That glorious picture of the air, Which summer'slight-robed angel forms On the dark ground of fading storms, With pencil dipped in sunbeams there, And, stretching out, on either hand, Slumbers the mighty wilderness ! Its dark green burthen upward heaves The hemlock broods above its rill, Against the birch's graceful stem, And the rough walnut-bough receives The sun upon its crowded leaves, Each colored like a topaz gem; The brief, bright sign of ruin near, The hermit priest, who lingers now While gazing on the scene below, May half forget the dreams of home, That nightly with his slumbers come, The tranquil skies of sunny France, The peasant's harvest song and dance, The vines around the hillsides wreathing The soft airs midst their clusters breathing, The wings which dipped, the stars which shone Within thy bosom, blue Garonne ! And round the Abbey's shadowed wall, At morning spring and even-fall, Sweet voices in the still air singing, The chant of many a holy hymn, The solemn bell of vespers ringing,And hallowed torch-light falling dim On pictured saint and seraphim! For here beneath him lies unrolled, Bathed deep in morning's flood of gold, A vision gorgeous as the dream Of the beatified may seem, When, as his Church's legends say, Borne upward in ecstatic bliss, The rapt enthusiast soars away Unto a brighter world than this: A mortal's glimpse beyond the pale, A moment's lifting of the veil ! Far eastward o'er the lovely bay, Penobscot's clustered wigwams lay; And gently from that Indian town The verdant hillside slopes adown, To where the sparkling waters play Upon the yellow sands below; And shooting round the winding shores Of narrow capes, and isles which lie Slumbering to ocean's lullaby,With birchen boat and glancing oars, The red men to their fishing go; While from their planting ground is borne The treasure of the golden corn, By laughing girls, whose dark eyes glow Wild through the locks which o'er them flow. The wrinkled squaw, whose toil is done, Beneath the westward turning eye Touched by the pencil of the frost, The brighter with the darker crossed, Their thousand tints of beauty glow Down in the restless waves below, And tremble in the sunny skies, As if, from waving bough to bough, Flitted the birds of paradise. There sleep Placentia's group, - and there Père Breteaux marks the hour of prayer; And there, beneath the sea-worn cliff, MOGG MEGONE. On which the Father's hut is seen, The Indian stays his rocking skiff, And peers the hemlock-boughs be tween, Half trembling, as he seeks to look Swells in the north vast Katahdin : And mingle with his own bright bay. Slow sweep his dark and gathering floods, Arched over by the ancient woods, Not thus, within the woods which hide And with their falling timbers block Thy broken currents, Kennebec ! Gazes the white man on the wreck Ofthe down-trodden Norridgewock,— In one lone village hemmed at length, In battle shorn of half their strength, Turned, like the panther in his lair, With his fast-flowing life-blood wet, For one last struggle of despair, Wounded and faint, but tameless yet! Unreaped, upon the planting lands, The scant, neglected harvest stands: No shout is there, — no dance, song: -no The aspect of the very child The scalping of an English foe: Wreathes on his lip a horrid smile, Burns, like a snake's, his small eye, while Some bough or sapling meets his blow. The fisher, as he drops his line, II That stranger's garb is soiled and torn, Yet still, in that disordered face, With drooping head, and voice so low, ears, While through her clasped fingers flow, "O father, bear with me; my heart Bear with me while I speak, -but turn "My dear lost mother! sad and pale, Mournfully sinking day by day, And with a hold on life as frail As frosted leaves, that, thin and gray, Hang feebly on their parent spray, And tremble in the gale; Yet watching o'er my childishness With patient fondness, not the less For all the agony which kept Her blue eye wakeful, while I slept; And checking every tear and groan That haply might have waked my own, And bearing still, without offence, My idle words, and petulance; Reproving with a tear, and, while The tooth of pain was keenly preying Upon her very heart, repaying My brief repentance with a smile. "O. in her meek, forgiving eye There was a brightness not of mirth, A light whose clear intensity Was borrowed not of earth. Along her cheek a deepening red 'T was like the hue which Autumn gives -- On wooded Agamenticus, When, sitting by our cottage wall, The murmur of the Saco's fail, And the south-wind's expiring sighs Came, softly blending, on my ear, With the low tones I loved to hear: Tales of the pure, the good, - the wise, The holy men and maids of old, Amid her father's thirsty flock, Her awful vigil on the mountains, By Israel's virgin daughters wept ; ̧ Of Miriam, with her maidens, singing The song for grateful Israel meet, While every crimson wave was bringing The spoils of Egypt at her feet; Of her, Samaria's humble daughter, Who paused to hear, beside her well, Lessons of love and truth, which fell Softly as Shiloh's flowing water; And saw, beneath his pilgrim guise, The Promised One, so long foretold By holy seer and bard of old, Revealed before her wondering eyes! MOGG MEGONE. And even my father checked his tread, "Calm as a child to slumber soothed, As if an angel's hand had smoothed The still, white features into rest, Silent and cold, without a breath To stir the drapery on her breast, Pain, with its keen and poisoned fang, The horror of the mortal pang, The suffering look her brow had worn, The fear, the strife, the anguish gone, She slept at last in death! "O, tell me, father, can the dead Walk on the earth, and look on us, And lay upon the living's head Their blessing or their curse? For, O, last night she stood by me, As I lay beneath the woodland tree!" The Jesuit crosses himself in awe,"Jesu! what was it my daughter saw?" "She came to me last night. The dried leaves did not feel her She stood by me in the wan moonlight, The Jesuit makes the holy sign, — mine?" "All dimly in the wan moonshine, As a wreath of mist will twist and twine, 13 And scatter, and melt into the light, "God help thee, daughter, tell me why That deeds of mine have summoned her From the unbreathing sepulchre, To leave her last rebuke with me. Ah, woe for me! my mother died Just at the moment when I stood Close on the verge of womanhood, A child in everything beside; And when my wild heart needed most Her gentle counsels, they were lost. My father lived a stormy life, Of frequent change and daily strife: And,God forgive him! left his child To feel, like him, a freedom wild; To love the red man's dwelling-place, The birch boat on his shaded floods, The wild excitement of the chase Sweeping the ancient woods, The camp-fire, blazing on the shore Of the still lakes, the clear stream, where The idle fisher sets his wear, Or angles in the shade, far more Than that restraining awe I felt Beneath my gentle mother's care, When nightly at her knee I knelt, With childhood's simple prayer. "There came a change. The wild, glad mood Of unchecked freedom passed. And waters glancing bright and fast, Whose dark, keen glance had power to wake Both fear and love, -to awe and charm ; |