Whittiers Complete Poems, vol 1 | Page 7

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 of fox, nor
rabbit's bound,
Nor stir of wings, nor waters flowing,
Nor leaves in
midnight breezes blowing.
Was that the tread of many feet,
Which downward from the hillside
beat?
What forms were those which darkly stood
Just on the margin
of the wood?--
Charred tree-stumps in the moonlight dim,
Or paling
rude, or leafless limb?
No,--through the trees fierce eyeballs glowed,

Dark human forms in moonshine showed,
Wild from their native
wilderness,
With painted limbs and battle-dress.
A yell the dead might wake to hear
Swelled on the night air, far and
clear;
Then smote the Indian tomahawk
On crashing door and

shattering lock;
Then rang the rifle-shot, and then
The shrill death-scream of stricken
men,--
Sank the red axe in woman's brain,
And childhood's cry
arose in vain.
Bursting through roof and window came,
Red, fast,
and fierce, the kindled flame,
And blended fire and moonlight glared

On still dead men and scalp-knives bared.
The morning sun looked brightly through
The river willows, wet with
dew.
No sound of combat filled the air,
No shout was heard, nor
gunshot there;
Yet still the thick and sullen smoke
From
smouldering ruins slowly broke;
And on the greensward many a stain,

And, here and there, the mangled slain,
Told how that midnight
bolt had sped
Pentucket, on thy fated head.
Even now the villager can tell
Where Rolfe beside his hearthstone fell,

Still show the door of wasting oak,
Through which the fatal
death-shot broke,
And point the curious stranger where
De
Rouville's corse lay grim and bare;
Whose hideous head, in death still
feared,
Bore not a trace of hair or beard;
And still, within the
churchyard ground,
Heaves darkly up the ancient mound,
Whose
grass-grown surface overlies
The victims of that sacrifice.
1838.
THE NORSEMEN.
In the early part of the present century, a fragment of a statue, rudely
chiselled from dark gray stone, was found in the town of Bradford, on
the Merrimac. Its origin must be left entirely to conjecture. The fact
that the ancient Northmen visited the north-east coast of North America
and probably New England, some centuries before the discovery of the
western world by Columbus, is very generally admitted.
GIFT from the cold and silent Past!
A relic to the present cast,
Left
on the ever-changing strand
Of shifting and unstable sand,
Which
wastes beneath the steady chime
And beating of the waves of Time!


Who from its bed of primal rock
First wrenched thy dark,
unshapely block?
Whose hand, of curious skill untaught,
Thy rude
and savage outline wrought?
The waters of my native stream
Are glancing in the sun's warm beam;

From sail-urged keel and flashing oar
The circles widen to its shore;

And cultured field and peopled town
Slope to its willowed margin
down.
Yet, while this morning breeze is bringing
The home-life
sound of school-bells ringing,
And rolling wheel, and rapid jar
Of
the fire-winged and steedless car,
And voices from the wayside near

Come quick and blended on my ear,--
A spell is in this old gray
stone,
My thoughts are with the Past alone!
A change!--The steepled town no more
Stretches along the
sail-thronged shore;
Like palace-domes in sunset's cloud,
Fade
sun-gilt spire and mansion proud
Spectrally rising where they stood,

I see the old, primeval wood;
Dark, shadow-like, on either hand
I
see its solemn waste expand;
It climbs the green and cultured hill,
It
arches o'er the valley's rill,
And leans from cliff and crag to throw

Its wild arms o'er the stream below.
Unchanged, alone, the same
bright river
Flows on, as it will flow forever
I listen, and I hear the
low
Soft ripple where its waters go;
I hear behind the panther's cry,

The wild-bird's scream goes thrilling by,
And shyly on the river's
brink
The deer is stooping down to drink.
But hark!--from wood and rock flung back,
What sound comes up the
Merrimac?
What sea-worn barks are those which throw
The light
spray from each rushing prow?
Have they not in the North Sea's blast

Bowed to the waves the straining mast?

Their frozen sails the low,
pale sun
Of Thule's night has shone upon;
Flapped by the
sea-wind's gusty sweep
Round icy drift, and headland steep.
Wild
Jutland's wives and Lochlin's daughters
Have watched them fading
o'er the waters,
Lessening through driving mist and spray,
Like
white-winged sea-birds on their way!

Onward they glide,--and now I view
Their iron-armed and