Narrative Poems, part 2, Bridal of Pennacook | Page 6

in
his wigwam met,
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
Pennacook.
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 Aukeetamit'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 PENNACOOK.
The hills are dearest which our childish feet

Have climbed the earliest; and the streams most sweet
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."
But the dark chief of Saugus 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
The river crept, by one vast
bridge o'er-crossed,
Built by the boar-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,
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