Père Breteaux marks the hour of prayer;
And there, beneath the sea-worn cliff,
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
Upon the Jesuit's Cross and Book.14
There, gloomily against the sky
The Dark Isles rear their summits high;
And Desert Rock, abrupt and bare,
Lifts its gray turrets in the air,
Seen from afar, like some stronghold
Built by the ocean kings of old;
And, faint as smoke-wreath white and
thin,

Swells in the north vast Katahdin :
And, wandering from its marshy feet,
The broad Penobscot comes to meet

And mingle with his own bright bay. Slow sweep his dark and gathering floods, Arched over by the ancient woods, Which Time, in those dim solitudes, Wielding the dull axe of Decay, Alone hath ever shorn away.

Not thus, within the woods which hide The beauty of thy azure tide,

And with their falling timbers block Thy broken currents, Kennebec ! Gazes the white man on the wreck

Of the down-trodden Norridgewock,

song: The aspect of the very child Scowls with a meaning sad and wild Of bitterness and wrong. The almost infant Norridgewock Essays to lift the tomahawk; And plucks his father's knife away, To mimic, in his frightful play,

no

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, Starts, when he sees the hazels quiver Along the margin of the river, Looks up and down the rippling tide, And grasps the firelock at his side: For Bomazeen 15 from Tacconock Has sent his runners to Norridgewock, With tidings that Moulton and Harmon of York

Far up the river have come : They have left their boats, they have entered the wood,

And the forest paths, to that chapel door; And marvel to mark the naked knees

And the dusky foreheads bending there,
While, in coarse white vesture, over these
In blessing or in prayer,
Stretching abroad his thin pale hands,
Like a shrouded ghost, the Jesuit 16 stands.

Two forms are now in that chapel dim,
The Jesuit, silent and sad and pale,
Anxiously heeding some fearful tale,
Which a stranger is telling him.
That stranger's garb is soiled and torn,
And wet with dew and loosely worn;
Her fair neglected hair falls down
O'er cheeks with wind and sunshine
brown;

Yet still, in that disordered face,
The Jesuit's cautious eye can trace
Those elements of former grace
Which, half effaced, seem scarcely less,
Even now, than perfect loveliness.

"O father, bear with me; my heart
Is sick and death-like, and my brain
Seems girdled with a fiery chain,
Whose scorching links will never part,
And never cool again.

Bear with me while I speak, but turn
Away that gentle eye, the while,
The fires of guilt more fiercely burn
Beneath its holy smile;
For half I fancy I can see
My mother's sainted look in thee.

"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;

9 and, while The tooth of pain was keenly preying Upon her very heart, repaying My brief repentance with a smile.

Reproving with a tear,

"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
Told where the feverish hectic fed;
And yet, each fatal token gave
To the mild beauty of her face
A newer and a dearer grace,

Unwarning of the grave.

'T was like the hue which Autumn gives
To yonder changed and dying leaves,
Breathed over by his frosty breath;
Scarce can the gazer feel that this
Is but the spoiler's treacherous kiss,
The mocking-smile of Death!

"Sweet were the tales she used to tell
When summer's eve was dear to us,
And, fading from the darkening dell,
The glory of the sunset fell

On wooded Agamenticus,
When, sitting by our cottage wall,
The murmur of the Saco's fall,

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,
In the all-sacred pages told;

Of Rachel, stooped at Haran's fountains,

Amid her father's thirsty flock, Beautiful to her kinsman seeming As the bright angels of his dreaming, On Padan-aran's holy rock; Of gentle Ruth, and her who kept 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!

"Slowly she faded. Day by day Her step grew weaker in our hall, And fainter, at each even-fall,

Her sad voice died away.
Yet on her thin, pale lip, the while,
Sat Resignation's holy smile:
And even my father checked his tread,
And hushed his voice, beside her bed :
Beneath the calm and sad rebuke
Of her meek eye's imploring look,
The scowl of hate his brow forsook,

And in his stern and gloomy eye,
At times, a few unwonted tears
Wet the dark lashes, which for years
Hatred and pride had kept so dry.

"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
tread;

She stood by me in the wan moonlight,
In the white robes of the dead!
Pale, and very mournfully
She bent her light form over me.
I heard no sound, I felt no breath
Breathe o'er me from that face of death:
Its blue eyes rested on my own,
Rayless and cold as eyes of stone;
Yet, in their fixed, unchanging gaze,
Something, which spoke of early days, -
A sadness in their quiet glare,
As if love's smile were frozen there,
Came o'er me with an icy thrill;
O God! I feel its
presence still!

The Jesuit makes the holy sign, "How passed the vision, daughter mine?"

"All dimly in the wan moonshine,
As a wreath of mist will twist and twine,
And scatter, and melt into the light,
So scattering, melting on my sight,
The pale, cold vision passed;
But those sad eyes were fixed on mine
Mournfully to the last."

"God help thee, daughter, tell me why That spirit passed before thine eye!"

"Father, I know not, save it be

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.
Amid the ancient solitude
Of unshorn grass and waving wood,

And waters glancing bright and fast,
A softened voice was in my ear,
Sweet as those lulling sounds and fine
The hunter lifts his head to hear,
Now far and faint, now full and near-
The murmur of the wind-swept pine.
A manly form was ever nigh,

A bold, free hunter, with an eye Whose dark, keen glance had power to wake

Both fear and love, to awe and charm; 'T was as the wizard rattlesnake, Whose evil glances lure to harm

form

firm:

Pale priest! What proud and lofty dreams,

What keen desires, what cherished schemes,

What hopes, that time may not recall, Are darkened by that chieftain's fall! Was he not pledged, by cross and vow,

To lift the hatchet of his sire, And, round his own, the Church's foe, To light the avenging fire? Who now the Tarrantine shall wake, For thine and for the Church's sake? Who summon to the scene Of conquest and unsparing strife, And vengeance dearer than his life,

The fiery-souled Castine? 17 Three backward steps the Jesuit takes, His long, thin frame as ague shakes; And loathing hate is in his eye, As from his lips these words of fear Fall hoarsely on the maiden's ear, "The soul that sinneth shall surely die !"

That writhes at his feet like a trodden

worm.

Ever thus the spirit must,

Guilty in the sight of Heaven, With a keener woe be riven, For its weak and sinful trust In the strength of human dust ; And its anguish thrill afresh, For each vain reliance given To the failing arm of flesh.

PART III.

AH, weary Priest !-with pale hands pressed

On thy throbbing brow of pain, Baffled in thy life-long quest, Overworn with toiling vain, How ill thy troubled musings fit The holy quiet of a breast

With the Dove of Peace at rest,
Sweetly brooding over it.

Thoughts are thine which have no part
With the meek and pure of heart,
Undisturbed by outward things,
Resting in the heavenly shade,
By the overspreading wings

Of the Blessed Spirit made.
Thoughts of strife and hate and wrong
Sweep thy heated brain along,
Fading hopes for whose success

It were sin to breathe a prayer ;Schemes which Heaven may bless,

Fears which darken to despair. Hoary priest ! thy dream is done Of a hundred red tribes won

never