THE MERRIMACK.

["The Indians speak of a beautiful river, far to the south, which they call Merrimack."- SIEUR DE MONTS: 1604.]

STREAM of my fathers! sweetly still
The sunset rays thy valley fill ;
Poured slantwise down the long defile,
Wave, wood, and spire beneath them
smile.

I see the winding Powow fold
The green hill in its belt of gold,
And following down its wavy line,
Its sparkling waters blend with thine.
There's not a tree upon thy side,
Nor rock, which thy returning tide
As yet hath left abrupt and stark
Above thy evening water-mark;
No calm cove with its rocky hem,
No isle whose emerald swells begem
Thy broad, smooth current; not a sail
Bowed to the freshening ocean gale;
No small boat with its busy oars,
Nor gray wall sloping to thy shores;
Nor farm-house with its maple shade,
Or rigid poplar colonnade,
But lies distinct and full in sight,
Beneath this gush of sunset light.
Centuries ago, that harbor-bar,
Stretching its length of foam afar,
And Salisbury's beach of shining sand,
And yonder island's wave-smoothed
strand,

Saw the adventurer's tiny sail

Flit, stooping from the eastern gale; 27 And o'er these woods and waters broke The cheer from Britain's hearts of oak, As brightly on the voyager's eye, Weary of forest, sea, and sky, Breaking the dull continuous wood, The Merrimack rolled down his flood; Mingling that clear pellucid brook,

The frozen fountains of the rock,
And more abundant waters given
From that pure lake, "The Smile of
Heaven,' "128

Tributes from vale and mountain-side,-
With ocean's dark, eternal tide!

On yonder rocky cape, which braves
The stormy challenge of the waves,
Midst tangled vine and dwarfish wood,
The hardy Anglo-Saxon stood,
Planting upon the topmost crag
The staff of England's battle-flag:
And, while from out its heavy fold
Saint George's crimson cross unrolled,
Midst roll of drum and trumpet blare,
And weapons brandishing in air,
He

gave to that lone promontory
The sweetest name in all his story;29
Of her, the flower of Islam's daughters.
Whose harems look on Stamboul's

waters,

Who, when the chance of war had bound

The Moslem chain his limbs around, Wreathed o'er with silk that iron chain, Soothed with her smiles his hours of

pain,

And fondly to her youthful slave
A dearer gift than freedom gave.
But look!-the yellow light no more
Streams down on wave and verdant

shore:

And clearly on the calm air swells The twilight voice of distant bells. From Ocean's bosom, white and thin, The mists come slowly rolling in; Hills, woods, the river's rocky rim, Amidst the sea-like vapor swim,

While yonder lonely coast-light, set
Within its wave-washed minaret,
Half quenched, a beamless star and
pale,

Shines dimly through its cloudy veil!

Home of my fathers! I have stood
Where Hudson rolled his lordly flood:
Seen sunrise rest and sunset fade
Along his frowning Palisade;
Looked down the Apalachian peak
On Juniata's silver streak;
Have seen along his valley gleam
The Mohawk's softly winding stream;
The level light of sunset shine
Through broad Potomac's hem of pine;
And autumn's rainbow-tinted banner
Hang light'y o'er the Susquehanna;
Yet, wheresoe'er his step might be,
Thy wandering child looked back to
thee!

Heard in his dreams thy river's sound
Of murmuring on its pebbly bound,
The unforgotten swell and roar
Of waves on thy familiar shore ;
And saw, amidst the curtained gloom
And quiet of his lonely room,
Thy sunset scenes before him pass;
As, in Agrippa's magic glass,
The loved and lost arose to view,
Remembered groves in greenness grew,
Bathed still in childhood's morning
dew,

Along whose bowers of beauty swept
Whatever Memory's mourners wept,
Sweet faces, which the charnel kept,
Young, gentle eyes, which long had
slept;

And while the gazer leaned to trace,
More near, some dear familiar face,
He wept to find the vision flown,
A phantom and a dream alone!

THE NORSEMEN.30

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 bring-
ing

The home-life sound of school-bel's 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 mos R
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 throy
Its wild arms o'er the stream below.
Unchanged, alone, the same bright

nver

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 thrillinghy,
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 Merrimack? 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;

-

Onward they glide, and now I view
Their iron-armed and stalwart crew;
Joy glistens in each wild blue eye,
Turned to green earth and summer sky:
Each broad, seamed breast has cast aside
Its cumbering vest of shaggy hide;
Bared to the sun and soft warm air,
Streams back the Norsemen's yellow
hair.

I see the gleam of axe and spear,
The sound of smitten shields I hear,
Keeping a harsh and fitting time
To Saga's chant, and Runic rhyme:
Such lays as Zetland's Scald has sung,
His gray and naked isles among;
Or muttered low at midnight hour
Round Odin's mossy stone of power.
The wolf beneath the Arctic moon
Has answered to that startling rune;
The Gael has heard its stormy swell,
The light Frank knows its summons
well;

Iona's sable-stoled Culdee

Has heard it sounding o'er the sea, And swept, with hoary beard and hair, His altar's foot in trembling prayer! "T is past, the 'wildering vision dies In darkness on my dreaming eyes!

39

The forest vanishes in air, Hill-slope and vale lie starkly bare; I hear the common tread of men, And hum of work-day life again : The mystic relic seems alone A broken mass of common stone; And if it be the chiselled limb Of Berserker or idol grim, A fragment of Valhalla's Thor, The stormy Viking's god of War, Or Praga of the Runic lay, Or love-awakening Siona, I know not, for no graven line, Nor Druid mark, nor Runic sign, Is left me here, by which to trace Its name, or origin, or place. Yet, for this vision of the Past, This glance upon its darkness cast, My spirit bows in gratitude Before the Giver of all good, Who fashioned so the human mind, That, from the waste of Time behind A simple stone, or mound of earth, Can summon the departed forth; Quicken the Past to life again, The Present lose in what hath been, And in their primal freshness show The buried forms of long ago. As if a portion of that Thought By which the Eternal will is wrought, Whose impulse fills anew with breath The frozen solitude of Death, To mortal mind were sometimes lent, To mortal musings sometimes sent, To whisper even when it seems But Memory's fantasy of dreamsThrough the mind's waste of woe and

sin,

Of an immortal origin !