43

AROUND Sebago's lonely lake

There lingers not a breeze to break The mirror which its waters make.

The solemn pines along its shore,
The firs which hang its gray rocks o'er,
Are painted on its glassy floor.

The sun looks o'er, with hazy eye,
The snowy mountain-tops which lie
Piled coldly up against the sky.

Dazzling and white! save where the bleak,

Wild winds have bared some splintering peak,

Or snow-slide left its dusky streak.

Yet green are Saco's banks below,
And belts of spruce and cedar show,
Dark fringing round those cones of

snow.

The earth hath felt the breath of spring, Though yet on her deliverer's wing The lingering frosts of winter cling.

Fresh grasses fringe the meadowbrooks,

And mildly from its sunny nooks
The blue eye of the violet looks.

And odors from the springing grass,
The sweet birch and the sassafras,
Upon the scarce-felt breezes pass

Her tokens of renewing care
Hath Nature scattered everywhere,
In bud and flower, and warmer air.

But in their hour of bitterness,
What reck the broken Sokokis,
Beside their slaughtered chief, of this?

The turf's red stain is yet undried, Scarce have the death-shot echoes died Along Sebago's wooded side:

And silent now the hunters stand, Grouped darkly, where a swell of land Slopes upward from the lake's white sand.

Fire and the axe have swept it bare, Save one lone beech, unclosing there Its light leaves in the vernal air.

With grave, cold looks, all sternly mute,
They break the damp turf at its foot,
And bare its coiled and twisted root.

They heave the stubborn trunk aside,
The firm roots from the earth divide,
The rent beneath yawns dark and wide.
And there the fallen chief is laid,
In tasselled garbs of skins arrayed,
And girded with his wampum-braid.

The silver cross he loved is pressed
Beneath the heavy arms, which rest
Upon his scarred and naked breast.

'Tis done: the roots are backward sent, The beechen-tree stands up unbent, The Indian's fitting monument!

When of that sleeper's broken race Their green and pleasant dwelling-place Which knew them once, retains no trace;

Not with our partial eye shall scan, Not with our pride and scorn shall ban, The spirit of our brother man !

ST. JOHN.

1647.

"To the winds give our banner!
Bear homeward again!"
Cried the Lord of Acadia,
Cried Charles of Estienne;
From the prow of his shallop
He gazed, as the sun,
From its bed in the ocean,
Streamed up the St. John.

O'er the blue western waters
That shallop had passed,
Where the mists of Penobscot
Clung damp on her mast.
St. Saviour had looked

On the heretic sail,
As the songs of the Huguenot
Rose on the gale.

The pale, ghostly fathers
Remembered her well,
And had cursed her while passing
With taper and bell,

But the men of Monhegan,
Of Papists abhorred,
Had welcomed and feasted
The heretic Lord.

They had loaded his shallop
With dun-fish and ball,
With stores for his larder,
And steel for his wall.
Pemequid, from her bastions
And turrets of stone,
Had welcomed his coming
With banner and gun.

And the prayers of the elders
Had followed his way,
As homeward he glided,

Down Pentecost Bay.
O, well sped La Tour!
For, in peril and pain,
His lady kept watch,
For his coming again.

O, the loveliest of heavens
Hung tenderly o'er him,
There were waves in the sunshine,
And green isles before him:
But a pale hand was beckoning
The Huguenot on;

And in blackness and ashes
Behind was St. John!

PENTUCKET. 1708.

How sweetly on the wood-girt town
The mellow light of sunset shone !
Each small, bright lake, whose waters
still

Mirror the forest and the hill,
Reflected from its waveless breast
The beauty of a cloudless west,
Glorious as if a glimpse were given
Within the western gates of heaven,
Left, by the spirit of the star
Of sunset's holy hour, ajar!

Beside the river's tranquil flood
The dark and low-walled dwellings
stood,

Where many a rood of open land Stretched up and down on either hand, With corn-leaves waving freshly green The thick and blackened stumps be

Hours passed away. By moonlight sped
The Merrimack along his bed.
Bathed in the pallid lustre, stood
Dark cottage-wall and rock and wood,
Silent, beneath that tranquil beam,
As the hushed grouping of a dream.
Yet on the still air crept a sound,
No bark of fox, nor rabbit's bound,
Nor stir of wings, nor waters flowing,
Nor leaves in midnight breezes blow-
ing.

Was that the tread of many feet,
Which downward from the hillside beat?
What forms were those which darkly
stood

Just on the margin of the wood?Charred tree-stumps in the moonlight dim,

Or paling rude, or leafless limb? No, through the trees fierce eyeballs glowed

Dark human forms in moonshine showed,

Wild from their native wilderness,
With painted limbs and battle-dress!

A yell the dead might wake to hear
Swelled on the night air, far and clear,-
Then smote the Indian tomahawk
On crashing door and shattering lock,—
Then rang the rifle-shot, - and then
The shrill death-scream of stricken
men, -

Sank the red axe in woman's brain,
And childhood's cry arose in vain,-
Bursting through roof and window