WHO stands on that cliff, like a figure

of stone,

Unmoving and tall in the light of the sky,

Where the spray of the cataract sparkles on high,

Lonely and sternly, save Mogg Megone? 1

Close to the verge of the rock is he, While beneath him the Saco its work is doing,

Hurrying down to its grave, the sea, And slow through the rock its pathway hewing!

Far down, through the mist of the falling river,

Which rises up like an incense ever, The splintered points of the crags are

seen,

With water howling and vexed between, While the scooping whirl of the pool beneath

Seems an open throat, with its granite teeth !

But Mogg Megone never trembled yet Wherever his eye or his foot was set. He is watchful: each form in the moonlight diin,

Of rock or of tree, is seen of him : He listens; each sound from afar is caught,

The faintest shiver of leaf and limb: But he sees not the waters, which foam and fret.

Whose moonlit spray has his moccasin

wet,

And the roar of their rushing, he hears it not.

The moonlight, through the open bough

Of the gnarl'd beech, whose naked root Coils like a serpent at his foot, Falls, checkered, on the Indian's brow His head is bare, save only where Waves in the wind one lock of hair,

Reserved for him, whoe'er he be, More mighty than Megone in strife, When, breast to breast and knee to knee,

Above the fallen warrior's life Gleams, quick and keen, the scalpingknife.

ing.

"The words of my father are very good; He shall have the land, and water, and wood;

And he who harms the Sagamore John, Shall feel the knife of Mogg Megone; But the fawn of the Yengees shall sleep on my breast,

And the bird of the clearing shall sing in my nest."

"But, father!"-and the Indian's hand

Falls gently on the white man's arm, And with a smile as shrewdly bland

As the deep voice is slow and calm, "Where is my father's singing-bird,The sunny eye, and sunset hair?" I know I have my father's word,

And that his word is good and fair; But will my father tell me where Megone shall go and look for his bride?

For he sees her not by her father's side."

The dark, stern eye of Bonython Flashes over the features of Mogg Megone,

In one of those glances which search within ;

But the stolid calm of the Indian alone Remains where the trace of emotion

has been.

"Does the Sachem doubt? Let him go with me,

And the eyes of the Sachem his brida shall see."

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 iove and fear,
Of the mighty Soul of all?

Waught 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!

5

Look! feeling

glance,

melts that frozen

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;

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 bosom heaves, the eye 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

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 Megone:

"Will the Sachem hear what his father shall ask?

Will he make his mark, that it may

be known,

and new, Mogg's heart is great!-will he shut his hand,

When his father asks for a little land?"With unsteady fingers, the Indian has drawn

On the parchment the shape of a hunter's bow,