Briefless as yet, but with an eye to see Life's sunniest side, and with a heart to take Its chances all as godsends; and his brother, Pale from long pulpit studies, yet retaining The warmth and freshness of a genial heart, Whose mirror of the beautiful and true, In Man and Nature, was as yet undimmed By dust of theologic strife, or breath Of sect, or cobwebs of scholastic lore; Like a clear crystal calm of water, taking The hue and image of o'erleaning flowers, Sweet human faces, white clouds of the noon, Slant starlight glimpses through the dewy leaves, And tenderest moonrise. 'Twas, in truth, a study, 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 And lifts her half-formed flower-bell on its stem, Poisoning our seaside atmosphere. 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 Who had stood with us upon Mount 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 Staf fordshire, 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 ser Of scaly fiends and angels not unlike Last home, a musty pile of almanacs, sketched 25 It may be that these fragments owe alone To the fair setting of their circumstan ces, 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 By forests which have known no other change For ages, than the budding and the fall Of leaves, - our valleys lovelier than those Which the old poets sang of, should but figure On the apocryphal chart of speculation As pastures, wood-lots, mill-sites, with the privileges, Rights, and appurtenances, which make Whose melody yet lingers like the last Upon this effort to call up the ghost ear To the responses of the questioned Shade. I. THE MERRIMACK. O CHILD of that white-crested mountain whose springs Gush forth in the shade of the cliffeagle's wings, There the boy shaped his arrows, and there the shy maid Wove her many-hued baskets and bright wampum braid. O Stream of the Mountains! if answer of thine Could rise from thy waters to question of mine, Methinks through the din of thy thronged banks a moan Of sorrow would swell for the days which have gone. Not for thee the dull jar of the loom and the wheel, The gliding of shuttles, the ringing of steel; But that old voice of waters, of bird and of breeze, The dip of the wild-fowl, the rustling of trees! THE BRIDAL OF PENNACOOK. Window-tracery, small and slight, And the night-stars glimmered down, Sheathed with hemlock brown. Gloomed behind the changeless shade, By the solemn pine-wood made; Through the rugged palisade, In the open foreground planted, Here the mighty Bashaba, To the great sea's sounding shore; There his spoils of chase and war, Lay beside his axe and bow; Nightly down the river going, And the squaw's dark eye burned Tales of him the gray squaw told, When the winter night-wind cold Pierced her blanket's thickest fold, And the fire burned low and small, Till the very child abed, Drew its bear-skin over head, Shrinking from the pale lights shed On the trembling wall. All the subtle spirits hiding Misty clouds or morning breeze; These the wizard's skill confessed, At his bidding banned or blessed, Stormful woke or lulled to rest 27 Wind and cloud, and fire and flood; Burned for him the drifted snow, Bade through ice fresh lilies blow, And the leaves of summer grow Over winter's wood! Not untrue that tale of old! Subject to their kingly will; Moves the strong man still. Still, to such, life's elements Broken in their pathway lies; Still, to earnest souls, the sun Lights the battle-grounds of life; To his aid the strong reverses Hidden powers and giant forces, And the high stars, in their courses, Mingle in his strife! |