And the gride of hatchets fiercely thrown, On wigwam-log and tree and stone. A grim and naked head is thrust To where across the echoing glen Of evil seen and done, 13 Of scalps brought home by his savage flock From Casco and Sawga and Sagadahock In the Church's service won. No shrift the gloomy savage brooks, As scowling on the priest he looks: "Cowesass -cowesass-tawhich wessaseen ?19 Let my father look upon Bomazeen, A dance and a feast for a great saga more, When he paddles across the western lake, With his dogs and his squaws to the spirit's shore. "Cowesass -cowesass-tawhich wessa seen? Let my father die like Bomazeen! " Through the chapel's narrow doors, And through each window in the walls, Round the priest and warrior pours The deadly shower of English balls. Low on his cross the Jesuit falls; While at his side the Norridgewock, With failing breath, essays to mock And menace yet the hated foe, Shakes his scalp-trophies to and fro Exultingly before their eyes, Till, cleft and torn by shot and blow, Defiant still, he dies. "So fare all eaters of the frog! Death to the Babylonish dog Down with the beast of Rome !" With shouts like these, around the dead, Unconscious on his bloody bed, The rangers crowding come. Brave men! the dead priest cannot hear The unfeeling taunt, the brutal jeer;Spurn for he sees ye not — in wrath, The symbol of your Saviour's death; Tear from his death-grasp, in your zeal, And trample, as a thing accursed, The cross he cherished in the dust : The dead man cannot feel! Brutal alike in deed and word, With callous heart and hand of strife, How like a fiend may man be made, Plying the foul and monstrous trade Whose harvest-field is human life, Whose sickle is the reeking sword! Quenching, with reckless hand in blood, And flowing with its crystal river, Through the gun-smoke wreathing white, From the world of light and breath, Wretched girl! one eye alone Even when a brother's blood, 'Tis springtime on the eastern hills ! Like torrents gush the summer rills; Through winter's moss and dry dead leaves The bladed grass revives and lives, The southwest wind is warmly blowing, Are with it on its errands going. A band is marching through the wood A wanderer from the shores of France. In the harsh outlines of his face His step is firm, his eye is keen, No purpose now of strife and blood Within the earth the bones of those Who perished in that fearful day, When Norridgewock became the prey Of all unsparing foes. Sadly and still, dark thoughts between, THE BRIDAL OF PENNACOOK. Of coming vengeance mused Castine, For firm defence or swift attack; 15 And the aged priest stood up to bless And the birchen boats of the Nor- Tethered to tree and stump and rock, Leaning against that maple-tree? And sweetly through the hazel-bushes The robin's mellow music gushes; God save her! will she sleep alway? Castine hath bent him over the sleeper: Wake, daughter, wake!" but 66 she stirs no limb: The eye that looks on him is fixed and dim; And the sleep she is sleeping shall be no deeper, Until the angel's oath is said, And the final blast of the trump goes forth To the graves of the sea and the graves of earth. RUTH BONYTHON IS DEAD! THE BRIDAL OF PENNACOOK." 1848. WE had been wandering for many days | Silent with wonder, where the mountain Through the rough northern country. We had seen The sunset, with its bars of purple cloud, Like a new heaven, shine upward from the lake Of Winnepiseogee; and had felt Of the bright waters. We had checked our steeds, wall Is piled to heaven; and, through the narrow rift Of the vast rocks, against whose rugged feet Beats the mad torrent with perpetual roar, Where noonday is as twilight, and the wind Comes burdened with the everlasting moan Of forests and of far-off waterfalls, We had looked upward where the sum- | Life's sunniest side, and with a heart to mer sky, Tasselled with clouds light-woven by The winding Pemigewasset, overhung By beechen shadows, whitening down its rocks, Or lazily gliding through its intervals, From waving rye-fields sending up the gleam Of sunlit waters. We had seen the moon Rising behind Umbagog's eastern pines, Like a great Indian camp-fire; and its beams At midnight spanning with a bridge of silver The Merrimack by Uncanoonuc's falls. take Slant And noon, starlight glimpses through the dewy leaves, tenderest moonrise. 'T was, in To mark his spirit, alternating between Laughed in the face of his divinity, Plucked off the sacred ephod, quite unshrined The oracle, and for the pattern priest Left us the man. A shrewd, sagacious merchant, To whom the soiled sheet found in Crawford's inn, Giving the latest news of city stocks And sales of cotton, had a deeper meaning Than the great presence of the awful mountains Glorified by the sunset; and his daughter A delicate flower on whom had blown too long Those evil winds, which, sweeping from the ice And winnowing the fogs of Labrador, Shed their cold blight round Massachusetts Bay, With the same breath which stirs Spring's opening leaves There were five souls of us whom trav- And lifts her half-formed flower-bell on Had thrown together in these wild Poisoning our seaside atmosphere. north hills: A city lawyer, for a month escaping From his dull office, where the weary eye Saw only hot brick walls and close thronged streets, Briefless as yet, but with an eye to see It chanced That as we turned upon our homeward way, A drear northeastern storm came howling up The valley of the Saco; and that girl THE BRIDAL OF PENNACOOK. 17 Who had stood with us upon Mount | Simple and beautiful as Truth and Na Washington, Her brown locks ruffled by the wind which whirled In gusts around its sharp cold pinnacle, Who had joined our gay trout-fishing in the streams Which lave that giant's feet; whose laugh was heard Like a bird's carol on the sunrise breeze Which swelled our sail amidst the lake's green islands, Shrank from its harsh, chill breath, and visibly drooped Like a flower in the frost. So, in that quiet inn Which looks from Conway on the mountains piled Heavily against the horizon of the north, Like summer thunder-clouds, we made our home : And while the mist hung over dripping hills, And the cold wind-driven rain-drops all day long Beat their sad music upon roof and pane, We strove to cheer our gentle invalid. The lawyer in the pauses of the storm Went angling down the Saco, and, returning, Recounted his adventures and mishaps; As the flower-skirted streams of Staffordshire, Where, under aged trees, the southwest wind Of soft June mornings fanned the thin, white hair Of the sage fisher. And, if truth be told, Our youthful candidate forsook his sermons, The associations of time, scene, and audience, Their place amid the pictures which fill up The chambers of my memory. Yet I trust That some, who sigh, while wandering in thought, Pilgrims of Romance o'er the olden world, That our broad land, our sea-like lakes and mountains Piled to the clouds, our rivers overhung |