A footstep is it the step of Cleaves, With Indian blood on his English sword?

Steals Harmon 5 down from the sands of York,

With hand of iron and foot of cork? Has Scamman, versed in Indian wile, For vengeance left his vine-hung isle ?6 Hark! at that whistle, soft and low,

How lights the eye of Mogg Megone! A smile gleams o'er his dusky brow, "Boon welcome, Johnny Bonython!"

Out steps, with cautious foot and slow, And quick, keen glances to and fro,

The hunted outlaw, Bonython ! 7 A low, lean, swarthy man is he, With blanket-garb and buskined knee,

And naught of English fashion on; For he hates the race from whence he

Cautious and slow, with pauses oft,
And watchful eyes and whispers soft,
The twain are stealing through the wood,
Leaving the downward-rushing flood,
Whose deep and solemn roar behind
Grows fainter on the evening wind.

Hark! is that the angry howl
Of the wolf, the hills among?—
Or the hooting of the owl,

On his leafy cradle swung?-
Quickly glancing, to and fro,
Listening to each sound they go
Round the columns of the pine,

Indistinct, in shadow, seeming Like some old and pillared shrine; With the soft and white moonshine, Round the foliage-tracery shed Of each column's branching head, For its lamps of worship gleaming! And the sounds awakened there, In the pine-leaves fine and small, Soft and sweetly musical, By the fingers of the air, For the anthem's dying fall Lingering round some temple's wall! Niche and cornice round and round Wailing like the ghost of sound! Is not Nature's worship thus, Ceaseless ever, going on?

Hath it not a voice for us

In the thunder, or the tone
Of the leaf-harp faint and small,
Speaking to the unsealed ear
Words of blended love and fear,
Of the mighty Soul of all?

Naught had the twain of thoughts like these

As they wound along through the crowded trees,

Where never had rung the axeman's stroke

On the gnarled trunk of the roughbarked oak;

Climbing the dead tree's mossy log, Breaking the mesh of the bramble fine,

Turning aside the wild grape vine, And lightly crossing the quaking bog Whose surface shakes at the leap of the frog,

And out of whose pools the ghostly fog Creeps into the chill moonshine!

9

5

Yet, even that Indian's ear had heard
The preaching of the Holy Word:
Sanchekantacket's isle of sand
Was once his father's hunting land,
Where zealous Hiacoomes stood, -
The wild apostle of the wood,
Shook from his soul the fear of harm,
And trampled on the Powwaw's charm;
Until the wizard's curses hung
Suspended on his palsying tongue,
And the fierce warrior, grim and tall,
Trembled before the forest Paul !

Look! feeling melts that frozen glance,

It moves that marble countenance,
As if at once within her strove
Pity with shame, and hate with love.
The Past recalls its joy and pain,
Old memories rise before her brain,
The lips which love's embraces met,
The hand her tears of parting wet,
The voice whose pleading tones be-
guiled

The pleased ear of the forest-child, -
And tears she may no more repress
Reveal her lingering tenderness.

O, woman wronged, can cherish hate More deep and dark than manhood may;

Go, Mogg is wise: he will keep his land,

And Sagamore John, when he feels with his hand,

Shall miss his scalp where it grew before."

The moment's gust of grief is gone, The lip is clenched, the tears are still,

God pity thee, Ruth Bonython!
With what a strength of will

Are nature's feelings in thy breast,
As with an iron hand, repressed!
And how, upon that nameless woe,
Quick as the pulse can come and go,
While shakes the unsteadfast knee, and
yet

-the eye

The bosom heaves,
is wet, -
Has thy dark spirit power to stay
The heart's wild current on its way?
And whence that baleful strength of
guile,

Which over that still working brow
And tearful eye and cheek, can throw
The mockery of a smile?
Warned by her father's blackening
frown,

With one strong effort crushing down
Grief, hate, remorse, she meets again

The savage murderer's sullen gaze, And scarcely look or tone betrays How the heart strives beneath its chain. "Is the Sachem angry,- angry with Ruth,

Because she cries with an ache in her tooth,10

Which would make a Sagamore jump

and cry,

And look about with a woman's eye? No, Ruth will sit in the Sachem's door

And braid the mats for his wigwam floor, And broil his fish and tender fawn, And weave his wampum, and grind his

7

The sum of Indian happiness!~ A wigwam, where the warm sunshine Looks in among the groves of pine, A stream, where, round thy light canoe, The trout and salmon dart in view, And the fair girl, before thee now, Spreading thy mat with hand of snow, Or plying, in the dews of morn, Her hoe amidst thy patch of corn, Or offering up, at eve, to thee, Thy birchen dish of hominy!

From the rude board of Bonython,
Venison and suckatash have gone, -
For long these dwellers of the wood
Have felt the gnawing want of food.
But untasted of Ruth is the frugal
cheer,

With head averted, yet ready ear,
She stands by the side of her austere sire,
Feeding, at times, the unequal fire
With the yellow knots of the pitch-pine
tree,

Whose flaring light, as they kindle, falls On the cottage-roof, and its black log walls,

And over its inmates three.

From Sagamore Bonython's hunting flask

The fire-water burns at the lip of Me

low,

He reels on his bear-skin to and fro, His head falls down on his naked breast,

He struggles, and sinks to a drunken rest.

"Humph-drunk as a beast!" - and Bonython's brow

Isdarker than ever with evil thought"The fool has signed his warrant; but how

And when shall the deed be wrought? Speak, Ruth! why, what the devil is there,

To fix thy gaze in that empty air? — Speak, Ruth! by my soul, if I thought that tear,

Which shames thyself and our purpose here,

Were shed for that cursed and pale

faced dog,

Whose green scalp hangs from the belt of Mogg,

And whose beastly soul is in Satan's keeping,

This

this!"-he dashes his hand

upon

The rattling stock of his loaded gun,"Should send thee with him to do thy weeping!"

"Father!"— the eye of Bonython Sinks at that low, sepulchral tone, Hollow and deep, as it were spoken

By the unmoving tongue of death, Or from some statue's lips had broken,

A sound without a breath!
"Father! my life I value less
Than yonder fool his gaudy dress;
And how it ends it matters not,
By heart-break or by rifle-shot;
But spare awhile the scoff and threat,
Our business is not finished yet."

stir: But she gazes down on the murderer,