Narrative Poems, part 2, Bridal of Pennacook | Page 3

John Greenleaf Whittier
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.
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.
But thy
Pennacook valley was fairer 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.
II. THE BASHABA.
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,

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 Bashaba
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,
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 bead,
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 bears, 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!
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
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