Whittiers Complete Poems, vol 1 | Page 6

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,?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?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.
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?
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 Indians Pentucket, was for nearly seventeen years a frontier town, and during thirty years endured all the horrors of savage warfare. In the year 1708, a combined body of French and Indians, under the command of De Chaillons, and Hertel de Rouville, the famous 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 number made prisoners. About thirty of the enemy also fell, among them Hertel de Rouville. The minister of the place, Benjamin Rolfe, was killed by a shot through his own door. In a paper entitled The Border War of 1708, published in my collection of Recreations 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.
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