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

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 bead-wrought blanket trailing o'er the water--?He knew them all--woe for the Sachem's daughter!
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 Weetamoo.
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