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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-
n-braid.

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

O, long may sunset's light be shed
As now upon that beech's head,
A green memorial of the dead!

There shall his fitting requiem be,
In northern winds, that, cold and free,
Howl nightly in that funeral tree.

To their wild wail the waves which break

Forever round that lonely lake
A solemn undertone shall make !

And who shall deem the spot unblest,
Where Nature's younger children rest,
Lulled on their sorrowing mother's
breast?

Deem ye that mother loveth less
These bronzed forms of the wilderness
She foldeth in her long caress?

As sweet o'er them her wild-flowers blow,

As if with fairer hair and brow
The blue-eyed Saxon slept below.

What though the places of their rest
No priestly knee hath ever pressed,
No funeral rite nor prayer hath blessed?

What though the bigot's ban be there,
And thoughts of wailing and despair,
And cursing in the place of prayer!
Yet Heaven hath angels watchinground
The Indian's lowliest forest-mound,
And they have made it holy ground.

There ceases man's frail judgment; all

His powerless bolts of cursing fall
Unheeded on that grassy pall.

O, peeled, and hunted, and reviled,
Sleep cn, dark tenant of the wild!
Great Nature owns her simple child!

And Nature's God, to whom alone
The secret of the heart is known,
The hidden language traced thereon;

Who from its many cumberings

Of form and creed, and outward things, 'To light the naked spirit brings;

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 between.

Behind, unbroken, deep and dread, The wild, untravelled forest spread, Back to those mountains, white and

cold,

Of which the Indian trapper told,
Upon whose summits never yet
Was mortal foot in safety set.

Quiet and calm, without a fear
Of danger darkly lurking near,
The weary laborer left his plough, -
The milkmaid carolled by her cow,
From cottage door and household hear.n
Rose songs of praise, or tones of mirth.
At length the murmur died away,
And silence on that village lay,
So slept Pompeii, tower and hall,
Ere the quick earthquake swallowed all,
Undreaming of the fiery fate

Which made its dwellings desolate !

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

came,

Red, fast, and fierce, the kindled flame ; And blended fire and moonlight glared On still dead men and weapons bared.

The morning sun looked brightly through

The river willows, wet with dew.
No sound of combat filled the air,
No shout was heard, - nor gunshot
there :

Yet still the thick and sullen smoke
From smouldering ruins slowly broke;
And on the greensward many a stain,
And, here and there, the mangled slain,
Told how that midnight bolt had sped
Pentucket, on thy fated head!

Even now the villager can tell
Where Rolfe beside his hearthstone fell,
Still show the door of wasting oak,
Through which the fatal death - shot
broke,

And point the curious stranger where
De Rouville's corse lay grim and bare,-
Whose hideous head, in death still
feared,

Bore not a trace of hair or beard,
And still, within the churchyard ground,
Heaves darkly up the ancient mound,
Whose grass-grown surface overlies
The victims of that sacrifice.

THE FAMILIST'S HYMN.

FATHER! to thy suffering poor
Strength and grace and faith impart,
And with thy own love restore

Comfort to the broken heart!
O the failing ones confirm
With a holier strength of zeal! —
Give thou not the feeble worm
Helpless to the spoiler's heel!

Father! for thy holy sake

We are spoiled and hunted thus; Joyful, for thy truth we take

Bonds and burthens unto us:
Poor, and weak, and robbed of all,
Weary with our daily task,
That thy truth may never fall
Through our weakness, Lord, we ask.

Round our fired and wasted homes
Flits the forest-bird unscared,
And at noon the wild beast comes
Where our frugal meal was shared;
For the song of praises there

Shrieks the crow the livelong day; For the sound of evening prayer Howls the evil beast of prey!

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