
 
 And if sometimes the slaves of form and rule, 
 Frozen in their creeds like fish in winter's pool, 
 Tried the large tolerance of his liberal school, 
 
 His door was free to men of every name, 
 He welcomed all the seeking souls who came, 
 And no man's faith he made a cause of blame. 
 
 But best he loved in leisure hours to see 
 
 His own dear Friends sit by him knee to knee, 
 
 In social converse, genial, frank, and free. 
 
 There sometimes silence (it were hard to tell 
 Who owned it first) upon the circle fell, 
 Hushed Anna's busy wheel, and laid its spell 
 
 On the black boy who grimaced by the hearth, 
 To solemnize his shining face of mirth ; 
 Only the old clock ticked amidst the dearth 
 
 Of sound ; nor eye was raised nor hand was 
 
 stirred 
 
 In that soul-sabbath, till at last some word 
 Of tender counsel or low prayer was heard.
 
 344 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 Then guests, who lingered but farewell to say 
 And take love's message, went their homeward 
 
 way; 
 So passed in peace the guileless Quaker's day. 
 
 His was the Christian's unsung Age of Gold, 
 A truer idyl than the bards have told 
 Of Arno's banks or Arcady of old. 
 
 Where still the Friends their place of burial keep, 
 And century-rooted mosses o'er it creep, 
 The Niirnberg scholar and his helpmeet sleep. 
 
 And Anna's aloe ? If it flowered at last 
 
 In Bartram's garden, did John Woolman cast 
 
 A glance upon it as he meekly passed ? 
 
 And did a secret sympathy possess 
 That tender soul, and for the slave's redress 
 Lend hope, strength, patience? It were vain to 
 guess. 
 
 Nay, were the plant itself but mythical, 
 
 Set in the fresco of tradition's wall 
 
 Like Jotham's bramble, mattereth not at all. 
 
 Enough to know that, through the winter's frost 
 And summer's heat, no seed of truth is lost, 
 And every duty pays at last its cost. 
 
 For, ere Pastorius left the sun and air, 
 God sent the answer to his life-long prayer ; 
 The child was born beside the Delaware,
 
 KING VOLMER AND ELSIE 345 
 
 Who, in the power a holy purpose lends, 
 
 Guided his people unto nobler ends, 
 
 And left them worthier of the name of Friends. 
 
 And lo ! the fulness of the time has come, 
 And over all the exile's Western home, 
 From sea to sea the flowers of freedom bloom ! 
 
 And joy-bells ring, and silver trumpets blow ; 
 
 But not for thee, Pastorius! Even so 
 
 The world forgets, but the wise angels know. 
 
 KING VOLMER AND ELSIE. 
 
 AFTER THE DANISH OF CHRISTIAN WINTER. 
 
 WHERE, over heathen doom-rings and gray stones 
 
 of the Horg, 
 In its little Christian city stands the church of Vor- 
 
 dingborg, 
 In merry mood King Volmer sat, forgetful of his 
 
 power, 
 As idle as the Goose of Gold that brooded on his 
 
 tower. 
 
 Out spake the King to Henrik, his young and faith- 
 ful squire : 
 
 "Dar'st trust thy little Elsie, the maid of thy 
 desire ? " 
 
 " Of all the men in Denmark she loveth only me : 
 
 As true to me is Elsie as thy Lily is to thee."
 
 346 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 Loud laughed the king : " To-morrow shall bring 
 
 another day, 18 
 When I myself will test her ; she will not say me 
 
 nay." 
 Thereat the lords and gallants, that round about 
 
 him stood, 
 Wagged all their heads in concert and smiled as 
 
 courtiers should. 
 
 The gray lark sings o'er Vordingborg, and on the 
 
 ancient town 
 From the tall tower of Valdemar the Golden Goose 
 
 looks down ; 
 The yellow grain is waving in the pleasant wind of 
 
 morn, 
 The wood resounds with cry of hounds and blare 
 
 of hunter's horn. 
 
 In the garden of her father little Elsie sits and 
 
 spins, 
 And, singing with the early birds, her daily task 
 
 begins. 
 Gay tulips bloom and sweet mint curls around her 
 
 garden-bower, 
 But she is sweeter than the mint and fairer than 
 
 the flower. 
 
 About her form her kirtle blue clings lovingly, and, 
 
 white 
 As snow, her loose sleeves only leave her small, 
 
 round wrists in sight ; 
 
 Below, the modest petticoat can only half conceal 
 The motion of the lightest foot that ever turned a 
 
 wheel.
 
 KING VOLMER AND ELSIE 347 
 
 The cat sits purring at her side, bees hum in sun- 
 shine warm ; 
 
 But, look ! she starts, she lifts her face, she shades 
 it with her arm. 
 
 And, hark ! a train of horsemen, with sound of 
 dog and horn, 
 
 Come leaping o'er the ditches, come trampling 
 down the corn ! 
 
 Merrily rang the bridle-reins, and scarf and plume 
 
 streamed gay, 
 As fast beside her father's gate the riders held 
 
 their way ; 
 And one was brave in scarlet cloak, with golden 
 
 spur on heel, 
 And, as he checked his foaming steed, the maiden 
 
 checked her wheel. 
 
 " All hail among thy roses, the fairest rose to me ! 
 For weary months in secret my heart has longed for 
 
 thee ! " 
 What noble knight was this ? What words for 
 
 modest maiden's ear? 
 She dropped a lowly courtesy of bashfulness and 
 
 fear. 
 
 She lifted up her spinning-wheel ; she fain would 
 
 seek the door, 
 Trembling in every limb, her cheek with blushes 
 
 crimsoned o'er. 
 " Nay, fear me not," the rider said, " I offer heart 
 
 and hand, 
 Bear witness these good Danish knights who round 
 
 about me stand.
 
 348 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 " I grant you time to think of this, to answer as 
 
 you may, 
 
 For to-morrow, little Elsie, shall bring another day." 
 He spake the old phrase slyly as, glancing round 
 
 his train, 
 He saw his merry followers seek to hide their 
 
 smiles in vain. 
 
 " The snow of pearls I '11 scatter in your curls of 
 
 golden hair, 
 I '11 line with furs the velvet of the kirtle that you 
 
 wear; 
 All precious gems shall twine your neck ; and in 
 
 a chariot gay 
 You shall ride, my little Elsie, behind four steeds 
 
 of gray. 
 
 " And harps shall sound, and flutes shall play, and 
 
 brazen lamps shall glow ; 
 On marble floors your feet shall weave the dances 
 
 to and fro. 
 At frosty eventide for us the blazing hearth shall 
 
 shine, 
 While, at our ease, we play at draughts, and drink 
 
 the blood-red wine." 
 
 Then Elsie raised her head and met her wooer face 
 
 to face ; 
 A roguish smile shone in her eye and on her lip 
 
 found place. 
 Back from her low white forehead the curls of 
 
 gold she threw, 
 And lifted up her eyes to his, steady and clear and 
 
 blue.
 
 KING VOLMER AND ELSIE 349 
 
 " I am a lowly peasant, and you a gallant knight ; 
 I will not trust a love that soon may cool and turn 
 
 to slight. 
 If you would wed me henceforth be a peasant, not 
 
 a lord ; 
 I bid you hang upon the wall your tried and trusty 
 
 sword." 
 
 " To please you, Elsie, I will lay keen Dynadel 
 
 away, 
 And in its place will swing the scythe and mow 
 
 your father's hay." 
 " Nay, but your gallant scarlet cloak my eyes can 
 
 never bear ; 
 A Vadmal coat, so plain and gray, is all that you 
 
 must wear." 
 
 " Well, Vadmal will I wear for you," the rider 
 gayly spoke, 
 
 " And on the Lord's high altar I '11 lay my scarlet 
 cloak." 
 
 " But mark," she said, " no stately horse my peas- 
 ant love must ride, 
 
 A yoke of steers before the plough is all that he 
 must guide." 
 
 The knight looked down upon his steed : " Well, 
 
 let him wander free : 
 No other man must ride the horse that has been 
 
 backed by me. 
 Henceforth I '11 tread the furrow and to my oxen 
 
 talk, 
 If only little Elsie beside my plough will walk."
 
 350 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 " You must take from out your cellar cask of wine 
 and flask and can ; 
 
 The homely mead I brew you may serve a peasant- 
 man." 
 
 " Most willingly, fair Elsie, I '11 drink that mead 
 of thine, 
 
 And leave my minstrel's thirsty throat to drain 
 my generous wine." 
 
 " Now break your shield asunder, and shatter sign 
 and boss, 
 
 Unmeet for peasant-wedded arms, your knightly 
 knee across. 
 
 And pull me down your castle from top to base- 
 ment wall, 
 
 And let your plough trace furrows in the ruins of 
 your hall ! " 
 
 Then smiled he with a lofty pride ; right well at 
 last he knew 
 
 The maiden of the spinning-wheel was to her troth- 
 plight true. 
 
 " Ah, roguish little Elsie ! you act your part full 
 well : 
 
 You know that I must bear my shield and in my 
 castle dwell ! 
 
 " The lions ramping on that shield between the 
 
 hearts aflame 
 Keep watch o'er Denmark's honor, and guard her 
 
 ancient name.
 
 KING VOLMER AND ELSIE 351 
 
 For know that I am Volmer ; I dwell in yonder 
 
 towers, 
 Who ploughs them ploughs up Denmark, this 
 
 goodly home of ours ! 
 
 " I tempt no more, fair Elsie ! your heart I know 
 
 is true ; 
 Would God that all our maidens were good and 
 
 pure as you ! 
 Well have you pleased your monarch, and he shall 
 
 well repay ; 
 God's peace ! Farewell ! To-morrow "will bring 
 
 another day ! " 
 
 He lifted up his bridle hand, he spurred his good 
 steed then, 
 
 And like a whirl-blast swept away with all his gal- 
 lant men. 
 
 The steel hoofs beat the rocky path ; again on 
 winds of morn 
 
 The wood resounds with cry of hounds and blare 
 of hunter's horn. 
 
 " Thou true and ever faithful ! " the listening Hen- 
 
 rik cried ; 
 And, leaping o'er the green hedge, he stood by 
 
 Elsie's side. 
 None saw the fond embracing, save, shining from 
 
 afar, 
 The Golden Goose that watched them from the 
 
 tower of Valdemar.
 
 352 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 O darling girls of Denmark ! of all the flowers 
 
 that throng 
 Her vales of spring the fairest, I sing for you my 
 
 song. 
 No praise as yours so bravely rewards the singer's 
 
 skill; 
 Thank God ! of maids like Elsie the land has 
 
 plenty still 1 
 1872. 
 
 THE THREE BELLS. 
 
 BENEATH the low-hung night cloud 
 That raked her splintering mast 
 
 The good ship settled slowly, 
 The cruel leak gained fast 
 
 Over the awful ocean 
 
 Her signal guns pealed out. 
 
 Dear God ! was that Thy answer 
 From the horror round about ? 
 
 A voice came down the wild wind, 
 
 " Ho ! ship ahoy ! " its cry : 
 
 " Our stout Three Bells of Glasgow 
 
 Shall lay till daylight by ! " 
 
 Hour after hour crept slowly, 
 Yet on the heaving swells 
 
 Tossed up and down the ship-lights, 
 The lights of the Three Bells !
 
 THE THREE BELLS 353 
 
 And ship to ship made signals, 
 
 Man answered back to man, 
 While oft, to cheer and hearten, 
 
 The Three Bells nearer ran; 
 
 And the captain from her taffrail 
 
 Sent down his hopeful cry : 
 " Take heart ! Hold on ! " he shouted ; 
 " The Three Bells shall lay by ! " 
 
 All night across the waters 
 
 The tossing lights shone clear ; 
 
 All night from reeling taffrail 
 The Three Bells sent her cheer. 
 
 And when the dreary watches 
 Of storm and darkness passed, 
 
 Just as the wreck lurched under, 
 
 All souls were saved at last. , 
 
 Sail on, Three Bells, forever, 
 
 In grateful memory sail ! 
 Ring on, Three Bells of rescue, 
 
 Above the wave and gale ! 
 
 Type of the Love eternal, 
 
 Repeat the Master's cry, 
 As tossing through our darknes8 
 
 The lights of God draw nigh ! 
 
 1872.
 
 354 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 JOHN UNDERBILL. 
 
 A SCORE of years had come and gone 
 Since the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth stone, 
 When Captain Underbill, bearing scars 
 From Indian ambush and Flemish wars, 
 Left three-hilled Boston and wandered down, 
 East by north, to Cocheco town. 
 
 With Vane the younger, in counsel sweet, 
 He had sat at Anna Hutchinson's feet, 
 And, when the bolt of banishment fell 
 On the head of his saintly oracle, 
 He had shared her ill as her good report, 
 And braved the wrath of the General Court. 
 
 He shook from his feet as he rode away 
 
 The dust of the Massachusetts Bay. 
 
 The world might bless and the world might ban, 
 
 What did it matter the perfect man, 
 
 To whom the freedom of earth was given, 
 
 Proof against sin, and sure of heaven ? 
 
 He cheered his heart as he rode along 
 With screed of Scripture and holy song, 
 Or thought how he rode with his lances free 
 By the Lower Rhine and the Zuyder-Zee, 
 Till his wood-path grew to a trodden road, 
 And Hilton Point in the distance showed. 
 
 He saw the church with the block-house nigh, 
 The two fair rivers, the flakes thereby,
 
 JOHN UNDERHILL 355 
 
 And, tacking to windward, low and crank, 
 The little shallop from Strawberry Bank ; 
 And he rose in his stirrups and looked abroad 
 Over land and water, and praised the Lord. 
 
 Goodly and stately and grave to see, 
 
 Into the clearing's space rode he, 
 
 With the sun on the hilt of his sword in sheath, 
 
 And his silver buckles and spurs beneath, 
 
 And the settlers welcomed him, one and all, 
 
 From swift Quampeagan to Gonic Fall. 
 
 And he said to the elders : " Lo, I come 
 
 As the way seemed open to seek a home. 
 
 Somewhat the Lord hath wrought by my hands 
 
 In the Narragansetfc and Netherlands, 
 
 And if here ye have work for a Christian 
 
 man, 
 I will tarry, and serve ye as best I can. 
 
 I boast not of gifts, but fain would own 
 The wonderful favor God hath shown, 
 The special mercy vouchsafed one day 
 On the shore of Narragansett Bay, 
 As I sat, with my pipe, from the camp aside, 
 And mused like Isaac at eventide. 
 
 A sudden sweetness of peace I found, 
 A garment of gladness wrapped me round ; 
 I felt from the law of works released, 
 The strife of the flesh and spirit ceased, 
 My faith to a full assurance grew, 
 And all I had hoped for myself I knew.
 
 356 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 " Now, as God appointeth, I keep my way, 
 I shall not stumble, I shall not stray ; 
 He hath taken away my fig-leaf dress, 
 I wear the robe of His righteousness ; 
 And the shafts of Satan no more avail 
 Thau Pequot arrows on Christian mail." 
 
 " Tarry with us," the settlers cried, 
 
 " Thou man of God, as our ruler and guide." 
 
 And Captain Underbill bowed his head. 
 " The will of the Lord be done ! " he said. 
 And the morrow beheld him sitting down 
 In the ruler's seat in Cocheco town. 
 
 And he judged therein as a just man should ; 
 His words were wise and his rule was good ; 
 He coveted not his neighbor's land, 
 From the holding of bribes he shook his hand ; 
 And through the camps of the heathen ran 
 A wholesome fear of the valiant man. 
 
 But the heart is deceitful, the good Book saith, 
 And life hath ever a savor of death. 
 Through hymns of triumph the tempter calls, 
 And whoso thinketh he standeth falls. 
 Alas ! ere their round the seasons ran, 
 There was grief in the soul of the saintly man. 
 
 The tempter's arrows that rarely fail 
 Had found the joints of his spiritual mail; 
 And men took note of his gloomy air, 
 The shame in his eye, the halt in his prayer, 
 The signs of a battle lost within, 
 The pain of a soul in the coils of sin.
 
 JOHN UNDERBILL 357 
 
 Then a whisper of scandal linked his name 
 
 With broken vows and a life of blame ; 
 
 And the people looked askance on him 
 
 As he walked among them sullen and grim, 
 
 111 at ease, and bitter of word, 
 
 And prompt of quarrel with hand or sword. 
 
 None knew how, with prayer and fasting still, 
 He strove in the bonds of his evil will ; 
 But he shook himself like Samson at length, 
 And girded anew his loins of strength, 
 And bade the crier go up and down 
 And call together the wondering town. 
 
 Jeer and murmur and shaking of head 
 Ceased as he rose in his place and said : 
 " Men, brethren, and fathers, well ye know 
 How I came among you a year ago, 
 Strong in the faith that my soul was freed 
 From sin of feeling, or thought, or deed. 
 
 " I have sinned, I own it with grief and shame, 
 But not with a lie on my lips I came. 
 In my blindness I verily thought my heart 
 Swept and garnished in every part. 
 He chargeth His angels with folly ; He sees 
 The heavens unclean. "Was I more than these ? 
 
 " I urge no plea. At your feet I lay 
 The trust you gave me, and go my way. 
 Hate me or pity me, as you will, 
 The Lord will have mercy on sinners still ; 
 And I, who am chiefest, say to all, 
 Watch and pray, lest ye also fall."
 
 358 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 No voice made answer : a sob so low 
 
 That only his quickened ear could know 
 
 Smote his heart with a bitter pain, 
 
 As into the forest he rode again, 
 
 And the veil of its oaken leaves shut down 
 
 On his latest glimpse of Cocheco town. 
 
 Crystal-clear on the man of sin 
 The streams flashed up, and the sky shone in ; 
 On his cheek of fever the cool wind blew, 
 The leaves dropped on him their tears of dew, 
 And angels of God, in the pure, sweet guise 
 Of flowers, looked on him with sad surprise. 
 
 Was his ear at fault that brook and breeze 
 Sang in their saddest of minor keys ? 
 What was it the mournful wood-thrush said ? 
 What whispered the pine-trees overhead ? 
 Did he hear the Voice on his lonely way 
 That Adam heard in the cool of day ? 
 
 Into the desert alone rode he, 
 
 Alone with the Infinite Purity ; 
 
 And, bowing his soul to its tender rebuke, 
 
 As Peter did to the Master's look, 
 
 He measured his path with prayers of pain 
 
 For peace with God and nature again. 
 
 And in after years to Cocheco came 
 
 The bruit of a once familiar name ; 
 
 How among the Dutch of New Netherlands, 
 
 From wild Danskamer to Haarlem sands, 
 
 A penitent soldier preached the Word, 
 
 And smote the heathen with Gideon's sword !
 
 CONDUCTOR BRADLEY 359 
 
 And the heart of Boston was glad to hear 
 How he harried the foe on the long frontier, 
 And heaped on the land against him barred 
 The coals of his generous watch and ward. 
 Frailest and bravest ! the Bay State still 
 Counts with her worthies John Underbill. 
 1873. 
 
 CONDUCTOR BRADLEY. 
 
 A railway conductor who lost his life in an accident on a Con- 
 necticut railway, May 9, 1873. 
 
 CONDUCTOR BRADLEY, (always may his name 
 Be said with reverence !) as the swift doom came, 
 Smitten to death, a crushed and mangled frame, 
 
 Sank, with the brake he grasped just where he 
 
 stood 
 
 To do the utmost that a brave man could, 
 And die, if needful, as a true man should. 
 
 Men stooped above him ; women dropped their 
 
 tears 
 
 On that poor wreck beyond all hopes or fears, 
 Lost in the strength and glory of his years. 
 
 What heard they ? Lo ! the ghastly lips of pain, 
 Dead to all thought save duty's, moved again : 
 " Put out the signals for the other train ! " 
 
 No nobler utterance since the world began 
 From lips of saint or martyr ever ran, 
 Electric, through the sympathies of man.
 
 360 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 Ah me ! how poor and noteless seem to this 
 The sick-bed dramas of self-consciousness, 
 Our sensual fears of pain and hopes of bliss ! 
 
 Oh, grand, supreme endeavor ! Not in vain 
 That last brave act of failing tongue and brain ! 
 Freighted with life the downward rushing train, 
 
 Following the wrecked one, as wave follows wave, 
 Obeyed the warning which the dead lips gave. 
 Others he saved, himself he could not save. 
 
 Nay, the lost life was saved. He is not dead 
 Who in his record still the earth shall tread 
 With God's clear aureole shining round his head. 
 
 We bow as in the dust, with all our pride 
 Of virtue dwarfed the noble deed beside. 
 God give us grace to live as Bradley died ! 
 
 1873. 
 
 THE WITCH OF WENHAM. 
 
 The house is still standing in Danvers, Mass. , where, it is said, a 
 suspected witch was confined overnight in the attic, which was 
 bolted fast. In the morning when the constable came to take her 
 to Salem for trial she was missing, although the door was still 
 bolted. Her escape was doubtless aided by her friends, but at 
 the time it was attributed to Satanic interference. 
 
 ALONG Crane Kiver's sunny slopes 
 Blew warm the winds of May, 
 
 And over Naumkeag's ancient oaks 
 The green outgrew the gray.
 
 THE WITCH OF WENHAM 361 
 
 The grass was green on Rial-side, 
 
 The early birds at will 
 Waked up the violet in its dell, 
 
 The wind-flower on its hill. 
 
 " Where go you, in your Sunday coat, 
 
 Son Andrew, tell me, pray." 
 " For striped perch in Wenhain Lake 
 
 I go to fish to-day." 
 
 " Unharmed of thee in Wenham Lake 
 
 The mottled perch shall be : 
 A blue-eyed witch sits on the bank 
 And weaves her net for thee. 
 
 " She weaves her golden hair ; she sings 
 
 Her spell-song low and faint ; 
 The wickedest witch in Salem jail 
 Is to that girl a saint." 
 
 " Nay, mother, hold thy cruel tongue ; 
 
 God knows," the young man cried, 
 " He never made a whiter soul 
 
 Than hers by Wenham side. 
 
 " She tends her mother sick and blind, 
 
 And every want supplies ; 
 To her above the blessed Book 
 She lends her soft blue eyes. 
 
 " Her voice is glad with holy songs, 
 Her lips are sweet with prayer ; 
 Go where you will, in ten miles round 
 Is none more good and fair."
 
 362 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 " Son Andrew, for the love of God 
 
 And of thy mother, stay ! " 
 She clasped her hands, she wept aloud, 
 But Andrew rode away. 
 
 " O reverend sir, my Andrew's soul 
 The Wenham witch has caught ; 
 She holds him with the curled gold 
 Whereof her snare is wrought. 
 
 " She charms him with her great blue eyes, 
 
 She binds him with her hair ; 
 Oh, break the spell with holy words, 
 Unbind him with a prayer ! " 
 
 " Take heart," the painful preacher said, 
 
 " This mischief shall not be ; 
 The witch shall perish in her sins 
 And Andrew shall go free. 
 
 " Our poor Ann Putnam testifies 
 
 She saw her weave a spell, 
 Bare-armed, loose-haired, at full of moon, 
 Around a dried-up well. 
 
 '* * Spring up, O well ! ' she softly sang 
 
 The Hebrew's old refrain 
 
 (For Satan uses Bible words), 
 
 Till water flowed amain. 
 
 " And many a goodwife heard her speak 
 
 By Wenham water words 
 That made the buttercups take wings 
 And turn to yellow birds.
 
 THE WITCH OF WEN HAM 363 
 
 " They say that swarming wild bees seek 
 
 The hive at her command ; 
 And fishes swim to take their food 
 From out her dainty hand. 
 
 " Meek as she sits in meeting-time, 
 
 The godly minister 
 Notes well the spell that doth compel 
 The young men's eyes to her. 
 
 " The mole upon her dimpled chin 
 
 Is Satan's seal and sign ; 
 Her lips are red with evil bread 
 And stain of unblest wine. 
 
 " For Tituba, my Indian, saith 
 
 At Quasycung she took 
 The Black Man's godless sacrament 
 And signed his dreadful book. 
 
 " Last night my sore-afflicted child 
 Against the young witch cried. 
 To take her Marshal Herrick rides 
 Even now to Wenham side." 
 
 The marshal in his saddle sat, 
 
 His daughter at his knee ; 
 " I go to fetch that arrant witch, 
 Thy fair playmate," quoth he. 
 
 " Her spectre walks the parsonage, 
 
 And haunts both hall and stair ; 
 They know her by the great blue eyes 
 And floating gold of hair."
 
 364 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 " They lie, they lie, my father dear ! 
 
 No foul old witch is she, 
 But sweet and good and crystal-pure 
 As Wenham waters be." 
 
 " I tell thee, child, the Lord hath set 
 
 Before us good and ill, 
 And woe to all whose carnal loves 
 Oppose His righteous will. 
 
 " Between Him and the powers of hell 
 
 Choose thou, my child, to-day : 
 No sparing hand, no pitying eye, 
 When God commands to slay ! " 
 
 He went his way ; the old wives shook 
 
 With fear as he drew nigh ; 
 The children in the dooryards held 
 
 Their breath as he passed by. 
 
 Too well they knew the gaunt gray horse 
 
 The grim witch-hunter rode 
 The pale Apocalyptic beast 
 
 By grisly Death bestrode. 
 
 II. 
 
 Oh, fair the face of Wenham Lake 
 
 Upon the young girl's shone, 
 Her tender mouth, her dreaming eyes, 
 
 Her yellow hair outblown. 
 
 By happy youth and love attuned 
 To natural harmonies,
 
 THE WITCH OF WENHAM 365 
 
 The singing birds, the whispering wind, 
 She sat beneath the trees. 
 
 Sat shaping for her bridal dress 
 
 Her mother's wedding gown, 
 When lo ! the marshal, writ in hand, 
 
 From Alford hill rode down. 
 
 His face was hard with cruel fear, 
 He grasped the maiden's hands : 
 " Come with me unto Salem town, 
 For so the law commands ! " 
 
 " Oh, let me to my mother say 
 
 Farewell before I go ! " 
 He closer tied her little hands 
 Unto his saddle bow. 
 
 " Unhand me," cried she piteously, 
 " For thy sweet daughter's sake." 
 
 " I '11 keep my daughter safe," he said, 
 " From the witch of Wenhani Lake." 
 
 " Oh, leave me for my mother's sake, 
 
 She needs my eyes to see." 
 " Those eyes, young witch, the crows shall peck 
 
 From off the gallows-tree." 
 
 He bore her to a farm-house old, 
 
 And up its stairway long, 
 And closed on her the garret-door 
 
 With iron bolted strong.
 
 366 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 The day died out, the night came down : 
 
 Her evening prayer she said, 
 While, through the dark, strange faces seemed 
 
 To mock her as she prayed. 
 
 The present horror deepened all 
 
 The fears her childhood knew ; 
 The awe wherewith the air was filled 
 
 With every breath she drew. 
 
 And could it be, she trembling asked, 
 
 Some secret thought or sin 
 Had shut good angels from her heart 
 
 And let the bad ones in ? 
 
 Had she in some forgotten dream 
 
 Let go her hold on Heaven, 
 And sold herself unwittingly 
 
 To spirits unforgiven ? 
 
 Oh, weird and still the dark hours passed ; 
 
 No human sound she heard, 
 But up and down the chimney stack 
 
 The swallows moaned and stirred. 
 
 And o'er her, with a dread surmise 
 
 Of evil sight and sound, 
 The blind bats on their leathern wings 
 
 Went wheeling round and round. 
 
 Low hanging in the midnight sky 
 
 Looked in a half-faced moon. 
 Was it a dream, or did she hear 
 
 Her lover's whistled tune ?
 
 THE WITCH OF WEN HAM 367 
 
 She forced the oaken scuttle back ; 
 
 A whisper reached her ear : 
 Slide down the roof to me," it said, 
 
 " So softly none may hear." 
 
 She slid along the sloping roof 
 
 Till from its eaves she hung, 
 And felt the loosened shingles yield 
 
 To which her fingers clung. 
 
 Below, her lover stretched his hands 
 And touched her feet so small ; 
 
 1 Drop down to me, dear heart," he said 5 
 " My arms shall break the fall." 
 
 He set her on his pillion soft, 
 
 Her arms about him twined ; 
 And, noiseless as if velvet-shod, 
 
 They left the house behind. 
 
 But when they reached the open way, 
 
 Full free the rein he cast ; 
 Oh, never through the mirk midnight 
 
 Rode man and maid more fast. 
 
 Along the wild wood-paths they sped, 
 The bridgeless streams they swam ; 
 
 At set of moon they passed the Bass, 
 At sunrise Agawam. 
 
 At high noon on the Merrimac 
 
 The ancient ferryman 
 Forgot, at times, his idle oars, 
 
 So fair a freight to scan.
 
 368 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 And when from off his grounded boat 
 
 He saw them mount and ride, 
 " God keep her from the evil eye, 
 And harm of witch ! " he cried. 
 
 The maiden laughed, as youth will laugh 
 
 At all its fears gone by ; 
 " He does not know," she whispered low, 
 " A little witch am I." 
 
 All day he urged his weary horse, 
 
 And, in the red sundown, 
 Drew rein before a friendly door 
 
 In distant Berwick town. 
 
 A fellow-feeling for the wronged 
 
 The Quaker people felt ; 
 And safe beside their kindly hearths 
 
 The hunted maiden dwelt, 
 
 Until from off its breast the land 
 
 The haunting horror threw, 
 And hatred, born of ghastly dreams, 
 
 To shame and pity grew. 
 
 Sad were the year's spring morns, and sad 
 
 Its golden summer day, 
 But blithe and glad its withered fields, 
 
 And skies of ashen gray ; 
 
 For spell and charm had power no more, 
 
 The spectres ceased to roam, 
 And scattered households knelt again 
 
 Around the hearths of home.
 
 The Witch of Wenham
 
 KING SOLOMON AND THE ANTS 
 
 And when once more by Beaver Dam 
 
 The meadow-lark outsang, 
 And once again on all the hills 
 
 The early violets sprang, 
 
 And all the windy pasture slopes 
 Lay green within the arms 
 
 Of creeks that bore the salted sea 
 To pleasant inland farms, 
 
 The smith filed off the chains he forged, 
 The jail-bolts backward feU ; 
 
 And youth and hoary age came forth 
 Like souls escaped from hell. 
 
 1877. 
 
 KING SOLOMON AND THE ANTS. 
 
 OUT from Jerusalem 
 
 The king rode with his great 
 War chiefs and lords of state, 
 
 And Sheba's queen with them ; 
 
 Comely, but black withal, 
 To whom, perchance, belongs 
 That wondrous Song of songs, 
 
 Sensuous and mystical, 
 
 Whereto devout souls turn 
 
 In fond, ecstatic dream, 
 
 And through its earth-born theme 
 The Love of loves discern.
 
 370 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 Proud in the Syrian sun, 
 In gold and purple sheen, 
 The dusky Ethiop queen 
 
 Smiled on King Solomon. 
 
 Wisest of men, he knew 
 The languages of all 
 The creatures great or small 
 
 That trod the earth or flew. 
 
 Across an ant-hill led 
 
 The king's path, and he heard 
 Its small folk, and their word 
 
 He thus interpreted : 
 
 "Here comes the king men greet 
 As wise and good and just, 
 To crush us in the dust 
 Under his heedless feet." 
 
 The great king bowed his head, 
 And saw the wide surprise 
 Of the Queen of Sheba's eyes 
 
 As he told her what they said. 
 
 1 O king ! " she whispered sweet, 
 " Too happy fate have they 
 Who perish in thy way 
 Beneath thy gracious feet ! 
 
 Thou of the God-lent crown, 
 Shall these vile creatures dare 
 Murmur against thee where 
 
 The knees of kings kneel down ? "
 
 IN THE " OLD SOUTH" 371 
 
 " Nay," Solomon replied, 
 
 " The wise and strong should seek 
 The welfare of the weak," 
 And turned his horse aside. 
 
 His train, with quick alarm, 
 
 Curved with their leader round 
 The ant-hill's peopled mound, 
 
 And left it free from harm. 
 
 The jewelled head bent low ; 
 
 " O king ! " she said, " henceforth 
 
 The secret of thy worth 
 And wisdom well I know. 
 
 " Happy must be the State 
 Whose ruler heedeth more 
 The murmurs of the poor 
 Than flatteries of the great." 
 
 1877. 
 
 IN THE "OLD SOUTH." 
 
 On the 8th of July, 1677, Margaret Brewster with four other 
 Friends went into the South Church in time of meeting, " in sack- 
 cloth, with ashes upon her head, barefoot, and her face black- 
 ened," and delivered " a warning from the great God of Heaven 
 and Earth to the Rulers and Magistrates of Boston. ' ' For the 
 offence she was sentenced to be " whipped at a cart's tail up and 
 down the Town, with twenty lashes." 
 
 SHE came and stood in the Old South Church, 
 
 A wonder and a sign, 
 With a look the old-time sibyls wore, 
 
 Half-crazed and half -divine.
 
 372 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 Save the mournful sackcloth about her wound, 
 Unclothed as the primal mother, 
 
 With limbs that trembled and eyes that blazed 
 With a fire she dare not smother. 
 
 Loose on her shoulders fell her hair, 
 
 With sprinkled ashes gray ; 
 She stood in the broad aisle strange and weird 
 
 As a soul at the judgment day. 
 
 And the minister paused in his sermon's midst, 
 And the people held their breath, 
 
 For these were the words the maiden spoke 
 Through lips as the lips of death : 
 
 " Thus saith the Lord, with equal feet 
 
 All men my courts shall tread, 
 And priest and ruler no more shall eat 
 My people up like bread ! 
 
 " Kepent ! repent ! ere the Lord shall speak 
 
 In thunder and breaking seals ! 
 Let all souls worship Him in the way 
 His light within reveals." 
 
 She shook the dust from her naked feet, 
 
 And her sackcloth closer drew, 
 And into the porch of the awe-hushed church 
 
 She passed like a ghost from view. 
 
 They whipped her away at the tail o' the cart 
 Through half the streets of the town, 
 
 But the words she uttered that day nor fire 
 Could burn nor water drown.
 
 THE HENCHMAN 373 
 
 And now the aisles of the ancient church 
 
 By equal feet are trod, 
 And the bell that swings in its belfry rings 
 
 Freedom to worship God ! 
 
 And now whenever a wrong is done 
 
 It thrills the conscious walls ; 
 The stone from the basement cries aloud 
 
 And the beam from the timber calls. 
 
 There are steeple-houses on every hand, 
 
 And pulpits that bless and ban, 
 And the Lord will not grudge the single church 
 
 That is set apart for man. 
 
 For in two commandments are all the law 
 
 And the prophets under the sun, 
 And the first is last and the last is first, 
 
 And the twain are verily one. 
 
 So, long as Boston shall Boston be, 
 
 And her bay-tides rise and fall, 
 Shall freedom stand in the Old South Church 
 
 And plead for the rights of all ! 
 
 1877. 
 
 THE HENCHMAN. 
 
 MY lady walks her morning round, 
 My lady's page her fleet greyhound, 
 My lady's hair the fond winds stir, 
 And all the birds make songs for her.
 
 374 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 Her thrushes sing in Rathburn bowers, 
 And Rathburn side is gay with flowers; 
 But ne'er like hers, in flower or bird, 
 Was beauty seen or music heard. 
 
 The distance of the stars is hers ; 
 The least of all her worshippers, 
 The dust beneath her dainty heel, 
 She knows not that I see or feel. 
 
 Oh, proud and calm ! she cannot know 
 Where'er she goes with her I go ; 
 Oh, cold and fair ! she cannot guess 
 I kneel to share her hound's caress! 
 
 Gay knights beside her hunt and hawk, 
 I rob their ears of her sweet talk ; 
 Her suitors come from east and west, 
 I steal her smiles from every guest. 
 
 Unheard of her, in loving words, 
 I greet her with the song of birds ; 
 I reach her with her green-armed bowers, 
 I kiss her with the lips of flowers. 
 
 The hound and I are on her trail, 
 The wind and I uplift her veil ; 
 As if the calm, cold moon she were, 
 And I the tide, I follow her. 
 
 As nnrebuked as they, I share 
 The license of the sun and air,
 
 THE DEAD FEAST OF THE KOL-FOLK 375 
 
 And in a common homage hide 
 
 My worship from her scorn and pride. 
 
 World-wide apart, and yet so near, 
 I breathe her charmed atmosphere, 
 Wherein to her my service brings 
 The reverence due to holy things. 
 
 Her maiden pride, her haughty name, 
 My dumb devotion shall not shame ; 
 The love that no return doth crave 
 To knightly levels lifts the slave. 
 
 No lance have I, in joust or fight, 
 To splinter in my lady's sight \ 
 But, at her feet, how blest were I 
 For any need of hers to die ! 
 
 1877. 
 
 THE DEAD FEAST OF THE KOL-FOLK. 
 
 E. B. Tylor in his Primitive Culture, chapter xii., gives an ac- 
 count of the reverence paid the dead by the Kol tribes of Chota 
 Nagpur, Assam. " When a Ho or Munda," he says, " has been 
 burned on the funeral pile, collected morsels of his bones are car- 
 ried in procession with a solemn, ghostly, sliding step, keeping 
 time to the deep sounding drum, and when the old woman who 
 carries the bones on her bamboo tray lowers it from time to time, 
 then girls who carry pitchers and brass vessels mournfully reverse 
 them to show that they are empty ; thus the remains are taken 
 to visit every house in the village, and every dwelling of a friend 
 or relative for miles, and the inmates come out to mourn and 
 praise the goodnass of the departed ; the bones are carried to all 
 the dead man's favorite haunts, to the fields he cultivated, to the 
 grove he planted, to the threshing-floor where he worked, to the 
 village dance-room where he made merry. At last they are taken 
 to the grave, and buried in an earthen vase upon a store of food,
 
 376 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 covered with one of those huge stone slabs which European visi- 
 tors wonder at in the districts of the aborigines of India." In the 
 Journal of the Asiatic Society, Bengal, vol. ix., p. 795, is a Ho 
 dirge. 
 
 WE have opened the door, 
 
 Once, twice, thrice ! 
 We have swept the floor, 
 
 We have boiled the rice. 
 Come hither, come hither ! 
 Come from the far lands, 
 Come from the star lands, 
 
 Come as before ! 
 We lived long together, 
 We loved one another ; 
 
 Come back to our life. 
 Come father, come mother, 
 Come sister and brother, 
 
 Child, husband, and wife, 
 For you we are sighing. 
 Come take your old places, 
 Come look in our faces, 
 The dead on the dying, 
 Come home ! 
 
 We have opened the door, 
 
 Once, twice, thrice ! 
 We have kindled the coals, 
 
 And we boil the rice 
 For the feast of souls. 
 
 Come hither, come hither ! 
 Think not we fear you, 
 Whose hearts are so near you 
 Come tenderly thought on, 
 Come all unforgotten,
 
 THE DEAD FEAST OF THE KOL-FOLK 377 
 
 Come from the shadow-lands, 
 From the dim meadow-lands 
 Where the pale grasses bend 
 
 Low to our sighing. 
 Come father, come mother, 
 Come sister and brother, 
 Come husband and friend, 
 
 The dead to the dying, 
 Come home ! 
 
 We have opened the door 
 
 You entered so oft ; 
 For the feast of souls 
 We have kindled the coals, 
 
 And we boil the rice soft. 
 Come you who are dearest 
 To us who are nearest, 
 Come hither, come hither, 
 From out the wild weather ; 
 The storm clouds are flying, 
 The peepul is sighing ; 
 
 Come in from the rain. 
 Come father, come mother, 
 Come sister and brother, 
 Come husband and lover, 
 Beneath our roof-cover. 
 
 Look on us again, 
 
 The dead on the dying, 
 
 Come home ! 
 
 We have opened the door ! 
 For the feast of souls 
 We have kindled the coals 
 We may kindle no more !
 
 378 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 Snake, fever, and famine, 
 The curse of the Brahmin, 
 
 The sun and the dew, 
 They burn us, they bite us, 
 They waste us and smite us ; 
 
 Our days are but few ! 
 In strange lands far yonder 
 To wonder and wander 
 
 We hasten to you. 
 List then to our sighing, 
 
 While yet we are here : 
 Nor seeing nor hearing, 
 We wait without fearing, 
 
 To feel you draw near. 
 O dead, to the dying 
 Come home ! 
 
 1879. 
 
 THE KHAN'S DEVIL. 
 
 THE Khan came from Bokhara town 
 To Hamza, santon of renown. 
 
 " My head is sick, my hands are weak ; 
 Thy help, O holy man, I seek." 
 
 In silence marking for a space 
 
 The Khan's red eyes and purple face, 
 
 Thick voice, and loose, uncertain tread, 
 " Thou hast a devil ! " Hamza said.
 
 THE KHAN'S DEVIL 379 
 
 " Allah forbid ! " exclaimed the Khan. 
 " Rid me of him at once, O man ! " 
 
 " Nay," Hamza said, " no spell of mine 
 Can slay that cursed thing of thine. 
 
 " Leave feast and wine, go forth and drink 
 Water of healing on the brink 
 
 " Where clear and cold from mountain snows, 
 The Nahr el Zeben downward flows. 
 
 *' Six moons remain, then come to me ; 
 May Allah's pity go with thee ! " 
 
 Awestruck, from feast and wine the Khan 
 Went forth where Nahr el Zeben ran. 
 
 Roots were his food, the desert dust 
 His bed, the water quenched his thirst ; 
 
 And when the sixth moon's scimetar 
 Curved sharp above the evening star, 
 
 He sought again the santon's door, 
 Not weak and trembling as before, 
 
 But strong of limb and clear of brain ; 
 " Behold," he said, " the fiend is slain." 
 
 "Nay," Hamza answered, " starved and drowned, 
 The curst one lies in death-like swound.
 
 380 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 " But evil breaks the strongest gyves, 
 And jins like him have charmed lives. 
 
 " One beaker of the juice of grape 
 May call him up in living shape. 
 
 " When the red wine of Badakshan 
 Sparkles for thee, beware, O Khan ! 
 
 " With water quench the fire within, 
 And drown each day thy devilkin ! " 
 
 Thenceforth the great Khan shunned the cup 
 As Shitan's own, though offered up, 
 
 With laughing eyes and jewelled hands, 
 By Yarkand's maids and Samarcand's. 
 
 And, in the lofty vestibule 
 
 Of the medress of Kaush Kodul, 
 
 The students of the holy law 
 A golden-lettered tablet saw, 
 
 With these words, by a cunning hand, 
 Graved on it at the Khan's command : 
 
 " In Allah's name, to him who hath 
 A devil, Khan el Hamed saith, 
 
 " Wisely our Prophet cursed the vine : 
 The fiend that loves the breath of wine
 
 THE KING'S MISSIVE 381 
 
 " No prayer can slay, no marabout 
 Nor Meccaii dervis can drive out. 
 
 " I, Khan el Hamed, know the charm 
 That robs him of his power to harm. 
 
 " Drown him, O Islam's child ! the spell 
 To save thee lies in tank and well ! " 
 
 1879. 
 
 THE KING'S MISSIVE. 
 1661. 
 
 This ballad, originally written for The Memorial History of 
 Boston, describes, with pardonable poetic license, a memorable 
 incident in the annals of the city. The interview between Shat- 
 tuck and the Governor took place, I have since learned, in the 
 residence of the latter, and not in the Council Chamber. The 
 publication of the ballad led to some discussion as to the histori- 
 cal truthfulness of the picture, but I have seen no reason to rub 
 out any of the figures or alter the lines and colors. 
 
 UNDER the great hill sloping bare 
 
 To cove and meadow and Common lot, 
 
 In his council chamber and oaken chair, 
 Sat the worshipful Governor Endicott. 
 
 A grave, strong man, who knew no peer 
 
 In the pilgrim land, where he ruled in fear 
 
 Of God, not man, and for good or ill 
 
 Held his trust with an iron will. 
 
 He had shorn with his sword the cross from out 
 The flag, and cloven the May-pole down, 
 
 Harried the heathen round about, 
 
 And whipped the Quakers from town to town.
 
 382 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 Earnest and honest, a man at need 
 To burn like a torch for his own harsh creed, 
 He kept with the flaming brand of his zeal 
 The gate of the holy common weal. 
 
 His brow was clouded, his eye was stern, 
 With a look of mingled sorrow and wrath ; 
 
 " Woe 's me ! " he murmured : " at every turn 
 The pestilent Quakers are in my path ! 
 
 Some we have scourged, and banished some, 
 
 Some hanged, more doomed, and still they come, 
 
 Fast as the tide of yon bay sets in, 
 
 Sowing their heresy's seed of sin. 
 
 " Did we count on this ? Did we leave behind 
 The graves of our kin, the comfort and ease 
 Of our English hearths and homes, to find 
 
 Troublers of Israel such as these ? 
 Shall I spare ? Shall I pity them ? God forbid ! 
 I will do as the prophet to Agag did : 
 They come to poison the wells of the Word, 
 I will hew them in pieces before the Lord ! " 
 
 The door swung open, and Rawson the clerk 
 
 Entered, and whispered under breath, 
 " There waits below for the hangman's work 
 
 A fellow banished on pain of death 
 Shattuck, of Salem, unhealed of the whip, 
 Brought over in Master Goldsmith's ship 
 At anchor here in a Christian port, 
 With freight of the devil and all his sort ! " 
 
 Twice and thrice on the chamber floor 
 Striding fiercely from wall to wall,
 
 THE KING'S MISSIVE 383 
 
 " The Lord do so to me and more," 
 
 The Governor cried, " if I hang not all ! 
 Bring hither the Quaker." Calm, sedate, 
 With the look of a man at ease with fate, 
 Into that presence grim and dread 
 Came Samuel Shattuck, with hat on head. 
 
 " Off with the knave's hat ! " An angry hand 
 
 Smote down the offence ; but the wearer said, 
 With a quiet smile, " By the king's command 
 I bear his message and stand in his stead." 
 In the Governor's hand a missive he laid 
 With the royal arras on its seal displayed, 
 And the proud man spake as he gazed thereat, 
 Uncovering, " Give Mr. Shattuck his hat." 
 
 He turned to the Quaker, bowing low, 
 
 " The king commandeth your friends' release ; 
 
 Doubt not he shall be obeyed, although 
 To his subjects' sorrow and sin's increase. 
 
 What he here enjoineth, John Endicott, 
 
 His loyal servant, question eth not. 
 
 You are free ! God grant the spirit you own 
 
 May take you from us to parts unknown." 
 
 So the door of the jail was open cast, 
 
 And, like Daniel, out of the lion's den 
 Tender youth and girlhood passed, 
 
 With age-bowed women and gray-locked men. 
 And the voice of one appointed to die 
 Was lifted in praise and thanks on high, 
 And the little maid from New Netherlands 
 Kissed, in her joy, the doomed man's hands.
 
 384 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 And one, whose call was to minister 
 
 To the souls in prison, beside him went, 
 An ancient woman, bearing with her 
 
 The linen shroud for his burial meant. 
 For she, not counting her own life dear, 
 In the strength of a love that cast out fear, 
 Had watched and served where her brethren died, 
 Like those who waited the cross beside. 
 
 One moment they paused on their way to look 
 On the martyr graves by the Common side, 
 And much scourged Wharton of Salem took 
 
 His burden of prophecy up and cried : 
 " Rest, souls of the valiant ! Not in vain 
 Have ye borne the Master's cross of pain ; 
 Ye have fought the fight, ye are victors crowned, 
 With a fourfold chain ye have Satan bound I " 
 
 The autumn haze lay soft and still 
 
 On wood and meadow and upland farms ; 
 
 On the brow of Snow Hill the great windmill 
 Slowly and lazily swung its arms ; 
 
 Broad in the sunshine stretched away, 
 
 With its capes and islands, the turquoise bay; 
 
 And over water and dusk of pines 
 
 Blue hills lifted their faint outlines. 
 
 The topaz leaves of the walnut glowed, 
 The sumach added its crimson fleck, 
 
 And double in air and water showed 
 The tinted maples along the Neck ; 
 
 Through frost flower clusters of pale star-mist, 
 
 And gentian fringes of amethyst,
 
 THE KING'S MISSIVE 385 
 
 And royal plumes of golden-rod, 
 The grazing cattle on Gentry trod. 
 
 But as they who see not, the Quakers saw 
 The world about them ; they only thought 
 
 With deep thanksgiving and pious awe 
 
 On the great deliverance God had wrought. 
 
 Through lane and alley the gazing town 
 
 Noisily followed them up and down ; 
 
 Some with scoffing and brutal jeer, 
 
 Some with pity and words of cheer. 
 
 One brave voice rose above the din. 
 
 TJpsall, gray with his length of days, 
 Cried from the door of his Red Lion Inn : 
 
 " Men of Boston, give God the praise ! 
 No more shall innocent blood call down 
 The bolts of wrath on your guilty town. 
 The freedom of worship, dear to you, 
 Is dear to all, and to all is due. 
 
 " I see the vision of days to come, 
 
 When your beautiful City of the Bay 
 Shall be Christian liberty's chosen home, 
 
 And none shall his neighbor's rights gainsay. 
 The varying notes of worship shall blend 
 And as one great prayer to God ascend, 
 And hands of mutual charity raise 
 Walls of salvation and gates of praise." 
 
 So passed the Quakers through Boston town, 
 Whose painful ministers sighed to see 
 
 The walls of their sheep-fold falling down, 
 And wolves of heresy prowling free.
 
 386 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 But the years went on, and brought no wrong ; 
 With milder counsels the State grew strong, 
 As outward Letter and inward Light 
 Kept the balance of truth aright. 
 
 The Puritan spirit perishing not, 
 
 To Concord's yeomen the signal sent, 
 And spake in the voice of the cannon-shot 
 That severed the chains of a continent. 
 With its gentler mission of peace and good- will 
 The thought of the Quaker is living still, 
 And the freedom of soul he prophesied 
 Is gospel and law where the martyrs died. 
 1880. 
 
 VALUATION. 
 
 THE old Squire said, as he stood by his gate, 
 
 And his neighbor, the Deacon, went by, 
 " In spite of my bank stock and real estate, 
 You are better off, Deacon, than I. 
 
 " We 're both growing old, and the end 's drawing 
 
 near, 
 
 You have less of this world to resign, 
 But in Heaven's appraisal your assets, I fear, 
 Will reckon up greater than mine. 
 
 " They say I am rich, but I 'm feeling so poor, 
 
 I wish I could swap with you even : 
 The pounds I have lived for and laid up in store 
 For the shillings and pence you have given."
 
 RABBI ISHMAEL 387 
 
 " Well, Squire," said the Deacon, with shrewd 
 
 common sense, 
 
 While his eye had a twinkle of fun, 
 "Let your pounds take the way of my shillings 
 
 and pence, 
 
 And the thing can be easily done ! " 
 1880. 
 
 RABBI ISHMAEL. 
 
 "Rabbi Ishmael Ben Elisha said, Once, I entered into the 
 Holy of Holies [as High Priest] to burn incense, when I saw Ak- 
 triel [the Divine Crown] Jah, Lord of Hosts, sitting upon a throne, 
 high and lifted up, who said unto me, ' Ishmael, my son, bless 
 me.' I answered, ' May it please Thee to make Thy compassion 
 prevail over Thine anger ; may it be revealed above Thy other attri- 
 butes; mayest Thou deal with Thy children according to it, and not 
 according to the strict measure of judgment. ' It seemed to me that 
 He bowed His head, as though to answer Amen to my blessing." 
 Talmud (Berachoth, i. f. 6. b.) 
 
 THE Rabbi Ishmael, with the woe and sin 
 Of the world heavy upon him, entering in 
 The Holy of Holies, saw an awful Face 
 With terrible splendor filling all the place. 
 " O Ishmael Ben Elisha ! " said a voice, 
 "What seekest thou ? What blessing is thy 
 
 choice ? " 
 
 And, knowing that he stood before the Lord, 
 Within the shadow of the cherubim, 
 Wide -winged between the blinding light and 
 
 him, 
 
 He bowed himself, and uttered not a word, 
 But in the silence of his soul was prayer : 
 " O Thou Eternal ! I am one of all, 
 And nothing ask that others may not share.
 
 388 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 Thou art almighty ; we are weak and small, 
 And yet Thy children : let Thy mercy spare ! " 
 Trembling, he raised his eyes, and in the place 
 Of the insufferable glory, lo ! a face 
 Of more than mortal tenderness, that bent 
 Graciously down in token of assent, 
 And, smiling, vanished ! With strange joy elate, 
 The wondering Rabbi sought the temple's gate. 
 Radiant as Moses from the Mount, he stood 
 And cried aloud unto the multitude : 
 " O Israel, hear ! The Lord our God is good ! 
 Mine eyes have seen his glory and his grace ; 
 Beyond his judgments shall his love endure ; 
 The mercy of the All Merciful is sure ! " 
 1881. 
 
 THE ROCK-TOMB OF BRADORE. 
 
 H. Y. Hind, in Explorations in the Interior of the Labrador 
 Peninsula (ii. 1G6) mentions the finding of a rock tomb near the 
 little fishing port of Bradore, with the inscription upon it which 
 is given in the poem. 
 
 A DREAR and desolate shore ! 
 Where no tree unfolds its leaves, 
 And never the spring wind weaves 
 Green grass for the hunter's tread ; 
 A land forsaken and dead, 
 Where the ghostly icebergs go 
 And come with the ebb and flow 
 
 Of the waters of Bradore ! 
 
 A wanderer, from a land 
 By summer breezes fanned,
 
 THE ROCK-TOMB OF BRADORE 389 
 
 Looked round him, awed, subdued, 
 
 By the dreadful solitude, 
 
 Hearing alone the cry 
 
 Of sea-birds clanging by, 
 
 The crash and grind of the floe, 
 
 Wail of wind and wash of tide. 
 " O wretched land ! " he cried, 
 " Land of all lands the worst, 
 
 God forsaken and curst ! 
 
 Thy gates of rock should show 
 The words the Tuscan seer 
 
 Read in the Realm of Woe : 
 Hope entereth not here ! " 
 
 Lo ! at his feet there stood 
 A block of smooth larch wood, 
 Waif of some wandering wave, 
 Beside a rock-closed cave 
 By Nature fashioned for a grave; 
 Safe from the ravening bear 
 And fierce fowl of the air, 
 Wherein to rest was laid 
 A twenty summers' maid, 
 Whose blood had equal share 
 Of the lands of vine and snow, 
 Half French, half Eskimo. 
 In letters uneffaced, 
 Upon the block were traced 
 The grief and hope of man, 
 And thus the legend ran : 
 
 " We loved her ! 
 Words cannot tell how well ! 
 
 We loved her ! 
 
 God loved her !
 
 390 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 And called her home to peace and rest. 
 We love her!" 
 
 The stranger paused and read. 
 " O winter land ! " he said, 
 " Thy right to be I own ; 
 God leaves thee not alone. 
 And if thy fierce winds blow 
 Over drear wastes of rock and snow, 
 And at thy iron gates 
 The ghostly iceberg waits, 
 
 Thy homes and hearts are dear. 
 Thy sorrow o'er thy sacred dust 
 Is sanctified by hope and trust ; 
 
 God's love and man's are here. 
 And love where'er it goes 
 Makes its own atmosphere ; 
 Its flowers of Paradise 
 Take root in the eternal ice, 
 
 And bloom through Polar snows ! " 
 1881. 
 
 THE BAY OF SEVEN ISLANDS. 
 
 The volume in which The Bay of Seven Islands was published 
 was dedicated to the late Edwin Percy Whipple, to whom more 
 than to any other person I was indebted for public recognition as 
 one worthy of a place in American literature, at a time when it 
 required a great degree of courage to urge such a claim for a pro- 
 scribed abolitionist. Although younger than I, he had gained 
 the reputation of a brilliant essayist, and was regarded as the 
 highest American authority in criticism. His wit and wisdom en- 
 livened a small literary circle of young men including Thomas 
 Starr King, the eloquent preacher, and Daniel N. Haskell of the 
 Daily Transcript, who gathered about our common friend James 
 T. Fields at the Old Corner Bookstore. The poem which gave
 
 THE BAY OF SEVEN ISLANDS 391 
 
 title to the volume I inscribed to my friend and neighbor Harriet 
 Prescott Spofford, whose poems have lent a new interest to our 
 beautiful river-valley. 
 
 FROM the green Amesbury hill which bears the 
 
 name 
 
 Of that half mythic ancestor of mine 
 Who trod its slopes two hundred years ago, 
 Down the long valley of the Merrimac, 
 Midway between me and the river's mouth, 
 I see thy home, set like an eagle's nest 
 Among Deer Island's immemorial pines, 
 Crowning the crag on which the sunset breaks 
 Its last red arrow. Many a tale and song, 
 Which thou hast told or sung, I call to mind, 
 Softening with silvery mist the woods and hills, 
 The out-thrust headlands and inreaching bays 
 Of our northeastern coast-line, trending where 
 The Gulf, midsummer, feels the chill blockade 
 Of icebergs stranded at its northern gate. 
 
 To thee the echoes of the Island Sound 
 
 Answer not vainly, nor in vain the moan 
 
 Of the South Breaker prophesying storm. 
 
 And thou hast listened, like myself, to men 
 
 Sea-periled oft where Anticosti lies 
 
 Like a fell spider in its web of fog, 
 
 Or where the Grand Bank shallows with the 
 
 wrecks 
 
 Of sunken fishers, and to whom strange isles 
 And frost-rimmed bays and trading stations seem 
 Familiar as Great Neck and Kettle Cove, 
 Nubble and Boon, the common names of home.
 
 392 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 So let me offer thee this lay of mine, 
 Simple and homely, lacking much thy play 
 Of color and of fancy. If its theme 
 And treatment seem to thee befitting youth 
 Rather than age, let this be my excuse : 
 It has beguiled some heavy hours and called 
 Some pleasant memories up ; and, better still, 
 Occasion lent me for a kindly word 
 To one who is my neighbor and my friend. 
 1883. 
 
 The skipper sailed out of the harbor mouth, 
 Leaving the apple-bloom of the South 
 
 For the ice of the Eastern seas, 
 
 In his fishing schooner Breeze. 
 
 Handsome and brave and young was he, 
 And the maids of Newbury sighed to see 
 
 His lessening white sail fall 
 
 Under the sea's blue wall. 
 
 Through the Northern Gulf and the misty screen 
 Of the isles of Mingan and Madeleine, 
 
 St. Paul's and Blanc Sablon, 
 
 The little Breeze sailed on, 
 
 Backward and forward, along the shore 
 Of lorn and desolate Labrador, 
 
 And found at last her way 
 
 To the Seven Islands Bay. 
 
 The little hamlet, nestling below 
 Great hills white with lingering snow,
 
 THE BAY OF SEVEN ISLANDS 393 
 
 With its tin-roofed chapel stood 
 Half hid in the dwarf spruce wood ; 
 
 Green-turfed, flower-sown, the last outpost 
 Of summer upon the dreary coast, 
 
 With its gardens small and spare, 
 
 Sad in the frosty air. 
 
 Hard by where the skipper's schooner lay, 
 A fisherman's cottage looked away 
 
 Over isle and bay, and behind 
 
 On mountains dim-defined. 
 
 And there twin sisters, fair and young, 
 Laughed with their stranger guest, and sung 
 
 In their native tongue the lays 
 
 Of the old Provencal days. 
 
 Alike were they, save the faint outline 
 Of a scar on Suzette's forehead fine ; 
 And both, it so befell, 
 Loved the heretic stranger well. 
 
 Both were pleasant to look upon, 
 
 But the heart of the skipper clave to one ; 
 
 Though less by his eye than heart 
 
 He knew the twain apart. 
 
 Despite of alien race and creed, 
 
 Well did his wooing of Marguerite speed ; 
 
 And the mother's wrath was vain 
 
 As the sister's jealous pain.
 
 394 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 The shrill-tongued mistress her house forbade, 
 And solemn warning was sternly said 
 
 By the black-robed priest, whose word 
 
 As law the hamlet heard. 
 
 But half by voice and half by signs 
 The skipper said, " A warm sun shines 
 
 On the green-banked Merrimac ; 
 
 Wait, watch, till I come back. 
 
 "And when you see, from my mast head, 
 The signal fly of a kerchief red, 
 
 My boat on the shore shall wait ; 
 Come, when the night is late." 
 
 Ah ! weighed with childhood's haunts and friends, 
 And all that the home sky overbends, 
 
 Did ever young love fail 
 
 To turn the trembling scale ? 
 
 Under the night, on the wet sea sands, 
 Slowly unclasped their plighted hands : 
 
 One to the cottage hearth, 
 
 And one to his sailor's berth. 
 
 What was it the parting lovers heard ? 
 
 Nor leaf, nor ripple, nor wing of bird, 
 But a listener's stealthy tread 
 On the rock-moss, crisp and dead. 
 
 He weighed his anchor, and fished once more 
 By the black coast-line of Labrador ; 
 
 And by love and the north wind driven, 
 Sailed back to the Islands Seven.
 
 THE BAY OF SEVEN ISLANDS 395 
 
 In the sunset's glow the sisters twain 
 Saw the Breeze come sailing in again ; 
 
 Said Suzette, " Mother dear, 
 
 The heretic's sail is here." 
 
 " Go, Marguerite, to your room, and hide ; 
 Your door shall be bolted ! " the mother cried : 
 While Suzette, ill at ease, 
 Watched the red sign of the Breeze. 
 
 At midnight, down to the waiting skiff 
 She stole in the shadow of the cliff ; 
 And out of the Bay's mouth ran 
 The schooner with maid and man. 
 
 And all night long, on a restless bed, 
 
 Her prayers to the Virgin Marguerite said : 
 
 And thought of her lover's pain 
 
 Waiting for her in vain. 
 
 Did he pace the sands ? Did he pause to hear 
 The sound of her light step drawing near ? 
 And, as the slow hours passed, 
 Would he doubt her faith at last? 
 
 But when she saw through the misty pane, 
 The morning break on a sea of rain, 
 
 Could even her love avail 
 
 To follow his vanished sail ? 
 
 Meantime the Breeze, with favoring wind, 
 Left the rugged Moisic hills behind, 
 
 And heard from an unseen shore 
 
 The falls of Manitou roar.
 
 396 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 On the morrow's morn, in the thick, gray weather 
 They sat on the reeling deck together, 
 
 Lover and counterfeit, 
 
 Of hapless Marguerite. 
 
 With a lover's hand, from her forehead fair 
 He smoothed away her jet-black hair. 
 
 What was it his fond eyes met ? 
 
 The scar of the false Suzette ! 
 
 Fiercely he shouted : " Bear away 
 East by north for Seven Isles Bay ! " 
 
 The maiden wept and prayed, 
 
 But the ship her helm obeyed. 
 
 Once more the Bay of the Isles they found : 
 They heard the bell of the chapel sound, 
 And the chant of the dying sung 
 In the harsh, wild Indian tongue. 
 
 A feeling of mystery, change, and awe 
 Was in all they heard and all they saw : 
 
 Spell-bound the hamlet lay 
 
 In the hush of its lonely bay. 
 
 And when they came to the cottage door, 
 The mother rose up from her weeping sore, 
 
 And with angry gestures met 
 
 The scared look of Suzette. 
 
 " Here is your daughter," the skipper said ; 
 " Give me the one I love instead." 
 
 But the woman sternly spake ; 
 
 " Go, see if the dead will wake ! "
 
 THE BAY OF SEVEN ISLANDS 397 
 
 He looked. Her sweet face still and white 
 And strange in the noonday taper light, 
 She lay on her little bed, 
 With the cross at her feet and head. 
 
 In a passion of grief the strong man bent 
 Down to her face, and, kissing it, went 
 
 Back to the waiting Breeze, 
 
 Back to the mournful seas. 
 
 Never again to the Merrimac 
 
 And Newbury's homes that bark came back. 
 
 Whether her fate she met 
 
 On the shores of Carraquette, 
 
 Miscou, or Tracadie, who can say ? 
 But even yet at Seven Isles Bay 
 
 Is told the ghostly tale 
 
 Of a weird, unspoken sail, 
 
 In the pale, sad light of the Northern day 
 Seen by the blanketed Montagnais, 
 
 Or squaw, in her small kyack, 
 
 Crossing the spectre's track. 
 
 On the deck a maiden wrings her hands ; 
 
 Her likeness kneels on the gray coast sands ; 
 One in her wild despair, 
 And one in the trance of prayer. 
 
 She flits before no earthly blast, 
 
 The red sign fluttering from her mast,
 
 398 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 Over the solemn seas, 
 
 The ghost of the schooner Breeze ! 
 
 THE WISHING BRIDGE. 
 
 AMONG the legends sung or said 
 
 Along our rocky shore, 
 The Wishing Bridge of Marblehead 
 
 May well be sung once more. 
 
 An hundred years ago (so ran 
 
 The old-time story) all 
 Good wishes said above its span 
 
 Would, soon or late, befall. 
 
 If pure and earnest, never failed 
 
 The prayers of man or maid 
 For him who on the deep sea sailed, 
 
 For her at home who stayed. 
 
 Once thither came two girls from school, 
 
 And wished in childish glee : 
 And one would be a queen and rule, 
 
 And one the world would see. 
 
 Time passed ; with change of hopes and fears. 
 
 And in the self-same place, 
 Two women, gray with middle years, 
 
 Stood, wondering, face to face. 
 
 With wakened memories, as they met, 
 They queried what had been :
 
 THE WISHING BRIDGE 399 
 
 " A poor man's wife am I, and yet," 
 Said one, " I am a queen. 
 
 " My realm a little homestead is, 
 
 Where, lacking crown and throne, 
 I rule by loving services 
 And patient toil alone." 
 
 The other said : " The great world lies 
 
 Beyond me as it lay ; 
 O'er love's and duty's boundaries 
 
 My feet may never stray. 
 
 " I see but common sights of home, 
 
 Its common sounds I hear, 
 My widowed mother's sick-bed room 
 Sufficeth for my sphere. 
 
 " I read to her some pleasant page 
 
 Of travel far and wide, 
 
 And in a dreamy pilgrimage 
 
 We wander side by side. 
 
 " And when, at last, she falls asleep, 
 
 My book becomes to me 
 A magic glass : my watch I keep, 
 But all the world I see. 
 
 " A farm-wife queen your place you fill, 
 
 While fancy's privilege 
 Is mine to walk the earth at will, 
 Thanks to the Wishing Bridge."
 
 400 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 " Nay, leave the legend for the truth," 
 
 The other cried, " and say 
 God gives the wishes of our youth, 
 But in His own best way ! " 
 
 1882. 
 
 HOW THE WOMEN WENT FROM DOVER. 
 
 The following is a copy of the warrant issued by Major Wal- 
 dron, of Dover, in 1662. The Quakers, as was their wont, proph- 
 esied against him, and saw, as they supposed, the fulfilment of 
 their prophecy when, many years after, he was killed by the In- 
 dians. 
 
 To the constables of Dover, Hampton, Salisbury, Newbury, Rowley, 
 Ipswich, Wenham, Lynn, Boston, Boxbury, Dedham, and until 
 these vagabond Quakers are carried out of this jurisdiction. 
 
 You, and every one of you, are required, in the King's Majes- 
 ty's name, to take these vagabond Quakers, Anne Colman, Mary 
 Tomkins, and Alice Ambrose, and make them fast to the cart's 
 tail, and driving the cart through your several towns, to whip 
 them upon their naked backs not exceeding ten stripes apiece on 
 each of them, in each town ; and so to convey them from con- 
 stable to constable tilt they are out of this jurisdiction, as you 
 will answer it at your peril ; and this shall be your warrant. 
 
 RICHARD WALDRON. 
 
 Dated at Dover, December 22, 1662. 
 
 This warrant was executed only in Dover and Hampton. At 
 Salisbury the constable refused to obey it. He was sustained by 
 the town's people, who were under the influence of Major Robert 
 Pike, the leading man in the lower valley of the Merrimac, who 
 stood far in advance of his time, as an advocate of religious free- 
 dom, and an opponent of ecclesiastical authority. He had the 
 moral courage to address an able and manly letter to the court at 
 Salem, remonstrating against the witchcraft trials. 
 
 THE tossing spray of Cocheco's fall 
 Hardened to ice on its rocky wall, 
 As through Dover town in the chill, gray dawn, 
 Three women passed, at the cart-tail drawn !
 
 HOW THE WOMEN WENT FROM DOVER 401 
 
 Bared to the waist, for the north wind's grip 
 And keener sting of the constable's whip, 
 The blood that followed each hissing blow 
 Froze as it sprinkled the winter snow. 
 
 Priest and ruler, boy and maid 
 Followed the dismal cavalcade ; 
 And from door and window, open thrown, 
 Looked and wondered gaffer and crone. 
 
 " God is our witness," the victims cried, 
 " We suffer for Him who for all men died ; 
 The wrong ye do has been done before, 
 We bear the stripes that the Master bore ! 
 
 " And thou, O Richard Waldron, for whom 
 We hear the feet of a coming doom, 
 On thy cruel heart and thy hand of wrong 
 Vengeance is sure, though it tarry long. 
 
 " In the light of the Lord, a flame we see 
 Climb and kindle a proud roof-tree ; 
 And beneath it an old man lying dead, 
 With stains of blood on his hoary head." 
 
 " Smite, Goodman Hate-Evil ! harder still ! " 
 The magistrate cried, " lay on with a will ! 
 Drive out of their bodies the Father of Lies, 
 Who through them preaches and prophesies ! " 
 
 So into the forest they held their way, 
 By winding river and frost-rimmed bay, 
 Over wind-swept hills that felt the beat 
 Of the winter sea at their icy feet.
 
 402 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 The Indian hunter, searching his traps, 
 Peered stealthily through the forest gaps ; 
 And the outlying settler shook his head, 
 "They 're witches going to jail," he said. 
 
 At last a meeting-house came in view ; 
 
 A blast on his horn the constable blew ; 
 
 And the boys of Hampton cried up and down, 
 
 " The Quakers have come ! " to the wondering town. 
 
 From barn and woodpile the goodman came ; 
 The goodwife quitted her quilting frame, 
 With her child at her breast ; and, hobbling slow, 
 The grandam followed to see the show. 
 
 Once more the torturing whip was swung, 
 
 Once more keen lashes the bare flesh stung. 
 
 " Oh, spare ! they are bleeding ! " a little maid 
 
 cried, 
 And covered her face the sight to hide. 
 
 A murmur ran round the crowd : " Good folks, 5 ' 
 Quoth the constable, busy counting the strokes, 
 " No pity to wretches like these is due, 
 They have beaten the gospel black and blue ! " 
 
 Then a pallid woman, in wild-eyed fear, 
 With her wooden noggin of milk drew near. 
 " Drink, poor hearts ! " a rude hand smote 
 Her draught away from a parching throat. 
 
 " Take heed," one whispered, " they '11 take your 
 
 cow 
 For fines, as they took your horse and plough,
 
 HOW THE WOMEN WENT FROM DOVER 403 
 
 And the bed from under you." " Even so," 
 She said ; " they are cruel as death, I know." 
 
 Then on they passed, in the waning day, 
 Through Seabrook woods, a weariful way ; 
 By great salt meadows and sand-hills bare, 
 And glimpses of blue sea here and there. 
 
 By the meeting-house in Salisbury town, 
 The sufferers stood, in the red sundown, 
 Bare for the lash ! O pitying Night, 
 Drop swift thy curtain and hide the sight ! 
 
 With shame in his eye and wrath on his lip 
 The Salisbury constable dropped his whip. 
 " This warrant means murder foul and red ; 
 Cursed is he who serves it," he said. 
 
 " Show me the order, and meanwhile strike 
 A blow at your peril ! " said Justice Pike. 
 Of all the rulers the land possessed, 
 Wisest and boldest was he and best. 
 
 He scoffed at witchcraft ; the priest he met 
 As man meets man ; his feet he set 
 Beyond his dark age, standing upright, 
 Soul-free, with his face to the morning light. 
 
 He read the warrant : " These convey 
 
 From our precincts; at every town on the 
 
 way 
 
 Give each ten lashes" " God judge the brute ! 
 I tread his order under my foot !
 
 404 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 " Cut loose these poor ones and let them go ; 
 Come what will of it, all men shall know 
 No warrant is good, though backed by the Crown, 
 For whipping women in Salisbury town ! " 
 
 The hearts of the villagers, half released 
 From creed of terror and rule of priest, 
 By a primal instinct owned the right 
 Of human pity in law's despite. 
 
 For ruth and chivalry only slept, 
 His Saxon manhood the yeoman kept ; 
 Quicker or slower, the same blood ran 
 In the Cavalier and the Puritan. 
 
 The Quakers sank on their knees in praise 
 And thanks. A last, low sunset blaze 
 Flashed out from under a cloud, and shed 
 A golden glory on each bowed head. 
 
 The tale is one of an evil time, 
 
 When souls were fettered and thought was crime, 
 
 And heresy's whisper above its breath 
 
 Meant shameful scourging and bonds and death ! 
 
 What marvel, that hunted and sorely tried, 
 Even woman rebuked and prophesied, 
 And soft words rarely answered back 
 The grim persuasion of whip and rack ! 
 
 If her cry from the whipping-post and jail 
 Pierced sharp as the Kenite's driven nail, 
 O woman, at ease in these happier days, 
 Forbear to judge of thy sister's ways!
 
 SAINT GREGORY'S GUEST 405 
 
 How much thy beautiful life may owe 
 To her faith and courage thou canst not know, 
 Nor how from the paths of thy calm retreat 
 She smoothed the thorns with her bleeding feet. 
 
 1883. 
 
 SAINT GREGORY'S GUEST. 
 
 A TALE for Roman guides to tell 
 
 To careless, sight-worn travellers still, 
 
 Who pause beside the narrow cell 
 Of Gregory on the Cselian Hill. 
 
 One day before the monk's door came 
 A beggar, stretching empty palms, 
 
 Fainting and fast-sick, in the name 
 Of the Most Holy asking alms. 
 
 And the monk answered, " All I have 
 In this poor cell of mine I give, 
 
 The silver cup my mother gave ; 
 
 In Christ's name take thou it, and live." 
 
 Years passed ; and, called at last to bear 
 The pastoral crook and keys of Rome, 
 
 The poor monk, in Saint Peter's chair, 
 Sat the crowned lord of Christendom. 
 
 " Prepare a feast," Saint Gregory cried, 
 
 " And let twelve beggars sit thereat." 
 The beggars came, and one beside, 
 An unknown stranger, with them sat.
 
 406 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 " I asked thee not," the Pontiff spake, 
 
 " O stranger ; but if need be thine, 
 I bid thee welcome, for the sake 
 
 Of Him who is thy Lord and mine." 
 
 A grave, calm face the stranger raised, 
 Like His who on Gennesaret trod, 
 
 Or His on whom the Chaldeans gazed, 
 Whose form was as the Son of God. 
 
 " Know'st thou," he said, " thy gift of old ? " 
 
 And in the hand he lifted up 
 The Pontiff marvelled to behold 
 Once more his mother's silver cup. 
 
 " Thy prayers and alms have risen, and bloom 
 
 Sweetly among the flowers of heaven. 
 I am The Wonderful, through whom 
 Whate'er thou askest shall be given." 
 
 He spake and vanished. Gregory fell 
 With his twelve guests in mute accord 
 
 Prone on their faces, knowing well 
 Their eyes of flesh had seen the Lord. 
 
 The old-time legend is not vain ; 
 
 Nor vain thy art, Verona's Paul, 
 Telling it o'er and o'er again 
 
 On gray Vicenza's frescoed wall. 
 
 Still wheresoever pity shares 
 
 Its bread with sorrow, want, and sin, 
 
 And love the beggar's feast prepares, 
 The uninvited Guest comes in.
 
 BIRCHBROOK MILL 407 
 
 Unheard, because our ears are dull, 
 Unseen, because our eyes are dim, 
 
 He walks our earth, The Wonderful, 
 And all good deeds are done to Him. 
 
 1883. 
 
 BIRCHBROOK MILL. 
 
 A NOTELESS stream, the Birchbrook runs 
 
 Beneath its leaning trees ; 
 That low, soft ripple is its own, 
 
 That dull roar is the sea's. 
 
 Of human signs it sees alone 
 The distant church spire's tip, 
 
 And, ghost-like, on a blank of gray, 
 The white sail of a ship. 
 
 No more a toiler at the wheel, 
 
 It wanders at its will ; 
 Nor dam nor pond is left to tell 
 
 Where once was Birchbrook mill. 
 
 The timbers of that mill have fed 
 
 Long since a farmer's fires ; 
 His doorsteps are the stones that ground 
 
 The harvest of his sires. 
 
 Man trespassed here ; but Nature lost 
 
 No right of her domain ; 
 She waited, and she brought the old 
 
 Wild beauty back again.
 
 408 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 By day the sunlight through the leaves 
 
 Falls on its moist, green sod, 
 And wakes the violet bloom of spring 
 
 And autumn's golden-rod. 
 
 Its birches whisper to the wind, 
 
 The swallow dips her wings 
 In the cool spray, and on its banks 
 
 The gray song-sparrow sings. 
 
 But from it, when the dark night falls, 
 The school-girl shrinks with dread; 
 
 The farmer, home-bound from his fields, 
 Goes by with quickened tread. 
 
 They dare not pause to hear the grind 
 
 Of shadowy stone on stone ; 
 The plashing of a water-wheel 
 
 Where wheel there now is none. 
 
 Has not a cry of pain been heard 
 
 Above the clattering mill? 
 The pawing of an unseen horse, 
 
 Who waits his mistress still ? 
 
 Yet never to the listener's eye 
 Has sight confirmed the sound ; 
 
 A wavering birch line marks alone 
 The vacant pasture ground. 
 
 No ghostly arms fling up to heaven 
 
 The agony of prayer; 
 No spectral steed impatient shakes 
 
 His white mane on the air.
 
 THE TWO ELIZABETHS 409 
 
 The meaning of that common dread 
 
 No tongue has fitly told ; 
 The secret of the dark surmise 
 
 The brook and birches hold. 
 
 What nameless horror of the past 
 
 Broods here f orevermore ? 
 What ghost his unforgiven sin 
 
 Is grinding o'er and o'er ? 
 
 Does, then, immortal memory play 
 
 The actor's tragic part, 
 Rehearsals of a mortal life 
 
 And unveiled human heart ? 
 
 God's pity spare a guilty soul 
 
 That drama of its ill, 
 And let the scenic curtain fall 
 
 On Birchbrook's haunted mill ! 
 
 1884. 
 
 THE TWO ELIZABETHS. 
 
 Read at the unveiling of the bust of Elizabeth Fry at the 
 Friends' School, Providence, R. I. 
 
 A. D. 1209. 
 
 AMIDST Thuringia's wooded hills she dwelt, 
 A high-born princess, servant of the poor, 
 
 Sweetening with gracious words the food she dealt 
 To starving throngs at Wartburg's blazoned 
 door.
 
 410 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 A blinded zealot held her soul in chains, 
 
 Cramped the sweet nature that he could not kill, 
 
 Scarred her fair body with his penance-pains, 
 And gauged her conscience by his narrow will. 
 
 God gave her gifts of beauty and of grace, 
 With fast and vigil she denied them all ; 
 
 Unquestioning, with sad, pathetic face, 
 
 She followed meekly at her stern guide's call. 
 
 So drooped and died her home-blown rose of bliss 
 
 In the chill rigor of a discipline 
 That turned her fond lips from her children's kiss, 
 
 And made her joy of motherhood a sin. 
 
 To their sad level by compassion led, 
 
 One with the low and vile herself she made, 
 
 While thankless misery mocked the hand that fed, 
 And laughed to scorn her piteous masquerade. 
 
 But still, with patience that outwearied hate, 
 She gave her all while yet she had to give ; 
 
 And then her empty hands, importunate, 
 
 In prayer she lifted that the poor might live. 
 
 Sore pressed by grief, and wrongs more hard to 
 bear, 
 
 And dwarfed and stifled by a harsh control, 
 She kept life fragrant with good deeds and prayer, 
 
 And fresh and pure the white flower of her soul. 
 
 Death found her busy at her task : one word 
 Alone she uttered as she paused to die,
 
 THE TWO ELIZABETHS 411 
 
 " Silence ! " then listened even as one who heard 
 With song and wing the angels drawing nigh ! 
 
 Now Era Angelico's roses fill her hands, 
 And, on Murillo's canvas, Want and Pain 
 
 Kneel at her feet. Her marble image stands 
 Worshipped and crowned in Marburg's holy 
 fane. 
 
 Yea, wheresoe'er her Church its cross uprears, 
 Wide as the world her story still is told ; 
 
 In manhood's reverence, woman's prayers and tears, 
 She lives again whose grave is centuries old. 
 
 And still, despite the weakness or the blame 
 Of blind submission to the blind, she hath 
 
 A tender place in hearts of every name, 
 
 And more than Rome owns Saint Elizabeth ! 
 
 A. D. 1780. 
 
 Slow ages passed : and lo ! another came, 
 An English matron, in whose simple faith 
 
 Nor priestly rule nor ritual had claim, 
 A plain, uncanonized Elizabeth. 
 
 No sackcloth robe, nor ashen-sprinkled hair, 
 Nor wasting fast, nor scourge, nor vigil long, 
 
 Marred her calm presence. God had made her fair, 
 And she could do His goodly work no wrong. 
 
 Their yoke is easy and their burden light 
 Whose sole confessor is the Christ of God ; 
 
 Her quiet trust and faith transcending sight 
 
 Smoothed to her feet the difficult paths she trod.
 
 412 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 And there she walked, as duty bade her go, 
 Safe and unsullied as a cloistered nun, 
 
 Shamed with her plainness Fashion's gaudy show, 
 And overcame the world she did not shun. 
 
 In Earlham's bowers, in Plashet's liberal hall, 
 In the great city's restless crowd and din, 
 
 Her ear was open to the Master's call, 
 
 And knew the summons of His voice within. 
 
 Tender as mother, beautiful as wife, 
 
 Amidst the throngs of prisoned crime she stood 
 In modest raiment faultless as her life, 
 
 The type of England's worthiest womanhood ! 
 
 To melt the hearts that harshness turned to stone 
 The sweet persuasion of her lips sufficed, 
 
 And guilt, which only hate and fear had known, 
 Saw in her own the pitying love of Christ. 
 
 So wheresoe'er the guiding Spirit went 
 She followed, finding every prison cell 
 
 It opened for her sacred as a tent 
 
 Pitched by Gennesaret or by Jacob's well. 
 
 And Pride and Fashion felt her strong appeal, 
 And priest and ruler marvelled as they saw 
 
 How hand in hand went wisdom with her zeal, 
 And woman's pity kept the bounds of law. 
 
 She rests in God's peace ; but her memory stirs 
 The air of earth as with an angel's wings, 
 
 And warms and moves the hearts of men like hers, 
 The sainted daughter of Hungarian kings.
 
 THE HOMESTEAD 413 
 
 United now, the Briton and the Hun, 
 
 Each, in her own time, faithful unto death, 
 
 Live sister souls ! in name and spirit one, 
 Thuringia's saint and our Elizabeth ! 
 
 1885. 
 
 REQUITAL. 
 
 As Islam's Prophet, when his last day drew 
 Nigh to its close, besought all men to say 
 Whom he had wronged, to whom he then should 
 
 pay 
 
 A debt forgotten, or for pardon sue, 
 
 And, through the silence of his weeping friends, 
 
 A strange voice cried : " Thou owest me a debt," 
 " Allah be praised ! " he answered. " Even yet 
 He gives me power to make to thee amends. 
 O friend ! I thank thee for thy timely word." 
 So runs the tale. Its lesson all may heed, 
 For all have sinned in thought, or word, or 
 
 deed, 
 
 Or, like the Prophet, through neglect have erred. 
 All need forgiveness, all have debts to pay 
 Ere the night cometh, while it still is day. 
 
 THE HOMESTEAD. 
 
 AGAINST the wooded hills it stands, 
 Ghost of a dead home, staring through 
 
 Its broken lights on wasted lands 
 Where old-time harvests grew.
 
 414 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 Unploughed, unsown, by scythe unshorn, 
 The poor, forsaken farm-fields lie, 
 
 Once rich and rife with golden corn 
 And pale green breadths of rye. 
 
 Of healthful herb and flower bereft, 
 The garden plot no housewife keeps ; 
 
 Through weeds and tangle only left, 
 The snake, its tenant, creeps. 
 
 A lilac spray, still blossom-clad, 
 
 Sways slow before the empty rooms; 
 
 Beside the roofless porch a sad 
 Pathetic red rose blooms. 
 
 His track, in mould and dust of drouth, 
 On floor and hearth the squirrel leaves, 
 
 And in the fireless chimney's mouth 
 His web the spider weaves. 
 
 The leaning barn, about to fall, 
 
 Resounds no more on husking eves ; 
 
 No cattle low in yard or stall, 
 No thresher beats his sheaves. 
 
 So sad, so drear ! It seems almost 
 
 Some haunting Presence makes its sign ; 
 
 That down yon shadowy lane some ghost 
 Might drive his spectral kine ! 
 
 O home so desolate and lorn ! 
 
 Did all thy memories die with thee ? 
 Were any wed, were any born, 
 
 Beneath this low roof-tree ?
 
 THE HOMESTEAD 415 
 
 Whose axe the wall of forest broke, 
 And let the waiting sunshine through ? 
 
 What goodwife sent the earliest smoke 
 Up the great chimney flue ? 
 
 Did rustic lovers hither come ? 
 
 Did maidens, swaying back and forth 
 In rhythmic grace, at wheel and loom, 
 
 Make light their toil with mirth ? 
 
 Did child feet patter on the stair ? 
 
 Did boyhood frolic in the snow ? 
 Did gray age, in her elbow chair, 
 
 Knit, rocking to and fro ? 
 
 The murmuring brook, the sighing breeze, 
 The pine's slow whisper, cannot tell ; 
 
 Low mounds beneath the hemlock-trees 
 Keep the home secrets well. 
 
 Cease, mother-land, to fondly boast 
 Of sons far off who strive and thrive, 
 
 Forgetful that each swarming host 
 Must leave an emptier hive ! 
 
 O wanderers from ancestral soil, 
 
 Leave noisome mill and chaffering store : 
 
 Gird up your loins for sturdier toil, 
 And build the home once more ! 
 
 Come back to bayberry-scented slopes, 
 And fragrant fern, and ground-nut vine ; 
 
 Breathe airs blown over holt and copse 
 Sweet with black birch and pine.
 
 416 NARRA Tl VE A ND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 What matter if the gains are small 
 That life's essential wants supply ? 
 
 Your homestead's title gives you all 
 That idle wealth can buy. 
 
 All that the many-dollared crave, 
 
 The brick-walled slaves of 'Change and mart, 
 Lawns, trees, fresh air, and flowers, you have, 
 
 More dear for lack of art. 
 
 Your own sole masters, freedom-willed, 
 With none to bid you go or stay, 
 
 Till the old fields your fathers tilled, 
 As manly men as they ! 
 
 With skill that spares your toiling hands, 
 And chemic aid that science brings, 
 
 Reclaim the waste and outworn lands, 
 And reign thereon as kings ! 
 
 1886. 
 
 HOW THE ROBIN CAME. 
 
 AN ALGONQUIN LEGEND. 
 
 HAPPY young friends, sit by me, 
 Under May's blown apple-tree, 
 While these home-birds in and out 
 Through the blossoms flit about. 
 Hear a story, strange and old, 
 By the wild red Indians told, 
 How the robin came to be :
 
 HOW THE ROBIN CAME 417 
 
 Once a great chief left his son, 
 Well-beloved, his only one, 
 When the boy was well-nigh grown, 
 In the trial-lodge alone. 
 Left for tortures long and slow 
 Youths like him must undergo, 
 Who their pride of manhood test, 
 Lacking water, food, and rest. 
 
 Seven days the fast he kept, 
 
 Seven nights he never slept. 
 
 Then the young boy, wrung with pain, 
 
 Weak from nature's overstrain, 
 
 Faltering, moaned a low complaint : 
 " Spare me, father, for I faint ! " 
 
 But the chieftain, haughty-eyed, 
 
 Hid his pity in his pride. 
 " You shall be a hunter good, 
 
 Knowing never lack of food ; 
 
 You shall be a warrior great, 
 
 Wise as fox and strong as bear ; 
 
 Many scalps your belt shall wear, 
 
 If with patient heart you wait 
 
 Bravely till your task is done. 
 
 Better you should starving die 
 
 Than that boy and squaw should cry 
 
 Shame upon your father's son ! " 
 
 When next morn the sun's first rays 
 Glistened on the hemlock sprays, 
 Straight that lodge the old chief sought, 
 And boiled samp and moose meat brought. 
 " Rise and eat, my son ! " he said. 
 Lo, he found the poor boy deadl
 
 418 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 As with grief his grave they made, 
 
 And his bow beside him laid, 
 
 Pipe, and knife, and wampum-braid, 
 
 On the lodge-top overhead, 
 
 Preening smooth its breast of red 
 
 And the brown coat that it wore, 
 
 Sat a bird, unknown before. 
 
 And as if with human tongue, 
 " Mourn me not," it said, or sung ; 
 " I, a bird, am still your son, 
 
 Happier than if hunter fleet, 
 
 Or a brave, before your feet 
 
 Laying scalps in battle won. 
 
 Friend of man, my song shall cheer 
 
 Lodge and corn-land ; hovering near, 
 
 To each wigwam I shall bring 
 
 Tidings of the coming spring ; 
 
 Every child my voice shall know 
 
 In the moon of melting snow, 
 
 When the maple's red bud swells, 
 
 And the wind-flower lifts its bells. 
 
 As their fond companion 
 
 Men shall henceforth own your son, 
 
 And my song shall testify 
 
 That of human kin am I." 
 
 Thus the Indian legend saith 
 How, at first, the robin came 
 With a sweeter life from death, 
 Bird for boy, and still the same. 
 If my young friends doubt that this 
 Is the robin's genesis, 
 Not in vain is still the myth
 
 BANISHED FROM MASSACHUSETTS 419 
 
 If a truth be found therewith : 
 Unto gentleness belong 
 Gifts unknown to pride and wrong ; 
 Happier far than hate is praise, 
 He who sings than he who slays. 
 
 BANISHED FROM MASSACHUSETTS. 
 1660. 
 
 On a painting by E. A. Abbey. The General Court of Massa- 
 chusetts enacted Oct. 19, 1658, that "any person or persons of 
 the cursed sect of Quakers" should, on conviction of the same, be 
 banished, on pain of death, from the jurisdiction of the common- 
 wealth. 
 
 OVER the threshold of his pleasant home 
 
 Set in green clearings passed the exiled Friend, 
 In simple trust, misdoubting not the end. 
 " Dear heart of mine ! " he said, " the time has 
 
 come 
 
 To trust the Lord for shelter." One long gaze 
 The goodwife turned on each familiar thing, 
 The lowing kine, the orchard blossoming, 
 The open door that showed the hearth-fire's 
 
 blaze, 
 
 And calmly answered, " Yes, He will provide." 
 Silent and slow they crossed the homestead's 
 
 bound, 
 
 Lingering the longest by their child's grave-mound. 
 " Move on, or stay and hang ! " the sheriff cried. 
 They left behind them more than home or land, 
 And set sad faces to an alien strand.
 
 420 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 Safer with winds and waves than human wrath, 
 With ravening wolves than those whose zeal for 
 
 God 
 
 Was cruelty to man, the exiles trod 
 Drear leagues of forest without guide or path, 
 Or launching frail boats on the uncharted sea, 
 Round storm-vexed capes, whose teeth of granite 
 
 ground 
 The waves to foam, their perilous way they 
 
 wound, 
 
 Enduring all things so their souls were free. 
 Oh, true confessors, shaming them who did 
 Anew the wrong their Pilgrim Fathers bore ! 
 For you the Mayflower spread her sail once 
 
 more, 
 
 Freighted with souls, to all that duty bid 
 Faithful as they who sought an unknown land, 
 O'er wintry seas, from Holland's Hook of Sand ! 
 
 So from his lost home to the darkening main, 
 Bodeful of storm, stout Macy held his way, 
 And, when the green shore blended with the 
 
 gray, 
 
 His poor wife moaned : " Let us turn back again." 
 
 " Nay, woman, weak of faith, kneel down," said he, 
 
 " And say thy prayers : the Lord himself will 
 
 steer ; 
 
 And led by Him, nor man nor devils I fear ! " 19 
 So the gray Southwicks, from a rainy sea, 
 Saw, far and faint, the loom of land, and gave 
 With feeble voices thanks for friendly ground 
 Whereon to rest their weary feet, and found
 
 THE BROWN DWARF OF RUG EN 421 
 
 A peaceful death-bed and a quiet grave 
 Where, ocean-walled, and wiser than his age, 
 The lord of Shelter scorned the bigot's rage. 
 
 Aquidneck's isle, Nantucket's lonely shores, 
 And Indian-haunted Narragansett saw 
 The way-worn travellers round their camp-fire 
 draw, 
 
 Or heard the plashing of their weary oars. 
 
 And every place whereon they rested grew 
 Happier for pure and gracious womanhood, 
 And men whose names for stainless honor stood, 
 
 Founders of States and rulers wise and true. 
 
 The Muse of history yet shall make amends 
 
 To those who freedom, peace, and justice taught, 
 Beyond their dark age led the van of thought, 
 
 And left unforfeited the name of Friends. 
 
 O mother State, how foiled was thy design ! 
 
 The gain was theirs, the loss alone was thine. 
 
 THE BROWN DWARF OF RUGEN. 
 
 The hint of this ballad is found in Arndt's Marchen, Berlin, 
 1816. The ballad appeared first in St. Nicholas, whose young 
 readers were advised, while smiling at the absurd superstition, to 
 remember that bad companionship and evil habits, desires, and 
 passions are more to be dreaded now than the Elves and Trolls 
 who frightened the children of past ages. 
 
 THE pleasant isle of Riigen looks the Baltic water 
 
 o'er, 
 To the silver-sanded beaches of the Pomeranian 
 
 shore ;
 
 422 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 And in the town of Kambin a little boy and 
 
 maid 
 Plucked the meadow-flowers together and in the 
 
 sea-surf played. 
 
 Alike were they in beauty if not in their degree : 
 He was the Amptman's first-born, the miller's 
 child was she. 
 
 Now of old the isle of Kiigen was full of Dwarfs 
 and Trolls, 
 
 The brown-faced little Earth-men, the people with- 
 out souls ; 
 
 And for every man and woman in Riigen's island 
 found 
 
 Walking in air and sunshine, a Troll was under- 
 ground. 
 
 It chanced the little maiden, one morning, strolled 
 
 away 
 Among the haunted Nine Hills, where the elves 
 
 and goblins play. 
 
 That day, in barley-fields below, the harvesters had 
 
 known 
 Of evil voices in the air, and heard the small horns 
 
 blown. 
 
 She came not back ; the search for her in field and 
 
 wood was vain : 
 They cried her east, they cried her west, but she 
 
 came not again.
 
 THE BROWN DWARF OF RUGEN 423 
 
 " She 's down among the Brown Dwarfs," said the 
 
 dream-wives wise and old, 
 And prayers were made, and masses said, and 
 
 Rambin's church bell tolled. 
 
 Five years her father mourned her ; and then John 
 
 Deitrich said : 
 "I will find my little playmate, be she alive or 
 
 dead." 
 
 He watched among the Nine Hills, he heard the 
 
 Brown Dwarfs sing, 
 And saw them dance by moonlight merrily in a 
 
 ring. 
 
 And when their gay-robed leader tossed up his cap 
 
 of red, 
 Young Deitrich caught it as it fell, and thrust it 
 
 on his head. 
 
 The Troll came crouching at his feet and wept for 
 
 lack of it. 
 " Oh, give me back my magic cap, for your great 
 
 head unfit ! " 
 
 " Nay," Deitrich said ; " the Dwarf who throws his 
 
 charmed cap away, 
 Must serve its finder at his will, and for his folly 
 
 pay. 
 
 " You stole my pretty Lisbeth, and hid her in the 
 
 earth ; 
 And you shall ope the door of glass and let me 
 
 lead her forth."
 
 424 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 " She will not come ; she 's one of us ; she 's 
 mine ! " the Brown Dwarf said ; 
 
 " The day is set, the cake is baked, to-morrow we 
 shaU wed." 
 
 " The fell fiend fetch thee ! " Deitrich cried, " and 
 
 keep thy foul tongue still. 
 Quick ! open, to thy evil world, the glass door of 
 
 the hill ! " 
 
 The Dwarf obeyed ; and youth and Troll down the 
 
 long stair-way passed, 
 And saw in dim and sunless light a country strange 
 
 and vast. 
 
 Weird, rich, and wonderful, he saw the elfin un- 
 
 der-land, 
 Its palaces of precious stones, its streets of golden 
 
 sand. 
 
 He came unto a banquet-hall with tables richly 
 
 spread, 
 Where a young maiden served to him the red wine 
 
 and the bread. 
 
 How fair she seemed among the Trolls so ugly and 
 
 so wild ! 
 Yet pale and very sorrowful, like one who never 
 
 smiled ! 
 
 Her low, sweet voice, her gold-brown hair, her ten- 
 der blue eyes seemed 
 
 Like something he had seen elsewhere or some< 
 thing he had dreamed.
 
 THE BROWN DWARF OF RUGEN 425 
 
 He looked ; he clasped her in his arms ; he knew 
 
 the long-lost one; 
 " O Lisbeth ! See thy playmate I am the 
 
 Amptman's son ! " 
 
 She leaned her fair head on his breast, and through 
 
 her sobs she spoke : 
 " Oh, take me from this evil place, and from the 
 
 elfin folk ! 
 
 " And let me tread the grass-green fields and smell 
 
 the flowers again, 
 And feel the soft wind on my cheek and hear the 
 
 dropping rain ! 
 
 " And oh, to hear the singing bird, the rustling of 
 
 the tree, 
 The lowing cows, the bleat of sheep, the voices of 
 
 the sea ; 
 
 " And oh, upon my father's knee to sit beside the 
 
 door, 
 And hear the bell of vespers ring in Rambin 
 
 church once more ! " 
 
 He kissed her cheek, he kissed her lips ; the Brown 
 
 Dwarf groaned to see, 
 And tore his tangled hair and ground his long 
 
 teeth angrily. 
 
 But Deitrich said : " For five long years this ten- 
 der Christian maid 
 
 Has served you in your evil world and well must 
 she be paid !
 
 426 NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY POEMS 
 
 " Haste ! hither bring me precious gems, the 
 
 richest in your store ; 
 Then when we pass the gate of glass, you '11 take 
 
 your cap once more." 
 
 No choice was left the baffled Troll, and, murmur- 
 ing, he obeyed, 
 
 And filled the pockets of the youth and apron of 
 the maid. 
 
 They left the dreadful under-land and passed the 
 
 gate of glass ; 
 They felt the sunshine's warm caress, they trod the 
 
 soft, green grass. 
 
 And when, beneath, they saw the Dwarf stretch up 
 
 to them his brown 
 And crooked claw-like fingers, they tossed his red 
 
 cap down. 
 
 Oh, never shone so bright a sun, was never sky so 
 blue, 
 
 As hand in hand they homeward walked the pleas- 
 ant meadows through ! 
 
 And never sang the birds so sweet in Rambin's 
 woods before, 
 
 And never washed the waves so soft along the Bal- 
 tic shore ; 
 
 And when beneath his door-yard trees the father 
 
 met his child, 
 The bells rung out their merriest peal, the folks 
 
 with joy ran wild.
 
 THE BROWN DWARF OF RUGEN 427 
 
 And soon from Rambin's holy church the twain 
 
 came forth as one, 
 The Amptman kissed a daughter, the miller blest 
 
 a son. 
 
 John Deitrich's fame went far and wide, and nurse 
 
 and maid crooned o'er 
 Their cradle song : " Sleep on, sleep well, the 
 
 Trolls shall come no more ! " 
 
 For in the haunted Nine Hills he set a cross of 
 
 stone ; 
 And Elf and Brown Dwarf sought in vain a door 
 
 where door was none. 
 
 The tower he built in Rambin, fair Riigen's pride 
 
 and boast, 
 Looked o'er the Baltic water to the Pomeranian 
 
 coast ; 
 
 And, for his worth ennobled, and rich beyond com- 
 pare, 
 
 Count Deitrich and his lovely bride dwelt long and 
 happy there. 
 
 1888.
 
 NOTES 
 
 Note 1, page 24. The Pythoness of ancient Lynn was the 
 redoubtable Moll Pitcher, who lived under the shadow of 
 High Rock in that town, and was sought far and wide for 
 her supposed powers of divination. She died about 1810. 
 Mr. Upham, in his Salem Witchcraft, has given an account 
 of her. 
 
 Note 2, page 88. Bashaba was the name which the In- 
 dians of New England gave to two or three of their principal 
 chiefs, to whom all their inferior sagamores acknowledged 
 allegiance. Passaconaway seems to have been one of these 
 chiefs. His residence was at Pennacook. (Mass. Hist. Coll., 
 vol. iii. pp. 21, 22.) "He was regarded," says Hubbard, 
 " as a great sorcerer, and his fame was widely spread. It 
 was said of him that he could cause a green leaf to grow in 
 winter, trees to dance, water to burn, etc. He was, un- 
 doubtedly, one of those shrewd and powerful men whose 
 achievements are always regarded by a barbarous people as 
 the result of supernatural aid. The Indians gave to such 
 the names of Powahs or Panisees." 
 
 " The Panisees are men of great courage and wisdom, and 
 to these the Devill appeareth more familiarly than to oth- 
 ers." Winslow's Relation. 
 
 Note 3, page 93. " The Indians," says Roger Williams, 
 " have a god whom they call Wetuomanit, who presides over 
 the household." 
 
 Note 4, page 97. There are rocks in the river at the 
 Falls of Amoskeag, in the cavities of which, tradition says, 
 the Indians formerly stored and concealed their corn. 
 
 Note 5, page 101. The Spring God. See Roger Wil* 
 Harris's Key to the Indian Language.
 
 430 NOTES 
 
 Note 6, page 106. "Mat wonek kunna-tnonee." We 
 shall see thee or her no more. See Roger Williams' s Key. 
 
 Note 7, page 106. " The Great South West God." See 
 Roger Williams's Observations, etc. 
 
 Note 8, page 109. The barbarities of Count de Tilly after 
 the siege of Magdeburg made such an impression upon our 
 forefathers that the phrase " like old Tilly " is still heard 
 sometimes in New England of any piece of special ferocity. 
 
 Note 9, page 134. Dr. Hooker, who accompanied Sir 
 James Ross in his expedition of 1841, thus describes the ap- 
 pearance of that unknown land of frost and fire which was 
 seen in latitude 77 south, a stupendous chain of moun- 
 tains, the whole mass of which, from its highest point to the 
 ocean, was covered with everlasting snow and ice : 
 
 " The water and the sky were both as blue, or rather more 
 intensely blue, than I have ever seen them in the tropics, and 
 all the coast was one mass of dazzlingly beautiful peaks of 
 snow, which, when the sun approached the horizon, reflected 
 the most brilliant tints of golden yellow and scarlet ; and 
 then, to see the dark cloud of smoke, tinged with flame, 
 rising from the volcano in a perfect unbroken column, one 
 side jet-black, the other giving back the colors of the sun, 
 sometimes turning off at a right angle by some current of 
 wind, and stretching many miles to leeward ! This was a 
 sight so surpassing everything that can be imagined, and so 
 heightened by the consciousness that we had penetrated, un- 
 der the guidance of our commander, into regions far beyond 
 what was ever deemed practicable, that it caused a feeling of 
 awe to steal over us at the consideration of our own compar- 
 ative insignificance and helplessness, and at the same time 
 an indescribable feeling of the greatness of the Creator in 
 the works of his hand." 
 
 Note 10, page 210. It was the custom in Sewall's time 
 for churches and individuals to hold fasts whenever any public 
 or private need suggested the fitness ; and as state and 
 church were very closely connected, the General Court some- 
 times ordered a fast. Out of this custom sprang the annual 
 fast in spring, now observed, but it is of comparatively re- 
 cent date. Such a fast was ordered on the 14th of January,
 
 NOTES 431 
 
 1697, when Sewall made his special confession of guilt in 
 condemning innocent persons under the supposition that they 
 were witches. He is said to have observed the day privately 
 on each annual return thereafter. 
 
 Note 11, page 244. Dr. John Dee was a man of erudi- 
 tion, who had an extensive museum, library, and apparatus ; 
 he claimed to be an astrologer, and had acquired the repu- 
 tation of having dealings with evil spirits, and a mob was 
 raised which destroyed the greater part of his possessions, 
 He professed to raise the dead and had a magic crystal. 
 He died a pauper in 1608. 
 
 Note 12, page 325. Eleonora Johanna Von Merlau, or, as 
 Sewall the Quaker Historian gives it, Von Merlane, a noble 
 young lady of Frankfort, seems to have held among the 
 Mystics of that city very much such a position as Anna 
 Maria Schurmaus did among the Labadists of Holland. 
 William Penn appears to have shared the admiration of her 
 own immediate circle for this accomplished and gifted lady. 
 
 Note 13, page 330. Magister Johann Kelpius, a gradu- 
 ate of the University of Helmstadt, came to Pennsylvania 
 in 1694, with a company of German Mystics. They made 
 their home in the woods on the Wissahickon, a little west of 
 the Quaker settlement of Germantown. Kelpius was a be- 
 liever in the near approach of the Millennium, and was a 
 devout student of the Book of Revelation, and the Morgen- 
 Rothe of Jacob Behmen. He called his settlement "The 
 Woman in the Wilderness " (Das Weib inder Wueste). He 
 was only twenty-four years of age when he came to America, 
 but his gravity, learning, and devotion placed him at the 
 head of the settlement. He disliked the Quakers, because 
 he thought they were too exclusive in the matter of min- 
 isters. He was, like most of the Mystics, opposed to the 
 severe doctrinal views of Calvin and even Luther, declaring 
 " that he could as little agree with the Damnamus of the 
 Augsburg Confession as with the Anathema of the Council of 
 Trent." 
 
 He died in 1704, sitting in his little garden surrounded by 
 his grieving disciples. Previous to his death it is said that 
 he cast his famous " Stone of Wisdom " into the river, where
 
 432 NOTES 
 
 that mystic souvenir of the times of Van Helmont, Paracel- 
 sus, and Agrippa has lain ever since, undisturbed. 
 
 Note 14, page 331. Peter Sluyter, or Schluter, a native 
 of Wesel, united himself with the sect of Labadists, who be- 
 lieved in the Divine commission of John De Labadie, a Ro- 
 man Catholic priest converted to Protestantism, enthusiastic, 
 eloquent, and evidently sincere in his special calling and 
 election to separate the true and living members of the 
 Church of Christ from the formalism and hypocrisy of the 
 ruling sects. George Keith and Robert Barclay visited him 
 at Amsterdam, and afterward at the communities of Her- 
 ford and Wieward ; and, according to Gerard Croes, found 
 him so near to them on some points, that they offered to 
 take him into the Society of Friends. This offer, if it was 
 really made, which is certainly doubtful, was, happily for 
 the Friends at least, declined. Invited to Herford in West- 
 phalia by Elizabeth, daughter of the Elector Palatine, De 
 Labadie and his followers preached incessantly, and suc- 
 ceeded in arousing a wild enthusiasm among the people, who 
 neglected their business and gave way to excitements and 
 strange practices. Men and women, it was said, at the Com- 
 munion drank and danced together, and private marriages, 
 or spiritual unions, were formed. Labadie died in 1674 at 
 Altona, in Denmark, maintaining his testimonies to the last. 
 " Nothing remains for me," he said, " except to go to my 
 God. Death is merely ascending from a lower and narrower 
 chamber to one higher and holier." 
 
 In 1679, Peter Sluyter and Jasper Dankers were sent 
 to America by the community at the Castle of Wieward. 
 Their journal, translated from the Dutch and edited by 
 Henry C. Murphy, has been recently published by the Long 
 Island Historical Society. They made some converts, and 
 among them was the eldest son of Hermanns, the proprietor 
 of a rich tract of land at the head of Chesapeake Bay, known 
 as Bohemia Manor. Sluyter obtained a grant of this tract, 
 and established upon it a community numbering at one time 
 a hundred souls. Very contradictory statements are on rec- 
 ord regarding his headship of this spiritual family, the dis- 
 cipline of which seems to have been of more than monastic
 
 NOTES 433 
 
 severity. Certain it is that he bought and sold slaves, and 
 manifested more interest in the world's goods than became 
 a believer in the near Millennium. He evinces in his journal 
 an overweening spiritual pride, and speaks contemptuously 
 of other professors, especially the Quakers whom he met in 
 his travels. The latter, on the contrary, seem to have 
 looked favorably upon the Labadists, and uniformly speak 
 of them courteously and kindly. His journal shows him to 
 have been destitute of common gratitude and Christian 
 charity. He threw himself upon the generous hospitality of 
 the Friends wherever he went, and repaid their kindness by 
 the coarsest abuse and misrepresentation. 
 
 Note 15, page 332. Among the pioneer Friends were 
 many men of learning and broad and liberal views. Penn 
 was conversant with every department of literature and 
 philosophy. Thomas Lloyd was a ripe and rare scholar. 
 The great Loganian Library of Philadelphia bears witness 
 to the varied learning and classical taste of its donor, James 
 Logan. Thomas Story, member of the Council of State, 
 Master of the Rolls, and Commissioner of Claims under 
 William Penn, and an able minister of his Society, took a 
 deep interest in scientific questions, and in a letter to his 
 friend Logan, written while on a religious visit to Great 
 Britain, seems to have anticipated the conclusion of modern 
 geologists. " I spent," he says, "some months, especially at 
 Scarborough, during the season attending meetings, at 
 whose high cliffs and the variety of strata therein and their 
 several positions I further learned and was confirmed in 
 some things, that the earth is of much older date as to 
 the beginning of it than the time assigned in the Holy Scrip- 
 tures as commonly understood, which is suited to the com- 
 mon capacities of mankind, as to six days of progressive 
 work, by which I understand certain long and competent 
 periods of time, and not natural days." It was sometimes 
 made a matter of reproach by the Anabaptists and other 
 sects, that the Quakers read profane writings and philoso- 
 phies, and that they quoted heathen moralists in support of 
 their views. Sluyter and Bankers, in their journal of Amer- 
 ican travels, visiting a Quaker preacher's house at Burling-
 
 434 NOTES 
 
 ton, on the Delaware, found " a volume of Virgil lying on 
 the window, as if it were a common hand-book ; also Hel- 
 mont's book on Medicine (Ortus Medicince, id est Initia Phy- 
 sica inaudita progressus medicince novus in morborum ultionam 
 ad vitam longarn), whom, in an introduction they have made 
 to it, they make to pass for one of their own sect, although 
 in his lifetime he did not know anything about Quakers." 
 It would appear from this that the half-mystical, half-scien- 
 tific writings of the alchemist and philosopher of Vilverde 
 had not escaped the notice of Friends, and that they had in- 
 cluded him in their broad eclecticism. 
 
 Note 16, page 333. " The Quaker's Meeting," a painting 
 by E. Hemskerck (supposed to be Egbert Hemskerck the 
 younger, son of Egbert Hemskerck the old), in which Wil- 
 liam Penn and others among them Charles II., or the 
 Duke of York are represented along with the rudest and 
 most stolid class of the British rural population at that pe- 
 riod. Hemskerck came to London from Holland with King 
 William in 1689. He delighted in wild, grotesque subjects, 
 such as the nocturnal intercourse of witches and the tempta- 
 tion of St. Anthony. Whatever was strange and uncommon 
 attracted his free pencil. Judging from the portrait of 
 Penn, he must have drawn his faces, figures, and costumes 
 from life, although there may be something of caricature in 
 the convulsed attitudes of two or three of the figures. 
 
 Note 17, page 337. In one of his letters addressed to Ger- 
 man friends, Pastorius says : " These wild men, who never 
 in their life heard Christ's teachings about temperance and 
 contentment, herein far surpass the Christians. They live 
 far more contented and unconcerned for the morrow. They 
 do not overreach in trade. They know nothing of our ever- 
 lasting pomp and stylishness. They neither curse nor swear, 
 are temperate in food and drink, and if any of them get 
 drunk, the mouth-Christians are at fault, who, for the sake 
 of accursed lucre, sell them strong drink." 
 
 Again he wrote in 1698 to his father that he finds the 
 Indians reasonable people, willing to accept good teaching 
 and manners, evincing an inward piety toward God, and 
 more eager, in fact, to understand things divine than many
 
 NOTES 435 
 
 among you who in the pulpit teach Christ in word, but by 
 ungodly life deny him. 
 
 "It is evident," says Professor Seidensticker, " Pastorius 
 holds up the Indian as Nature's unspoiled child to the eyes 
 of the ' European Babel,' somewhat after the same manner 
 in which Tacitus used the barbarian Germani to shame his 
 degenerate countrymen." 
 
 As believers in the universality of the Saving Light, the 
 outlook of early Friends upon the heathen was a very cheer- 
 ful and hopeful one. God was as near to them as to Jew 
 or Anglo-Saxon ; as accessible at Timbuctoo as at Eome or 
 Geneva. Not the letter of Scripture, but the spirit which 
 dictated it, was of saving efficacy. Robert Barclay is no- 
 where more powerful than in his argument for the salvation 
 of the heathen, who live according to their light, without 
 knowing even the name of Christ. William Penn thought 
 Socrates as good a Christian as Richard Baxter. Early 
 Fathers of the Church, as Origen and Justin Martyr, held 
 broader views on this point than modern Evangelicals. 
 Even Augustine, from whom Calvin borrowed his theology, 
 admits that he has no controversy with the admirable phi- 
 losophers Plato and Plotinus. " Nor do I think," he says in 
 De Civ. Dei, lib. xviii., cap. 47, " that the Jews dare affirm 
 that none belonged unto God but the Israelites." 
 
 Note 18, page 346. A common saying of Valdemar ; 
 hence his sobriquet Alterday. 
 
 Note 19, page 420. " He [Macy] shook the dust from off 
 his feet, and departed with all his worldly goods and his 
 family. He encountered a severe storm, and his wife, in- 
 fluenced by some omens of disaster, besought him to put 
 back. He told her not to fear, for his faith was perfect. 
 But she entreated him again. Then the spirit that impelled 
 him broke forth : ' Woman, go below and seek thy God. I 
 fear not the witches on earth, or the devils in hell ! '" 
 Life of Robert Pike, page 55.
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below 
 
 NOV Ig 1947, 
 MAR 15 1957 
 
 ft MAY 
 
 011989 
 
 
 FEB 28 1989
 
 3250 yyh i 1 1 i er 
 E92b The works 
 v.l