Whittiers Complete Poems, vol 1 | Page 9

mother's breast?
Deem ye that mother loveth less
These bronzed forms of the
wilderness
She foldeth in her long caress?
As sweet o'er them her wild-flowers blow,
As if with fairer hair and
brow
The blue-eyed Saxon slept below.
What though the places of their rest
No priestly knee hath ever
pressed,--
No funeral rite nor prayer hath blessed?
What though the bigot's ban be there,
And thoughts of wailing and
despair,
And cursing in the place of prayer.
Yet Heaven hath angels watching round
The Indian's lowliest
forest-mound,--
And they have made it holy ground.
There ceases man's frail judgment; all
His powerless bolts of cursing
fall
Unheeded on that grassy pall.
O peeled and hunted and reviled,
Sleep on, dark tenant of the wild!

Great Nature owns her simple child!
And Nature's God, to whom alone
The secret of the heart is known,--

The hidden language traced thereon;

Who from its many cumberings
Of form and creed, and outward
things,
To light the naked spirit brings;
Not with our partial eye shall scan,
Not with our pride and scorn shall
ban,
The spirit of our brother man!
1841.
ST. JOHN.
The fierce rivalry between Charles de La Tour, a Protestant, and
D'Aulnay Charnasy, a Catholic, for the possession of Acadia, forms
one of the most romantic passages in the history of the New World. La
Tour received aid in several instances from the Puritan colony of
Massachusetts. During one of his voyages for the purpose of obtaining
arms and provisions for his establishment at St. John, his castle was
attacked by D'Aulnay, and successfully defended by its high-spirited
mistress. A second attack however followed in the fourth month, 1647,
when D'Aulnay was successful, and the garrison was put to the sword.
Lady La Tour languished a few days in the hands of her enemy, and
then died of grief.
"To the winds give our banner!
Bear homeward again!"
Cried the
Lord of Acadia,
Cried Charles of Estienne;
From the prow of his
shallop
He gazed, as the sun,
From its bed in the ocean,
Streamed
up the St. John.
O'er the blue western waters
That shallop had passed,
Where the
mists of Penobscot
Clung damp on her mast.
St. Saviour had looked

On the heretic sail,
As the songs of the Huguenot
Rose on the
gale.
The pale, ghostly fathers
Remembered her well,
And had cursed her
while passing,
With taper and bell;
But the men of Monhegan,
Of
Papists abhorred,
Had welcomed and feasted
The heretic Lord.
They had loaded his shallop
With dun-fish and ball,
With stores for
his larder,
And steel for his wall.
Pemaquid, from her bastions


And turrets of stone,
Had welcomed his coming
With banner and
gun.
And the prayers of the elders
Had followed his way,
As homeward
he glided,
Down Pentecost Bay.
Oh, well sped La Tour
For, in
peril and pain,
His lady kept watch,
For his coming again.
O'er the Isle of the Pheasant
The morning sun shone,
On the
plane-trees which shaded
The shores of St. John.
"Now, why from
yon battlements
Speaks not my love!
Why waves there no banner

My fortress above?"
Dark and wild, from his deck
St. Estienne gazed about,
On
fire-wasted dwellings,
And silent redoubt;
From the low, shattered
walls
Which the flame had o'errun,
There floated no banner,

There thundered no gun!
But beneath the low arch
Of its doorway there stood
A pale priest
of Rome,
In his cloak and his hood.
With the bound of a lion,
La
Tour sprang to land,
On the throat of the Papist
He fastened his
hand.
"Speak, son of the Woman
Of scarlet and sin!
What wolf has been
prowling
My castle within?"
From the grasp of the soldier
The
Jesuit broke,
Half in scorn, half in sorrow,
He smiled as he spoke:
"No wolf, Lord of Estienne,
Has ravaged thy hall,
But thy
red-handed rival,
With fire, steel, and ball!

On an errand of mercy

I hitherward came,
While the walls of thy castle
Yet spouted with
flame.
"Pentagoet's dark vessels
Were moored in the bay,
Grim sea-lions,
roaring
Aloud for their prey."
"But what of my lady?"
Cried
Charles of Estienne.
"On the shot-crumbled turret
Thy lady was
seen:

"Half-veiled in the smoke-cloud,
Her hand grasped thy pennon,

While her dark tresses swayed
In the hot breath of cannon!
But woe
to the heretic,
Evermore woe!
When the son of the church
And
the cross is his foe!
"In the track of the shell,
In the path of the ball,
Pentagoet swept
over
The breach of the wall!
Steel to steel, gun to gun,
One
moment,--and then
Alone stood the victor,
Alone with his men!
"Of its sturdy defenders,
Thy lady alone
Saw the cross-blazoned
banner
Float over St. John."
"Let the dastard look to it!"
Cried
fiery Estienne,
"Were D'Aulnay King Louis,
I'd free her again!"
"Alas for thy lady!
No service from thee
Is needed by her
Whom
the Lord hath set free;
Nine days, in stern silence,
Her thraldom she
bore,
But the tenth morning came,
And Death opened her door!"
As if suddenly smitten
La Tour staggered back;
His hand grasped
his sword-hilt,
His forehead grew black.
He sprang on the deck

Of his shallop again.
"We cruise now for vengeance!
Give way!"
cried Estienne.
"Massachusetts shall hear
Of the Huguenot's wrong,
And from
island and creekside
Her fishers shall throng!
Pentagoet shall rue

What his Papists have done,
When his palisades echo
The Puritan's
gun!"
Oh, the loveliest of heavens
Hung tenderly o'er him,
There were
waves in the sunshine,
And green isles before him:
But a pale hand
was beckoning
The Huguenot