Whose melody yet lingers like the last
Vibration of the red man's requiem,
Exchanged for syllables significant

Of cotton-mill and rail-car-will look kindly
Upon this effort to call up the ghost

Of our dim Past, and listen with pleased ear
To the responses of the questioned Shade:

I. THE MERRIMACK.

On, child of that white-crested mountain whose springs

Gush forth in the shade of the cliff-eagle's wings, Down whose slopes to the lowlands thy wild waters shine,

Leaping gray walls of rock, flashing through the dwarf pine.

From that cloud-curtained cradle so cold and so lone,

From the arms of that wintry-locked mother of

stone,

By hills hung with forests, through vales wide and free,

Thy mountain-born brightness glanced down to the sea!

No bridge arched thy waters save that where the

trees

Stretched their long arms above thee and kissed in the breeze:

No sound save the lapse of the waves on thy shores,
The plunging of otters, the light dip of oars.

Green-tufted, oak-shaded, by Amoskeag's fall
Thy twin Uncanoonucs rose stately and tall,
Thy Nashua meadows lay green and unshorn,
And the hills of Pentucket were tasselled with

corn.

But thy Pennacook valley was fairer than these,
And greener its grasses and taller its trees,
Ere the sound of an axe in the forest had rung,
Or the mower his scythe in the meadows had swung

In their sheltered repose looking out from the wood
The bark-builded wigwams of Pennacook stood,
There glided the corn-dance-the Council fire
shone,

And against the red war-post the hatchet was thrown.

There the old smoked in silence their pipes, and the young

To the pike and the white perch their baited lines flung;

There the boy shaped his arrows, and there the shy maid

Wove her many-hued baskets and bright wampum braid.

Oh, Stream of the Mountains! if answer of thine Could rise from thy waters to question of mine, Methinks through the din of thy thronged banks a

moan

Of sorrow would swell for the days which have

gone.

Not for thee the dull jar of the loom and the wheel,
The gliding of shuttles, the ringing of steel;
But that old voice of waters, of bird and of breeze,
The dip of the wild-fowl, the rustling of trees!

II. THE BASHABA.2

LIFT we the twilight curtains of the Past,
And turning from familiar sight and sound
Sadly and full of reverence let us cast

A glance upon Tradition's shadowy ground,

Led by the few pale lights, which glimmering round,

That dim, strange land of Eld, seem dying fast; And that which history gives not to the eye, The faded coloring of Time's tapestry,

Let Fancy, with her dream-dipped brush supply

Roof of bark and walls of pine,

Through whose chinks the sunbeams shine,
Tracing many a golden line

On the ample floor within;

Where upon that earth-floor stark,

Lay the gaudy mats of bark,

With the bear's hide, rough and dark,
And the red-deer's skin.

Window-tracery, small and slight,
Woven of the willow white,
Lent a dimly-checkered light,

And the night-stars glimmered down,
Where the lodge-fire's heavy smoke,
Slowly through an opening broke,
In the low roof, ribbed with oak,
Sheathed with hemlock brown.

Gloomed behind the changeless shade,
By the solemn pine-wood made;
Through the rugged palisade,

In the open foreground planted,
Glimpses came of rowers rowing,
Stir of leaves and wild flowers blowing,
Steel-like gleams of water flowing,
In the sunlight slanted.

Here the mighty Bashaba,
Held his long-unquestioned sway,
From the White Hills, far away,

To the great sea's sounding shore;
Chief of chiefs, his regal word

All the river Sachems heard,
At his call the war-dance stirred,
Or was still once more.

There his spoils of chase and war,
Jaw of wolf and black bear's paw,
Panther's skin and eagle's claw,
Lay besides his axe and bow;
And, adown the roof-pole hung,
Loosely on a snake-skin strung,
In the smoke his scalp-locks swung
Grimly to and fro.

Nightly down the river going,
Swifter was the hunter's rowing,
When he saw that lodge-fire glowing
O'er the waters still and red;
And the squaw's dark eye burned brighter,
And she drew her blanket tighter,
As, with quicker step and lighter,
From that door she fled.

For that chief had magic skill,
And a Panisee's dark will,

Over powers of good and ill,

Powers which bless and powers which ban— Wizard lord of Pennacook,

Chiefs upon their war-path shook,
When they met the steady look
Of that wise dark man.

Tales of him the gray squaw told,
When the winter night-wind cold
Pierced her blanket's thickest fold,
And the fire burned low and small,
Till the very child a-bed,

Drew its bear-skin over head,
Shrinking from the pale lights shed
On the trembling wall.

All the subtle spirits hiding
Under earth or wave, abiding
In the caverned rock, or riding
Misty clouds or morning breeze;
Every dark intelligence,
Secret soul, and influence

Of all things which outward sense
Feels, or hears or sees,-

These the wizard's skill confessed,
At his bidding banned or blessed,
Stormful woke or lulled to rest

Wind and cloud, and fire and flood;
Burned for him the drifted snow,
Bade through ice fresh lilies blow,
And the leaves of summer grow
Over winter's wood!

Not untrue that tale of old!
Now, as then, the wise and bold
All the powers of Nature hold
Subject to their kingly will;
From the wondering crowds ashore,
Treading life's wild waters o'er,
As upon a marble floor,

Moves the strong man still.

Still, to such, life's elements
With their sterner laws dispense,
And the chain of consequence
Broken in their pathway lies;
Time and change their vassals making,
Flowers from icy pillows waking,
Tresses of the sunrise shaking

Over midnight skies.

Still, to earnest souls, the sun

Rests on towered Gibeon,

And the moon of Ajalon