Old Spookses Pass | Page 8

lanes of blacken'd, smoking stumps;?And past great flaming brush heaps, sending out?Fierce summers, beating on their swollen brows.?O, such a battle! had we heard of serfs?Driven to like hot conflict with the soil,?Armies had march'd and navies swiftly sail'd?To burst their gyves. But here's the little point--?The polish'd di'mond pivot on which spins?The wheel of Difference--they OWN'D the rugged soil,?And fought for love--dear love of wealth and pow'r,?And honest ease and fair esteem of men;?One's blood heats at it!" "Yet you said such fields?Were all inglorious," Katie, wondering, said.?"Inglorious? yes; they make no promises?Of Star or Garter, or the thundering guns?That tell the earth her warriors are dead.?Inglorious! aye, the battle done and won?Means not--a throne propp'd up with bleaching bones;?A country sav'd with smoking seas of blood;?A flag torn from the foe with wounds and death;?Or Commerce, with her housewife foot upon?Colossal bridge of slaughter'd savages,?The Cross laid on her brawny shoulder, and?In one sly, mighty hand her reeking sword;?And in the other all the woven cheats?From her dishonest looms. Nay, none of these.?It means--four walls, perhaps a lowly roof;?Kine in a peaceful posture; modest fields;?A man and woman standing hand in hand?In hale old age, who, looking o'er the land,?Say: 'Thank the Lord, it all is mine and thine!'?It means, to such thew'd warriors of the Axe?As your own father;--well, it means, sweet Kate,?Outspreading circles of increasing gold,?A name of weight; one little daughter heir.?Who must not wed the owner of an axe,?Who owns naught else but some dim, dusky woods?In a far land; two arms indifferent strong--"?"And Katie's heart," said Katie, with a smile;?For yet she stood on that smooth, violet plain,?Where nothing shades the sun; nor quite believed?Those blue peaks closing in were aught but mist?Which the gay sun could scatter with a glance.?For Max, he late had touch'd their stones, but yet?He saw them seam'd with gold and precious ores,?Rich with hill flow'rs and musical with rills.?"Or that same bud that will be Katie's heart,?Against the time your deep, dim woods are clear'd,?And I have wrought my father to relent."?"How will you move him, sweet? why, he will rage?And fume and anger, striding o'er his fields,?Until the last bought king of herds lets down?His lordly front, and rumbling thunder from?His polish'd chest, returns his chiding tones.?How will you move him, Katie, tell me how?"?"I'll kiss him and keep still--that way is sure,"?Said Katie, smiling. "I have often tried."?"God speed the kiss," said Max, and Katie sigh'd,?With pray'rful palms close seal'd, "God speed the axe!"

O, light canoe, where dost thou glide??Below thee gleams no silver'd tide,?But concave heaven's chiefest pride.

Above thee burns Eve's rosy bar;?Below thee throbs her darling star;?Deep 'neath thy keel her round worlds are!

Above, below, O sweet surprise,?To gladden happy lover's eyes;?No earth, no wave--all jewell'd sides!

PART II.
The South Wind laid his moccasins aside,?Broke his gay calumet of flow'rs, and cast?His useless wampun, beaded with cool dews,?Far from him, northward; his long, ruddy spear?Flung sunward, whence it came, and his soft locks?Of warm, fine haze grew silver as the birch.?His wigwam of green leaves began to shake;?The crackling rice-beds scolded harsh like squaws:?The small ponds pouted up their silver lips;?The great lakes ey'd the mountains, whisper'd "Ugh!"?"Are ye so tall, O chiefs? Not taller than?Our plumes can reach." And rose a little way,?As panthers stretch to try their velvet limbs,?And then retreat to purr and bide their time.?At morn the sharp breath of the night arose?From the wide prairies, in deep struggling seas,?In rolling breakers, bursting to the sky;?In tumbling surfs, all yellow'd faintly thro'?With the low sun--in mad, conflicting crests,?Voic'd with low thunder from the hairy throats?Of the mist-buried herds; and for a man?To stand amid the cloudy roll and moil,?The phantom waters breaking overhead,?Shades of vex'd billows bursting on his breast,?Torn caves of mist wall'd with a sudden gold,?Reseal'd as swift as seen--broad, shaggy fronts,?Fire-ey'd and tossing on impatient horns?The wave impalpable--was but to think?A dream of phantoms held him as he stood.?The late, last thunders of the summer crash'd,?Where shrieked great eagles, lords of naked cliffs.?The pulseless forest, lock'd and interlock'd?So closely, bough with bough, and leaf with leaf,?So serf'd by its own wealth, that while from high?The moons of summer kiss'd its green-gloss'd locks;?And round its knees the merry West Wind danc'd;?And round its ring, compacted emerald;?The south wind crept on moccasins of flame;?And the fed fingers of th' impatient sun?Pluck'd at its outmost fringes--its dim veins?Beat with no life--its deep and dusky heart,?In a deep trance of shadow, felt no throb?To such soft wooing answer: thro' its dream?Brown rivers of deep waters sunless stole;?Small creeks sprang from its mosses, and amaz'd,?Like children in a wigwam curtain'd close?Above the great, dead, heart of some red chief,?Slipp'd on soft feet, swift stealing through the gloom,?Eager for light and for the