 | The poetical works of William H. C. Hosmer |  |
LEGENDS OF THE SENECAS.
GENUNDEWAH.
(A LEGEND OF CANANDAIGUA LAKE.)
For softness she, and sweet attractive grace.”—
Milton.
That overbrows yon azure sheet below?
Red sunset glimmers on the leaping rill,
Dark night is near, and we have far to go!”
‘This scene’—replied he, leaning on his bow—
‘Is hallowed by tradition:
In Indian mythology may be found the richest poetic materials. An American author is unworthy of the land that gave him birth, if he passes by with indifference, this well-spring of inspiration, sending liberally forth a thousand enchanted streams. It has given spiritual inhabitants to our valleys, rivers, hills, and inland seas. It has peopled the dim and awful depths of our forests with gliding spectres; and, by the power of association, given our scenery a charm that will make it attractive forever.
The material eye is gratified by a passing glimpse of nature's external features—but a beauty, unknown, unseen before, invests them if linked to stories of the past; in the creation of which, fabling fancy has been a diligent co-worker with memory. The red man was a being who delighted in the mystical and the wild. It was a part of his woodland inheritance. Good and evil genii performed for him their allotted tasks. Joyous tidings, freedom from disease and disaster; success in the chase, and on the war-path, were traceable to the Master of Life (Ou-wee-ne-you), and his subordinate ministers. Blight that fell upon the corn, was attributed, on the contrary, to demoniac agency; and the shaft that missed its mark, was turned aside by the invisible hand of some mischievous sprite.
Deities presided over the elements. The Chippewas had their little wild men of the woods, that remind one of Puck, Puck and his frolicsome brotherhood; and like our first parents, the dark-haired sons of the wilderness.
—“from the steepOf echoing hill or thicket, often heard
Celestial voices.”
In a work treating of the legendary lore of the Senecas, the story of their origin deserves a prominent place. Many versions of it are afloat agreeing in material points, but differing in the details. I have adopted, as the ground-work of my poem, the narrative of Captain Jones, late Indian interpreter, and a man who towered in intellectual stature above common men, as the pines (to use an Indian metaphor,) rise above the smaller trees of the forest. The Great Hill, at the head of Canandaigua Lake, whence they sprung, is called Ge-nun-de-wah.
Tradition says, that it was crowned by a fort, to which the braves of the tribe retreated, at night-fall, after waging war with giants (Jo-gah-uh). It was formerly a chosen seat of Iroquois council—and wrinkled seers were in the habit of climbing its sides for the purpose of offering up prayers to the Great Spirit. It was made a place of worship in consequence of the destruction of a great serpent in ancient times in a most miraculous manner—an insatiate monster that devoured the inhabitants of the fort alluded to, as they passed, half-famished out of the gate, at which point the head and tail of the monster, after encircling the fortification, met. All perished save a youthful pair, who were saved by the interposition of the Great Spirit, as described in the poem.
Here to my tribe was given long ago;
We stand where rose they from disparting earth
To light a deathless blaze on Fame's unmouldering hearth.
Guided by counsel from the spirit land;
And, clad in dart-proof panoply, would seek
The plains beneath each morn—a valiant band!
And warfare wage with giants, hand to hand:
They conquered in the struggle, and the bones
Of their dead foemen on the echoing strand
Of the blue lake lay blent with wave-washed stones,
And pale, unbodied ghosts filled air with hollow moans.
The voice of lamentation, and wild ire
The depths of his remorseless bosom stirr'd;
Of that gigantic brood he was the sire,
And flying from his cavern, arched with fire,
He hovered o'er these waters:—at his call
Uprushed a hideous monster, spire on spire—
Call so astounding, that the rocky wall
Of this bold mountain-range, seemed tottering to its fall.
The hungry serpent left his watery lair,
Dragging his scaly terrors up the side
Of this tall hill, now desolate and bare:
Filled with alarm the Senecas espied
His dread approach, and launched a whizzing shower
Of arrows on the foe, whose iron hide
Repelled their flinty points, and in that hour
The boldest warrior fled from strife with fiendish power.
True to his dark and awful mission, wound,
Polluting air with his envenomed breath
Huge folds the palisaded camp around:
Crouched at his master's feet the faithful hound,
And raised a piteous and despairing cry—
No outlet of escape the mother found
For her imploring infants, and on high
Lifted her trembling hands in voiceless agony.
The reptile's head and tail together lay;
Distended were the fang-set jaws in wait
For victims, thus beleaguered, night and day;
And not unlike the red and angry ray
Shot by the bearded comet was the light
Of his unslumbering eye that watched for prey;
His burnished mail flashed back the sunshine bright,
And round him pale the woods grew with untimely blight.
And wan distemper thinn'd their numbers fast,
Crowding the narrow gateway, young and old
With the fixed look of desperation passed
From life to dreadful death;—a charnel vast,
The creature's yawning throat, entombed the strong,
And lovely of the tribe:—remained at last
Two lovers only of that mighty throng
To chaunt with feeble voice a nation's funeral song.
One, like the mountain pine, erect and tall,
Was of imposing presence;—his dark hair
Had caught its hue from night's descending pall—
Light was his tread—his port majestical—
And well his kingly brow became a form
Of matchless beauty:—like the rise and fall
Of a strong billow in the hour of storm
Beat his undaunted heart with glory's impulse warm.
And painted quills—the handiwork of one
Dearer than life to him; though he had seen
From the gray hills, beneath a wasting sun,
Only the snows of twenty winters run,
The warrior's right his scalp lock to adorn
With eagle plumes in battle he had won:
O'erjoyed were prophets old when he was born,
And hailed him with one voice “First Sunbeam of the Morn.”
This darkened earth wear looks like those she wore;
Graceful her mien as lily of the pond
That nods to every wind which passes o'er
Its fragrant head a welcome:—never more
By loveliness so rare will earth be blest;
Softer than ripple breaking on the shore
By moonlight, was her voice, and in her breast
Pure thought a dwelling found—the bird of love a nest.
And court the lustre of her gentle glance,
Hushing each ‘wood-note wild’ whene'er it heard
Her song of joy:—her countenance
Inspired beholder with a thought that chance
Had borne her hither from some better land:—
To deck her tresses for the festive dance
Girls of the tribe would bring, with liberal hand,
Blossoms and rose-lipped shells from bower and reedy strand.
That wreaths its verdant arm around the oak,
As if it there could safely intertwine
Shielded from ringing axe—the lightning stroke—
And, like that vine, the girl, of whom I spoke,
Clung to her brave companion:—scalding tears
Rained from her elk like eyes, and sobs outbroke
From her o'er-labored bosom, while her ears
Were filled with soothing tones that did not hush her fears.
This hill will tremble to its rocky base
When Ou-wee-ne-yon utters stern command:
Joy, ere another fleeting moon, the trace
Of clouding sorrow from thy brow will chase:—
Fear not! for I am left to guard thee yet,
Last of the daughters of a luckless race!
We must not, in the time of grief, forget
That light breaks forth anew from orbs that darkly set.”
To cheer the drooping spirits of the maid,
And keep one glimmering spark of hope alive.
In the deep midnight, for celestial aid,
While cowered the trembler at his knee, he prayed
In tones that might have touched a heart of rock:
One morn exclaimed he—“be no more afraid!
Bright, peerless scion of a broken stock!
For heaven the monster's coil is arming to unlock.
The downfall of our people, we live on—
My dreams were of deliverance last night,
And peril of impending death withdrawn:
A light, my weeping one, begins to dawn
On the thick gloom by sorrow round us cast
The lead-like pressure of despair is gone,
And rides a viewless courier on the blast,
Who whispers—‘Lo! the hour of vengeance comes at last.’
In his tremendous ring our mortal foe;
Film-veiled, his savage eye no longer keeps
Grim watch for victims:—warily and slow
Follow thy lover, armed with bended bow
Of timber shaped in many a battle tried:—
Some guardian spirit will before me throw
A shield, by human vision undescried,
Should he awake in wrath, and hence our footsteps guide.”
That courses through our perishable clay,
When sallied forth, with muffled tread, the twain;
A look of wild, unutterable dismay
Convulsed Te-yos-yu's visage, while the way,
A spear-length in advance, her lover led.
Reaching the portal, paused he to survey
The dangerous pass, through which a grisly head,
Deprest to earth, he saw—its mouth with carnage red!
Our foot-fall must not hear, or we are lost!”
Nerved to high purpose was his warlike soul,
As the dark threshold of the gate he crossed;
But fear that instant “chilled his limbs with frost;”
For high its swollen neck the monster raised,
Gore dripping from its jaws with foam emboss'd,
And, rimmed with fire, each circling eye-ball blazed,
As light, unwounding dart its horny armor grazed.
Recoiled the champion from unequal fray;
Cut off all hope of rescue, he surveyed
Fiercely the danger, like a stag at bay!
Where was Te-yos-yu?—she had swooned away!
And hoof-crushed wild flower of the forest brown
Resembled her, as soiled with dust she lay:
Long on the seeming corse the Chief looked down,
For 'twas a sight the cup of his despair to crown.
Her beauteous head, but in the temples beat
No pulse of life:—tears gushing fast and warm
Refresh a heart, of transient ill the seat,
As rain-drops cool the summer's mid-day heat;
But when descends some desolating blow
That makes this world a desert, how unmeet
Is outward symbol!—and far, far below
The water-mark of grief was Oh-wen-do-skah's woe.
Of a great people be revived no more,
And like an echo pass away their fame,
Or moccasin's faint impress on the shore
Of the Salt Lake when billows foam and roar?
Black night enwraps my soul; for she is dead
Who was its light—desire to live is o'er!”
Scarce were these words in mournful accent said,
When peals of thunder shook low vale and mountain-head.
Robed in a snowy mantle fringed with light,
The Lord of Life beheld:—the forest bowed
Its top in awe before that Presence Bright,
And a wild shudder, at the dazzling sight,
Ran through the mighty monster's knotted ring,
Shaking the hill from base to rocky height;—
Rose from her trance the maid, with fawn-like spring,
And balanced, in mid air, the bird on trembling wing.
This fatal weapon,”—Ou-wee-ne-you cried,
Dropping a golden shaft—“and pierce the foe
Under the rounded scales that wall his side!”
Then vanished, while again the valley wide,
And mountain, quaked with thunder:—from the ground
The warrior raised the gift of Heaven, and hied
On his heroic mission, while around
The hill with closer clasp his train the serpent wound.
Between thick, ghastly rows of pointed bone,
Round which commingled gore and venom clung:
Raging, its flattened head like copper shone,
And flinty earth returned a heavy groan,
Lashed by quick strokes of its resounding tail.
Heard is like uproar, when the hill's bleak cone
Is wildly beat by Winter's icy flail;—
But in that moment dire the archer did not quail.
And with the other to its glittering head
Drew the long shaft, while full each muscle swelled;
A twanging sound!—and on its errand sped
The messenger of vengeance:—warm and red
Gushed from a gaping wound the vital tide—
Wrenched was the granite from its ancient bed,
And pines were broken, in their leafy pride,
As throes of mortal pain the monster's coil untied.
Disgorging human heads in his descent;
Oaks, that in earth had deeply fixed their hold,
Like reeds by that revolving mass were bent,
Splintered their boughs, as if by thunder rent:
High flung the troubled Lake its feathery spray,
And far the beach with spots of foam besprent,
When the huge carcass disappeared for aye
In depths from whence it rose to curse the beams of day.
Through bright, transparent waves you may discern,
On the hard, pebbled bottom of the Lake,
Skulls changed to stone: —when fires no longer burn
Kindled by sunset, and the glistening urn
Of night o'erflows with dew, the phantoms pale
Of matron, maid, child, seer and chieftain stern,
Their ghastly faces to the moon unveil,
And raise upon the shore a low, heart-broken wail.
By the Great Spirit, and their lodge became
The nursery of a nation:—when the West
Opened its gates of parti-colored flame
To give their souls free passage, loud acclaim
Rang through the Spirit-Land, and voices cried
“Welcome! ye builders of eternal fame!
Ye royal founders of an empire wide,
The stream of joy rolls by, quaff ever from its tide!”
A thousand winters, with unwasting blaze;
In guarding it son emulated sire,
And far abroad were flung its dazzling rays:
Followed were happy years by evil days;
Blue-eyed and pale came children of the dawn,
Tall spires on site of bark-built town to raise;
Change groves of beauty to a naked lawn,
And whirl their chariot-wheels where led the doe her fawn.
I call—and echo gives response alone;
The fiery bolt of ruin hath been shot—
The blow is struck—the winds of death have blown—
Cold are their hearths—their altars overthrown!
For them, with smoking venison the board,
Reward of toilsome chase, no more will groan:
Sharper than hatchet proved the conqueror's sword,
And blood, in fruitless strife, like water they outpoured.
Ere the scared bird of peace could find a nest,
And vanished tribes like summer grass when flame
Reddens the level prairies of the west;
Or wasting dew-drops when the rocky crest
Of this enchanted hill is tipped with gold;
And ere the Genii of the wild-wood drest
With flowers and moss the grave mound's hallowed mould,
Before the ringing axe, went down the forest old.
Who was the father of his people! where
King Hendrick, Cay-en-guae-to? who replies?
And, Skenandoah, was thy silver hair
Brought to the dust in sorrow and despair
By pale oppressors, though thy bow was strung
To guard their Thirteen Fires? they did not spare
E'en thee, old chieftain!—And thy tuneful tongue
The death-dirge of thy race, in measured cadence, sung.
Gy-ant-wa, Hon-ne-ya-wus, where are they?
Sa-goy-ye-wat-hah! is he silent now,
Will listening throngs no more his voice obey?
Like visions have the mighty passed away:
Their tears descend in raindrops, and their sighs
Are heard in wailing winds when evening gray
Shadows the landscape, and their mournful eyes
Gleam in the misty light of moon-illumined skies.
Born of the foam, disclose, with plough and spade,
Secrets of battle-field, and burial-place;
And hunting grounds, once dark with pleasant shade
Bask in the golden light:—but I have made
A pilgrimage, from far, to look once more
On scenes through which in childhood's hour I strayed;
After the lapse of years, when driven to a far country by the rapacity of the whites, the red man visits the scenes of his boyhood. “I am alone,” said an Indian woman, at the burial-place of her fathers; “I have travelled far towards the rising sun. My moccasins are worn out, my heart is heavy. I look for the graves of the dead; their white bones are scattered around. The old woods are gone—the homes of the pale-face are here. The mist rolls away on the wind—thus vanished my people.”
Though robbed of might my limbs—my locks all hoar,
And on this holy mount mourn for the days of yore.
Though deep were set the posts, its timber strong;
From ruthless foes, and traitors masked as friends,
Tutored to sing a false, but pleasant song,
The Seneca and Mohawk guarded long
Its blood-stained doors:—the former faced the sun
In his decline:—the latter watched a throng
Clouding the eastern hills—their tasks are done!
A game for life was played, and prize the white-man won.
Ye glorious Spirit Islands of the Just!
No fatal axe will hew away your bowers,
Or lay the green-robed forest king in dust:—
Far from the spoiler's fury, and his lust
Of boundless power will I my fathers meet
Tiaras wearing never dimmed by rust;
And they while airs waft music, passing sweet,
To blest abodes will guide my silver-sandaled feet.
THE PLACE OF BONES.
Your names have perished.”—
Flint.
Delightful Avon overlooks the place
Where, mingled rudely with the upturned soil,
The bones of some forgotten nation lie,
In mournful disregard. The solemn groves
Inweave no more their tossing boughs above
These violated sepulchres: the hand
Of busy industry long since cut down
The dark, old sylvan giants, and let in
The golden sunshine.
When the Genesee
Is swollen roughly by the vernal rain,
Or equinoctial storm, his surging tide
Invades the level mead, and even lifts
Above this populated home of death
The voice of wild rebellion—sound, alas!
That ill befits the dwellings of the dead.
The crowded public thoroughfare, that leads
To the young city of our inland seas
Through the bright Eden of the “Empire State,”
Bounds on the south this melancholy spot.
Trees of a second growth in beauty stand,
And greet the northwardly directed gaze
With smooth and glossy trunks, and roots that draw
Refreshment from the dust of woodland sires:
And eastwardly the sloping upland makes
Exposure of its side to westering suns,
And painted habitations of vain man—
Ay, selfish too!—for piously around
The dreamless couches of his own pale race,
To shut out brute intrusion, he has built
A strong, protecting wall, and planted round
The funeral hillock flowers that breathe of love,
And willows frail, that rub their yellow boughs
Against the pompous, monumental stone;
While spurningly his desecrating foot
Falls on the bleaching remnants of the past—
Of haughty Indian king, or swarthy maid,
At whose rude sepulchres, long, long ago,
The children of interminable groves
Were mourning visitants.
The tribe that laid
Beneath the turf their chieftain, unlike us
Who sorrow only for a season, came,
And tearful homage paid to dust of kin,
When the loud warring elements and time
Had worn away all sign of burial.
That deathless Bard, whose name is linked to Hope,
And whose rich instrument has many strings,
Was faulty in his music when he sang
Of the red sagamore “without a tear.”
The wilderness, with all its wealth of shade,
Sepulchral dells, and wingèd choristers;
The mossy floor of solitary glades
Whereon his moccasin faint impress left;
The wooded mountain, where the howling wolf
And screaming panther made their dreaded lairs;
The voice of streams, and melody of winds,
Woke in his heart poetic sympathy,
And spoke in tones majestically grand
Of one unclouded source of life and light.
And wrong could rouse him to demoniac rage,
Or kindness lull him to a summer calm.
When war, or mortal malady, cut down
His wife or offspring to the shaded earth
He gave, with tears, the bark-infolded corse,
And guarded well the consecrated spot
From the gaunt beast of prey; then laid choice food,
And the dry gourd, his vegetable cup,
Brimming with water from the crystal spring,
Upon the hiding mould, through fear the dead
Might faint in passing to the spirit land.
In the blue smoke of settlements, the lord
Of the lithe bow and slender arrow saw
The cloud that would obscure his race and name;
And in the fall of oaks before the axe,
Heard the sharp knell of his own glory rung.
Then deeds of fell atrocity ensued
In his vain efforts to resist the tide
Of stern improvement, whose huge surges swept
All traces of his pomp and power away.
His patriot zeal and disregard of self,
Resemblance to that spurning hate of bonds
That roused a Sydney and a Hampden bore,
And should have won the plaudits of his foe.
In happy childhood it was oft my wont,
Freed from the birchen terrors of the school,
Yon place of Indian burial to seek,
And watch the disinterring plough, and scan
The fertilized and newly-parted clod
For beads of beauty rare, tooth-worn by time,
And crumbling fragments of the dagger haft,
Constructed by some artisan of eld
From the broad antlers of the whistling moose,
And branching honors of the stag or elk;
Or raise, with reverential hand, the skull
With thought akin to wonderment and awe;
Then, throwing down the wreck, spy out amid
The dark, embracing furrows arrow-heads,
And broken implements of grotesque form,
Used by the painted warrior in the chase,
Or on the path that led him to his foe.
Some, who delight in hoar antiquity,
The nation deem that sleep in yonder field
The primal stock whose shoots in after years
Uniting in a league of brotherhood,
The dreaded name of Iroquois made known
From the dark hemlock groves of hilly Maine
To the proud father of our mighty lakes.
But this is idle speculation all,
And red men, hanging on our frontier skirts,
No light can throw upon their history.
A few, stray pebbles only, hand of bard
Hath gathered on Tradition's shadowy beach
Washed darkly ever by erasing waves.
One by the Indian loved, and who can well
Warble his dialect in silvery tones,
Told me that mighty conquerors reposed,
Their names forgotten, in yon olden plain.
Long with the Canisteo tribe they warred,
And south, eight leagues away, may yet be seen
Memorials of conflict, and a tomb
That once was honored with heroic bones.
When the first settler came, it bore the shape
Of a man lying with extended arms.
Long before the Revolution, according to tradition, a battle took place on a hill, a few miles distant, between the Canisteo Indians and those living in the vicinity, during which a chief of the latter was killed. When the whites first settled here, the spot where he fell was marked by a large hole dug in the shape of a man, with arms extended. An Indian trail led by the place, and the Indians, on passing, were always accustomed to clear away the leaves and brush which had blown in. The chief was buried in an old Indian burying-ground which stood on the present site of the Lutheran Church, and was thickly covered with graves to the extent of two or three acres. His monument consisted of a large pile of small stones, gathered from time to time by the nations from a hill a mile distant, who, in passing, were accustomed to take one in the hand, and add to the heap. His bones were afterwards disinterred by the settlers, and judging from them, and the length of the hole on the hill, he must have been seven feet, or more, in height.—See Historical Collections of New York.
A trail wound near the place, and passing by,
The feathered hunter from his route diverged
To clear away the brush, and wind-blown leaves
From off its hallowed mould, and cast a stone
On a gray pile that rose pyramidal
To tell the story of a champion's fall
To other times.
Pay annual visit to their Place of Graves.
Would that the moon of falling leaves could fling
Again a rustling pall of many hues
Above the dust of slumberers unknown!
For if the spirits of the lost and dead—
And some believe so—linger round the streams,
And haunts of beauty that they loved in life,
Perchance the spectral visitants that flit
About these desecrated tombs, might feel
Ecstatic joy in viewing olden scenes
Dark with the presence of tall groves again.
THE GLEN OF GHOSTS.
Strong in affection's might.”
Where the wolf of yore found a brambly den;
The fissured rocks rise, ledge on ledge,
And a stream leaps over the precipice-edge
That makes, while melting in wreaths of snow,
A heavy and churning sound below.
Is the forest eagle's ancient throne—
Old birchen trees that drink the spray,
Encased in bark that is ghostly and gray,
And the hemlock's cloak of sombre green
Comport with the quiet of the scene.
And the sinless birds they love it not;
From its dark abyss unclouded day
Drives never the shades of night away,
And dungeon low, and cavern'd tomb
Have less of deep, mysterious gloom.
A belted son of that red-browed race
Who ranged, a few, brief years ago,
This realm with feathered shaft and bow,
Near the “Glen of Ghosts,” with shudder cold,
To me the tale that follows told.
On flowery banks of the Genesee,
Or plough, by cunning white man made,
Tore the green carpet of the glade,
Shemokun, bravest of the brave,
Law to a mighty people gave.
Declined the health of the mighty chief;
His stately form grew thin and weak,
Vanished the war-paint from his cheek—
Untrimm'd he wore his scalp-lock gray,
And waned the strength of his soul away.
Sought moon-lit herbs on hill and plain,
To thrill with energy once more
The flagging pulse of the sagamore;
And idly tried low-mutter'd charm
The sluggish blood in his veins to warm.
This legend was written to illustrate an Indian superstition in reference to dreams. They think that the sick are often bewitched by those whose names they mention in their troubled slumbers. “They believe, also, that some persons have the power of injuring others at a distance of many hundred miles, by charms and spells; this belief in witchcraft is constantly noticed by Tanner and others, who have resided long among them, and it seems to have been especially prevalent among the Oggibeways, and other northern tribes.”
The sufferer woke in wild affright,
While, by his couch of panther-skin,
Kept watch the man of medicine,
And, with a loud, entreating tone,
Pronounced the name of Wah-non-ti-góne.
From lodge to lodge the tidings dread,
That lurking wizard's hellish art
Had withered Shemòkun's arm and heart;
And crested brave, and tottering sire
Convened to light the council-fire.
Rose from his mat a sage renowned,
And Wah-non-ti-góne against him heard
The charge of witchcraft foul preferr'd,
In the fierce tones of scorn and pride.
Ere sunset flushed the western sky;
And, binding each athletic limb,
In the Lodge of Judgment prisoned him,
While stake was drest, and brush up-piled
Beneath the dim, o'er-arching wild.
To the war-bird's plume in many a fight,
But woke a haunting wish for life
When he thought of his newly-wedded wife,
Whose dark eye, with affection bright,
His wigwam made a place of light
All pinioned, lay Wah-non-ti-góne,
When a foot drew near with muffled fall,
And cranny wide in his prison wall
Revealed the face of his ‘Summer Flower’
True to her mate in the perilous hour.
Her arm she thrust the logs between,
And severed with keen knife the cord
That fetter'd the limbs of her forest lord—
An earnest, meaning gesture made,
The red man is well skilled in the language of signs. Intelligence of approaching, or apprehended danger, or of the successful, or adverse result of an enterprise, is often given by mute, expressive gestures. Even the character of a nation against whom they march to battle is thus significantly represented:—The Sioux are designated by passing the hand across the throat as if cutting it. The sign for “all right!” is made by holding the palm downwards in a horizontal position, and waving it slowly outwards.
And placed in his hand the trusty blade.
And rolled the luckless guard in dust!
Then brandishing his weapon red
Wah-non-ti-góne with Oonah fled,
While cries of fierce pursuit arose,
And arrows whizzed from a thousand bows.
In the Great Bend hath hid from view,
Outspoke his young, and dauntless bride,
‘While the lifted oars drop silvery rain,
And demons howl for our blood in vain.’
Its pebbly marge by the billow bleached,
And Oonah swiftly led the way
To willow'd nook, in a quiet bay,
Where she moored her back ere blush of dawn—
‘Oh fell mischance’—she shrieked—‘'tis gone!’
Felt the drear heart-ache of despair,
While louder on the rushing breeze
Rose the shrill whoop of enemies—
Wildly the scene around surveyed,
And cover sought in thickest shade.
Known to the hunted warrior well,
The foot of Oonah flagged in speed,
And trembled her frame like a wind swept reed—
‘Leave me, Wah-non-ti-góne,’ she cried,
‘The Master of Life will watch over thy bride!’
And foemen nigh at hand discerned;
In vain he interposed his form,
His bride to shield from the battle-storm:
Both fell to earth—their faithful hearts
Pierced by a volley of feathered darts.
And together, there, were the lovers laid;
Thenceforth it was a haunted place,
And shunn'd by tribes of the forest race,
When the fires of day forsook the west,
And in darker robe the woods were dressed.”
TEWANNA.
Turn from their office to black funeral:
Our instruments to melancholy bells;
Our wedding cheer to a sad funeral feast;
Our solemn hymns to sullen dirges change.”
Shakespeare.
At the foot of a sycamore tree,
Whose pillar-like trunk throws its beautiful shade
On the banks of the dark Genesee.
One morning, in June, to the spot I was led
By the son of a perishing race,
And he told me a story allied to the dead
That renders more holy the place.
In the tremulous accents of grief,
“Many summers have ended since weeping ones piled
Yon mould on a maiden and chief.
The soul of Tewanna dwells now in that land
Where suns in the west never set,
But I still see her look of expressiveness bland,
Her dark eye is visible yet.
With a smile like the dawning of light;
Her form vied the lily in grace when its cup
Is bestudded with gems of the night.
The girls of her tribe glen and precipice sought
For trophies to lay at her feet;
To garland her brow from the wilderness brought
Gay blue-bell and violet sweet.
Of passion in many a breast,
But the son of a chieftain in league with her sire
Her vow of fidelity blest.
His shaft pierced the wild deer in pride of its speed,
In battle his hatchet was true;
His foot was more fleet than the prairie-born steed
That rider, or rein never knew.
And gave their loud mirth to the air;
While Tewanna came forth—her long tresses of jet
Interwoven with ornaments rare.
Her look I remember of utter dismay
When the Seneca prophet thus spake:—
‘The heart that is beating so gladly to-day,
With grief on the morrow will break!
While tribesmen his coming await?
Is he searching out game in the wilderness dim,
Or some proud bridal-gift for his mate?
The forehead, now wearing the sign of delight,
Will darken with sorrow ere long,
For the whippowil came to my lodge yesternight,
And chanted an ominous song.’
Sought a flowery couch in the shade,
But the lover came not with his presence to cheer
The heart of his beautiful maid.
When the last gleam of day from the occident fled,
And darkness infolded the cloud,
From the lodge of their sachem with whisper of dread,
And presentiment dark went the crowd.
And reported in faltering words,
By the screaming of carrion birds;
That in a lone glen, where dark hemlock shut out
The cheerful effulgence of day,
While the hoarse raven flew in swift circles about,
The corse of a warrior lay.
And the loved of Tewanna we found—
Near the body were foot-prints of ruffian men,
And marks of red strife were around.
The blended expression of wrath and disdain
His visage yet fearfully wore—
The long, slender arrow wherewith he was slain,
Was dyed to the feather in gore.
We mournfully placed the young chief;
Then homeward we carried the slumbering dead,
Our faces bent downward in grief.
A dirge for the fallen we solemnly raised,
And were met by the youthful and old,
Who circled the death-couch, and fearfully gazed
On the sleeper, unbreathing and cold.
Said a voice, as Tewanna drew near;
She caught but one glimpse of the features, and fell
An inanimate corse by the bier.
On the following day weeping relatives laid
The Warrior-Chief in his gore,
By the side of his love in a tomb rudely made
At the foot of yon old sycamore.”
THE HAUNTED ROCK.
I am indebted to George Hosmer, Esq., one of the pioneers of Western New York, for the following statement:
“In the early settlement of the Genesee country, I remember to have seen a round rock standing near the Indian trail leading from Canawaugus to Geneseo, in what is now the town of Avon. It was about forty feet in circumference—the earth, where it lay imbedded, was hard and gravelly; there was a narrow path around it one foot in width, and it was beaten and worn by passing feet to the depth of four or five inches. Tradition informs us that a chief of distinction had been buried under that rock, and that his memory was honored by his tribesmen, when hunting or on war expeditions, by religiously running, with breath suspended, round his rude tomb.”
This rock was in the form of a large boulder, and the like of it has never been found in this region. In after years it was removed by ruthless hands, blasted, and manufactured into mill-stones.
More fell than anguish, hunger or the sea!
Look on the tragic loading of this bed:
This is thy work: the object poisons sight;
Let it be hid.”—
Shakespeare.
Deep in the forest, green and old,
And oaken giants interlace
Their boughs above the fruitful mould.
Since rose wild yell, and cry of fear—
Its bower the roving Indian shuns
When belted for the chase of deer.
And lightly near the partridge treads,
While, breathing fragrance on the air,
Frail wood-plants lift their nodding heads.
Sad legend of the past he knows,
And with a deeply-troubled mien
Wild, watchful look around he throws;
Wind, sun and shower had failed to dim,
And the pale phantoms of the slain,
Through leaves, were looking forth on him.
Dark deed of evil can impart—
An awe that stills the lip of mirth,
And sends a coldness to the heart.
And sweetest flower of womanhood
That ever grew, untaught and wild,
Within the green, o'erarching wood.
Had seen, till night's chill gloom was gone,
And morning tipped the hills with fire,
Love's torch in her bark lodge burn on.
In conducting a courtship, the Seneca lover visits the wigwam of the maiden after she has retired to rest, and places a burning torch of bark, previously prepared, on the hearth-stone. If she rises, and extinguishes it, the offer of marriage is rejected; but if it is allowed to burn on, he returns home an accepted suitor.
The daring Tuscarora laid,
Regardless of parental ban,
To bear away his dark-eyed maid.
To her he loved, in whisper low—
“When dew is on the thirsty flower
I will be near with steed and bow.
Is girt by greener woods than these;
There hath the moon a softer ray,
And clearer notes have bird and breeze.”
When gone was sunlight's parting smile,
But little thought an evil eye
On him kept earnest watch the while.
While dim with shade the landscape grew,
Wa-noo-sa, with a fluttering heart,
Counted the moments as they flew.
The listener heard at last, and found
For vigil sad a rich reward
In that long-wished for, welcome sound.
Then paused a horseman in his race:—
The maid behind him lightly sprung,
And on he rode at fearful pace.
In vain will scour the wood and dell
When comes the morrow!”—not a word
In answer from that horseman fell.
Up stony hill, through coppice toiled;
Nor flagged his wiry limbs in speed
When swampy loam each fetlock soiled.
A glimmering light on wave and wold
When reached a thicket, lone and dread,
Deep in the forest green and old.
And pointing to the forest-floor
On which a fallen warrior lay,
“Dismount!”—exclaimed—“your ride is o'er!”
Then fell as if by arrow shot—
One instant her stern father gazed,
And galloped wildly from the spot.
The sad moon of the falling leaf
A hunter, on the track for game,
Found, and his heart was touched with grief.
And earth above them gently piled,
Then, for the beautiful and brave,
Sang a low dirge, with gesture wild.
Rolled a huge rock the mound above
To mark where slept, in other years,
The victims of unhappy love.
And deeply worn that rock around,
By children of the hunter race
In passing, was the solid ground:—
Heard spirit voices on the breeze,
While shadows from the realm of death
Glided among the whispering trees.
THE HAUNTED COVE.
Of all that ever charmed romantic eye.”
Keats.
The sun is low in the west, my love!
Few shafts are left in his golden quiver;
And we must cross, ere we reach the Cove,
Yon old red bridge that spans the river.”
Of valley and hill takes blushing leave,
And the red-breast chants a pensive lay
That tells of the coming hush of eve.
They reach the place where rankly waves
The springing corn on rifled graves—
Where the bleaching bones of the forest-lord
Pierce through the vegetating sward;
They pass the old elm-tree whose bough
Is green with a robe of clinging moss—
With flagging pace the bridge they cross,
And the place they seek is before them now.
Be this old walnut's fallen trunk,
And shrink not, though beneath your feet
The dark, rich soil hath carnage drunk;
For here your roving eyes behold
The scenery of that legend old
Which thou hast teased me oft to tell—
Now list! and heed its import well.
An isle from the level mainland sever,
Where the blue-bird first salutes the ear
With song when the vernal clouds appear,
And a quiet beauty lingers ever.
On the low and richly wooded shore
Are visible remains of yore;
And often, when the shelving clay
Is worn by the wash of waves away,
Rude implements of other days,
And skeletons arrest the gaze.
Direct your glance where the river bends,
And the bank, with a gentle slope, descends;
For there, encircled by the wood,
The village of the red-man stood.
Flinging shadows long and dark,
The island described in this legend is formed by a sweeping bend of the Genesee and the “Haunted Cove,” supposed to have been the ancient bed of the river. It was a favorite sugar orchard of the Indians, and maples of immense size, deeply scarred by the hatchet, are rooted in the rich vegetable mould. The remains of huts, mouldering and moss-covered, may yet be seen in the shadow of the old forest. The island is carpeted with wild flowers in the spring and summer, and bevies of light-hearted boys and girls flock annually thither to pluck and weave them into nosegays. In taking the “back foot of life's trail,” to use an Indian metaphor, I number among the greenest and brightest spots of memory—my boyish excursions in quest of blue-bells and wild fruit, to this enchanted place.
While round their leaning stems entwine
The folding arms of the leafy vine.
Long, long ago Conesus made
His dwelling in their graceful shade;
Above them curls, as in time of yore,
The smoke of his cone-like lodge no more,
With its rude walls hung with trophies torn
From the heads of fallen foes;
But his name by a rapid stream is borne,
That, in its channel deeply worn,
Near Avon foams and flows.
Far-famed for deeds, but loved him most:
Not by hereditary right
Rank did he win above them all,
But forced his way by skill in fight,
And wisdom in the council-hall.
When caught their ears his onset cry,
And often to their mountain-hold
He chased the Adiróndack bold:
Full deeply was his hatchet stained
When the vaunting Delaware he brained;
The fierce Ottawa's blood, in strife,
Had dimm'd the blade of his deadly knife,
And his name alone could wildly wake
Dread in the Hurons of the Lake;
For a whizzing shaft from his fatal bow
In dust laid their youthful sachem low;
I stand on the spot where he darkly fell,
And known is his grave to the Seneca well.”
The home of his savage enemy?
What madness tempted him to stray
From his own tribe so far away?”
The lady, with a shudder, said:
“A band, by old Conesus led,
The country of the Hurons sought,
When the deep green of summer fled,
And back a beauteous captive brought:
She was the bride of a noted chief,
And his heart was madly wrung with grief
When he came with his warriors from the chase,
And found his home a ruined place—
The huts of his people in ashes, and gone
The young bride he tenderly doated upon.”
And follow the relentless foe?”
‘Yes, Lillian! on their path he sped,
But few were the quiver'd braves he led:
The mazes of the forest dim
He threaded with unwearied limb,
Like a famished wolf on the trail of deer.
Steep hill he clomb, and river cross'd
In quest of the bride of his bosom lost,
And captors at whose girdles hung
The reeking scalps of old and young.”
Of ravishers his forest flower?”
“No!—for the Senecas, when near
The village of their tribe, sent out,
Fearful of danger in the rear,
Their fleetest warrior as a scout,
Who soon, with fox-like bound, came back
Announcing foemen on their track.
Conesus, belted for the fight
These tidings heard with grim delight,
And for his rash pursuer laid
On the bank of this cove an ambuscade.
No sign could trace of peril nigh
Until a startling whoop arose
Succeeded by the twang of bows,
And the sudden fall of a warrior tried,
With a ringing death-shriek, by his side.
The victims of that fatal snare
Fought with the fury of despair;
Like wolves, athirst for blood, and gaunt,
That madly on the hunter spring
When round their dark and savage haunt
Contracts the deadly ring,
This method of hunting formed on a grander scale the favorite amusement of the princes of Tartary, when, as it is beautifully described by Somerville in his “Chase,”
“On the banks of Genina, Indian stream,Line within line, rose their pavilions proud.”
Previous notice having been given out that the “Circular Hunt” will take place upon an appointed day; in many parts of the western states the hunters for many miles around take their respective stations, and, at a preconcerted signal, commence marching towards each other. The game consisting of wolves, bears, deer, and numerous other smaller animals, encircled within the living wall, huddle closer and closer together, and,—
—with vain assault contend to breakThe impenetrable line.
They are soon dispatched by the approaching assailants, or their comrades placed in the centre of the circle, upon an elevated platform with rifles and other instruments of death.
Battled their little band, while grew
Fewer their numbers, and more few.
The cover of o'ershadowing trees
While groans, and yells were on the breeze;
But summoning their might for one
Terrific shock, disdained to shun
The red encounter, knife to knife,
And plied their weapons in the strife
With deadly aim, and active bound,
While the fierce Senecas gave ground
Before their maddening rush for life.
By frantic calls for instant aid;
And stood awhile, with trembling limb,
For the voice was not unknown to him;
Then—fearful sight! his hapless bride
Bound rudely to a tree, descried,
In battle or previous to battle, the forest warrior secures his prisoner, if too hard pressed to convey him from the field, by fastening him with strips of tough bark, or thongs of deer skin, to the trunks of trees. This mode of preventing the escape of captives is sometimes adopted, previous to torturing them at the stake; and striplings frequently exercise their skill, and amuse themselves by hurling hatchets at, without hitting or materially wounding them. Even women and maidens enjoy the spectacle, and intensely watch for some expression of fear while the bright, whirling weapon grazes the skin, or severs a lock of hair in its passage. If the pinioned brave endures the trial with a defying glance, and unshaken nerves, he is sometimes spared at the urgent intercession of some bereaved father, or childless mother, and adopted in place of the dead. The fortitude of General Putnam was tested in this manner, by the Indians of Canada, in the old French war.
And ruddy spot on her breast betrayed
Where some coward's knife had entrance made.
Oh! fatal pause!—a whistling dart
Clove its red pathway to his heart,
And uttering nor groan, nor yell,
On high the chieftain sprang, and fell,
While, toward him, old Conesus sped
To tear the scalp-lock from his head.”
“Did the bride escape, or was her doom
More dark, more dread than an early tomb?”
“When the haughty victor came to free
His captive bound to the rugged tree,
The blood from her veins had ebb'd away,
And her soft, dark eye was dimmed for aye.
Instead of a prize of beauty rare
His couch to tend—his lodge to share,
A ghastly corse he found alone,
Voiceless and cold as a figure of stone.
And the quick, wild bark of the fox is heard,
And a vivid flash the fire-fly shoots,
Two spectral forms—old hunters say—
The Huron chief and his dusky bride,
Along the shore are seen to stray
In gory garb, and side by side,
Until they vanish in the grove
That skirts the bend of the Haunted Cove.”
THE WEIRD WOLF'S BARK.
Shakespeare.
Went Ge-nut-e-gah forth,
And trail that he trod
Stretched away to the north—
Through wilds that were then
To the pale-face unknown,
With dog, pack and weapons
He travelled alone:
“One moon will my lover
Be absent”—exclaimed
His bride, by her nation
‘Blue Violet,’ named—
“One long weary moon,
When the daylight is fled,
Will I listen in vain
For the sound of his tread.”
And vanished away,
When reached he dark woods
Round Tyron-de-quat Bay;
And sylvan lodge meet
For a true hunter made
Of lopp'd oaken branches
With bark overlaid.
Soon robbed he the red elk
Fleet, star-eyed and tall,
Of broad branching antlers
To garnish his wall;
With rich, furry spoil,
Proud proof of his skill,
And reward of his toil.
Of grim bear he embrued,
His long, feather'd arrow
The panther subdued;
The wild cat from den
In thick swamp he decoyed
By mocking its cry,
And the creature destroyed—
The string of his bow
Twanged the knell of the deer,
Though lent to each hoof
Was a pinion by fear;
And trapped the brown beaver,
That architect wise!
And otter, though keen
His unslumbering eyes.
With a sorrowful face,
Lo! Ge-nut-e-gah speeds
To his camp, from the chase
Since day-dawn unbent
Hath been bow that he bears,
The fox hurries by him,
But little he cares—
What change hath come over
A hunter so keen—
Why fled hath the sunshine
Of hope from his mien?
The bark of the Weird-Wolf
Hath 'larum'd his soul;
A warning impels him
That brooks not control.
On a wearisome road,
That led toward the huts
Of his nation, he strode:
Nor paused he to snatch
By the way a repast
When twilight's last gleam
On the hill-top was cast;
The stag gained his covert,
The wild bird her nest,
But Ge-nut-e-gah thought not
Of halting to rest—
On! on through the heart
Of the forest he sped—
Around him thick gloom,
And no star overhead.
Raised a signal halloo!
When the low, cone-like huts
Of his tribe were in view;
And back came a mournful
Response on the gale—
A shrill cry of sorrow—
A wild note of wail;
And tidings to trouble
The heart of the bold
Full well by the varied
Inflection were told;
By way of signal the Indian imitates the peculiar cries of different animals. When near an enemy at night, he makes his presence known to a friend in the darkness, by a low, and almost inaudible sound like the chirrup of a cricket. Disaster or triumph, when returning from a campaign against a foe, is expressed by the distant and delicately-modulated cry that announces his return to the nation.
And inly awoke
The presentiment drear
That young Way-an-dah-go
Lay stretched on the bier.
Divided the crowd,
Grew loud, and more loud:
He reached with impetuous
Movement the door—
He paused on the threshold,
And doubted no more:
To stifle deep moaning
How vain his endeavor,
For quenched was the star
Of his nation forever,
And shot through his bosom
A winter-like chill,
For the Weird-Wolf, alas!
Had been bearer of ill.
Superstitious persons, among the whites, are startled by the howl of a dog at night, especially when an inmate is sick, believing the melancholy sound ominous of calamity and death. The Senecas, on the contrary, hear a note of fearful warning in the bark of the wolf, when on their hunting or war expeditions. This animal, save when half famished, seldom barks, and when the unusual noise is heard in the woods, the Indian retraces his steps, believing that some hidden danger is impending over himself, or that some signal misfortune has befallen, or is about to befall, his family or tribe. I am indebted for information on this subject to Col. William Jones, of Leicester, a son of the late lamented Captain Horatio Jones, the Indian interpreter.
RAINBOW SPIRITS.
(A LEGEND OF SILVER LAKE.)
Shakespeare.
Lovely to sight in calm and storm,
Washing the feet of misty hills,
Whose sides, all ribbed with rocky bones,
Send forth a thousand crystal rills
Filling air with slumberous tones:
Their foreheads, crowned with evergreen,
Are mirrored in the wave below,
And near the reedy marge are seen,
When cometh June of radiant mien,
Water-lilies with cups of snow.
Many are lakes in the Seneca land
Of azure breast, and glittering strand,
That picture cloud and mountain well,
But fairest of the cluster bright,
By day, and in the starry night
Is the lake where rainbow spirits dwell.
An Indian town ere the white man came,
But demons issued from the wood,
And gave its lodges to the flame,
When not an arm to guard was near,
And chieftain and hunters were chasing deer:
Knife-pierced, the heart of childhood bled,
And robbed of scalp was the hoary head;
Sharp hatchet clove the mother's brain,
And the summer dust drank crimson rain.
Of raven tress, and voice more sweet
Than song of black bird in the brake
When heard was the rush of hostile feet,
And yells that sent a fearful thrill
To her lover's heart on the distant hill?
She was bending over a hillock low
That marked her mother's place of rest,
And the swelling turf was newly drest
With flowers that symbolized her woe.
Upstarting at the horrid sound
Con-yok-way-oo looked wildly round—
To earth, by spell of terror chained,
One instant motionless remained,
Then, light of foot, away she sprung,
Like a frighted doe when the hound gives tongue.
Her cedar-ribbed canoe lay moored
In a basin fringed with the water willow—
And losing there its snow-white crown,
Though high the gale, sinks gently down
With murmur soft the billow.
Her course the maiden thither laid
Unloosed the bark, and pushed from land;
Long line of flashing foam it made,
So well she plied the paddle-blade,
Receding from the strand.
The spirit of her mother dear,
Whispered a warning in her ear,
When magical tints of darker blue
Told that the water deeper grew—
“Betrothed one of Chu-gah-gos speed!
Like flying gull the lakelet over,
To help thee, in thine hour of need,
Waits on the shore thy dauntless lover.”
And in swift pursuit a birchen bark
Cut with sharp prow the billow white
While heaven as if to veil the sight,
In that dread hour grew dark:
The wind, with a sudden howl, awoke,
And on the beach in thunder broke
The heavy, laboring wave;
The Cloud-King strung his sable bow,
And fiery shafts on the flood below,
Hissed as they found a grave—
When snarling wolf is on the track,
The hunted fawn looks trembling back,
Then onward flies with wilder spring—
And Con-yok-way-oo pursuer eyed,
And with quicker stroke the paddle plied,
For a fiend was following.
Su-ah-dis the bloody—Su-ah-dis the base,
Black, gliding snake of the Chippewa race,
Was daring the perils of lightning and wave,
To capture the bride of Chu-gah-gos the brave.
On Silver Lake in all its strength;
Rain-drops danced on the lengthened swells,
And made a tinkling sound like bells;
A blacker bow the Cloud King bent,
And swifter, redder arrows sent,
While the voice of Ou-wee-ne-you made
The wild beast in his lair afraid.
Though the fleeing maiden governed still
Her little craft with wondrous skill,
Bark that pursuing savage bore,
Fast gaining in the desperate race,
Beheld Chu-gah-gos from the shore,
And cover from his gun he tore,
But darkness in that moment dread,
The face of the waters overspread,
And blinded the hunter's aim—
Then, followed by an awful roar,
From the firmament-wall did downward pour
A sheet of lurid flame:—
It gave the lake a strange attire,
Wrapping each wave in a mantle of fire.
And the curtain of darkness was updrawn,
The chief looked out upon the lake—
Pursuer and pursued were gone:
The sun beamed kindly forth again,
And kindling up large drops of rain
That on each balmy leaflet hung,
The forest, with its columns tall,
Round which the grape and woodbine clung,
Changed to a green, enchanted hall
O'erspangled with a roof of gems,
Meet for celestial diadems,
Could they have hardened, and the light
Forever drank that made them bright.
Chu-gah-gos grasped with trembling hand;
And steered for the spot where last descried,
Through the blinding storm, was his beauteous bride.
Describing curve of matchless grace,
The scene bright Us-tu-an-da cheered,
And marked with radiant foot the place
Where the Seneca maiden disappeared.
With awe the youthful chief drew nigh—
He called—and a voice made low reply—
“Mourn for Con-yok-way-oo no more,
The joys and sorrows of time are o'er,
To reach happy isles on this tinted arch,
I am under obligations to D. S. Curtis, Esq., of Perry, Wyoming Co., for the following version of this legend:
For several pleasing characteristics, there are, perhaps, none among all the beautiful lakes of western New York, that surpass, if they equal, the one which mirrors forth the ever varying features of the heavens near our happy village—our own Silver Lake— emblem of the Christian's joy in humility; for, as he bows to its surface, his natural vision sees minutely the bright heavens above him; so by the eye of Faith the disciple of Jesus, as he meekly bends to the boundless streams of his Grace, discerns the unfading glories of the Heaven of Heavens. The crystal waters of this lake are deep and cool, abounding with a variety of sparkling fish; and surrounded by a fertile, elevated, and undulating surface of land which amply returns to the husbandman rich stores of nutritious products, to compensate his labor and expenditure. One peculiar feature in the conformation that bounds this lake, is, that its head and foot—inlet and outlet—are nearly at the same point, bending round in a crescent, with the convex side facing the sheet which pushes itself back three or four miles between the hills that confine it.
We learned from our ancestors a strange and thrilling, but romantic legend connected with this location, gathered by them from the natives; of which we briefly give the leading incidents below, leaving it for the poetic and imaginative to clothe and breathe it forth in such strains as it may inspire. It is well known that the Senecas once inhabited the heavy forests that skirt the borders of this lake; here were their hunting grounds; here by the rush-fringed beach they enjoyed their social festivities, and in sincerity and simplicity worshipped the Great Spirit, as the lightning gleams of his eye were sent back in broken flashes from its storm-lashed waters, or his voice of thunder made its placid surface tremble. But to the “Rainbow Legend:” A hostile band, when the chief and his braves were engaged in the hunt, stole upon their defenceless village, left in possession of old men, women, and children. Such as were not speedily destroyed sought escape in their canoes. Among them was the betrothed one of the chief. She was a prize to strive for, and escaped not the keen eye of the hostile leader.
Regardless of others, he wrested a paddle and canoe from a trembling gray head just launching for flight, and pursued the fugitive. The chase was desperate, the crack of a rifle reached her returning lover's ear, who saw from the opposite shore the peril of one who “was dearer than life to him.” Quick as thought his gun is at his cheek, but the lightning blinded his sight—the gathering storm is now breaking over them. A mightier avenger looks down in his wrath; the storm-god did his work. When the sun again beamed forth, the young chief launched his canoe, and steered for the spot where the maiden and her pursuer were last seen. Us-tu-an-da (the Rainbow) spans the canopy, and plants one foot on the fatal spot. In fancy, he sees the disembodied spirit of the drowned maiden in the brilliant hues of the tinted arch. Since the events here related the Rainbow has been deemed by the untutored Seneca, as the highway of the just to happy hunting-grounds. He believes that its bright colors are the happy souls of innocent and chaste females basking in sunshine, as they dance to and fro between this and the other world; and if the young warrior may but see this token during the first moon of his love-making, he feels assured that success will crown his wishes. Females, dying before marriage, if uncorrupted, are called “Su-qu-a-tuan-da” (Daughters of the Rainbow). In conversation with the late Captain Jones, he informed me that the Senecas combine, frequently, two or three words to constitute the name of an object—thus: “Su-gu-aw-uc (daughter), Us-tu-an-da (rainbow),—Su-qu-a-tuan-da (Daughter of the Rainbow).
And shifting hues, that point the way,
Are souls between heaven and earth that play:—
Mourn not!—to a cloudless clime I go,
And my pathway is this beauteous bow
That caught me up in its glittering fold
When burning shroud for my foe was unrolled.”
But music came on the wafting breeze,
And Chu-gah-gos deemed it the last adieu
Of his loved one, and lost one—Con-yok-way-oo.
BLACK PLUME.
With their old forests wide and deep.”
Bryant.
That in the distance stretch away:
When elk yon river sought in droves,
And of its pleasant waters drank,
Before the tall, primeval groves
Receded from the bank;
On this commanding swell of ground
That overlooks the scene around,
O'er his red brethren of the wood
Black Plume, a famous sachem, ruled,
And sixty winters had not cooled
The fiery current of his blood.
Moulded was his athletic form
To brave the fight, to breast the storm,
And vied his high heroic deeds
In number with the wampum-beads
Decking a war-belt proudly tied
In knot of crimson at his side.
One arm alone could bend his bow
With sinews of the moose-deer strung;
The gory spoils of many a foe
In his bark cabin hung,
The Senecas constructed wigwams, before the first settlers reared their log-cabins of bark, including the walls as well as roofs. The bark was fastened to poles stuck in the ground. The rafters were made of round poles, and tied together at the top, and crossed again at smaller distances by smaller poles, on which was ingeniously spread the barken roof. Berths, or shelvings, were made on each side of the hut, the lower one about one foot from the earth, on which they lodged, and the other about five feet high, on which they deposited their venison, and household furniture. The fire was built in the centre of the structure, and a hole left in the roof for the escape of smoke.
And tufted scalps of conflict spoke
While drying in the wreathy smoke.
A rose-bud blushing in the wild,
Who well could quench the kindling fire
Of rash resentment in her sire,
The troubled fountains of his heart,
When sad and weary he came back
Without one victim from the chase:
Her brow was shaded by the black,
Long tresses of her race,
And shone her dark eye like the rill
Descending, star-lit, from the hill.
The wildness of her “wood-notes” clear
Consorted with the forest well,
And when their music on the ear
Of haughty Black Plume fell,
His scar-indented brow would wear
Expression unallied to care,
And smiles, like dawn illuming night,
His martial countenance would light.
May is the month designated by the “moon of flowers.” “Before the young moon's horn becomes a circle,” is an expression of time, frequently used by the “red rulers of the shade.” By imagery, derived from natural objects, this primitive people convey their grandest thoughts and emotions. “Who can tell the power of the Great Spirit?” said a native orator; “the strong wind is his breath—the thunder is his voice—the sun is his smile.”
While dew hung twinkling in the bowers,
The chief took down his bow unstrung,
And round his ample shoulders flung
A hunting robe of painted skins—
Then, lacing, on his moccasins
While nodded haughtily his crest
Of sable hue, his child addrest:—
“Beneath a purple banner fold
March the first messengers of day,
And drive with blades of glimmering gold
The spirit of the mist away;
The pleasant winds begin to rouse
From rest the dark commingling boughs,
And by their murmur seem to chide
The hunter for his long delay:
The tangled glen and forest wide
Shall tribute to my woodcraft pay;
The sharp edge of my fatal knife,
Ere night, shall rob the bear of life,
The snarling wolf with hunger fierce,
Or, from his throne of craggy rocks
The lordly bird of conquest bring—
What prouder trophy for thy locks
Than plumage of his wing?”
His trembling daughter answer made:—
“Oh, go not forth in quest of game!
My mother, who hath long been dead,
In visions of the midnight came,
And with a warning gesture said:—
‘Rose of the Senecas, give ear!
The foe—the Chippewa—is near.’
Affrighted by the dream, I woke,
And felt a wild, foreboding thrill,
For warbled on the solemn oak,
That shades our lodge, the whip-po-wil.
I sought, a second time, my bed,
And sleep my pillow visited:
My long-lost mother came once more,
And, her thin hands uplifting, said,
In accents louder than before:—
‘Rose of the Senecas! beware!
The Chippewa hath left his lair!’
I rose with fear opprest:—the east
Was radiant with the march of morn,
And bees were busy at their feast
In blossoms newly born.”
May coward's heart with terror thrill,
But think not, dreamer, to affright
My soul with visions of the night!”
The chieftain scornfully replied,
And sought the wood with rapid stride.
The quiver'd hunter came not back;
And when the day drew near its close
Giving the west a tint of rose,
And grew the landscape round more dim
In mute expectance stood his child
Her wigwam by to welcome him
Emerging from the dreary wild.
With ear intent she waited long
To hear his whistle, or the song
Sung by the people of her race
Returning homeward from the chase;
Many writers, who have made Indian character their theme, have erred in supposing that these sons of nature have “no music in their souls.” The barbarous discord of their rude drum, and turtle-shell rattle, I will admit is horrible; but that auditor must be dull of brain, and can little appreciate the “concord of sweet sounds,” who will sit unmoved while the native choir, at the Tuscarora Mission House, are singing.
Then hurried like a startled fawn
When arrows to the barb are drawn,
And, seeking gray, old men, made known
Her many fears in trembling tone,
And bade them forth fleet runners send
Who lance could wield, and tough bow bend.
Inured to war, and strong of hand,
Went sternly forth for battle drest,
Of their loved sagamore in quest.
The warriors, after searching well
Swamp, coppice lone, and bosky dell,
Back came, with looks down bent in grief,
Bearing the body of their chief.
In his broad bosom stuck the knife,
Red to the handle with his life;
And the long scalp-lock that he wore,
Was stiff with clotted drops of gore.
His bearers felt a mournful pride
To think not vainly had he died;
For even death could not relax
Firm grasp upon his battle-axe,
And near the fatal spot were found
Three foemen lifeless on the ground.
Where stands his dark memorial-stone,
Like some rude watcher of the dead
In robes of green moss habited;
And shaded by two dwarfish trees
That wrestle feebly with the breeze.
Amid their boughs are never heard
The low, wild warbling of the bird,
Or the blithe chirp of squirrel black,
When spring, in green apparel clad,
With airs of purity comes back
To make the broad earth glad:
When summer reigns, with cheek all bloom,
To deck his grave no flower looks up,
Enticing by its fresh perfume
The wild bee to its cup:
A few, misshapen shrubs that bear
The whortleberry rustle there;
But in my youth I thought ill luck
Would fall on him who dared to pluck,
Though, glittering in morning dew,
Hung temptingly their berries blue.
THE BIG OAK, OR THE ENCHANTED BOW.
Shakespeare.
Met often in the days of yore
Beneath this mighty council oak,
Gray giant of the river shore.
Full closely to his aged stem,
And far around he proudly flings
The shadow of his diadem.
Would long detain us in the shade,
Could mossy bough, and trembling leaf
Find tongue, and voluble be made.
And broken is the battle spear,
But nations have been made to bow
Beneath the yoke of conquest here.
That in the lap of beauty lies,
If spell to wake the dead were ours,
What multitudes would 'round us rise.
Sachems in forest war renowned—
The prophet with majestic mien,
And hunter with his crouching hound;
Armed with his bright, enchanted bow,
A dauntless chieftain would upstart,
Buried a thousand years ago.
Fair girl! I will recount to thee,
While sunset changes into gold
The ripples of the Genesee.
Both sexes join promiscuously in the “Corn Dance.” They move round a block of wood in the similitude of a man, painted and adorned with furs, feathers, and ribands. Two men seated near the feet of the image make music by pounding on a skin drawn over the mouth of a kettle, and blowing on a rude flute. Deer's hoofs strung like beads, and fastened about the legs of the dancers, make a sharp, rattling noise. Their stated periods for rendering thanks to the Great Spirit for the favors conferred upon them, are in summer when the corn is fit for roasting—in the beginning of autumn, when their beans and squashes are repening—and at mid-winter when they return home with the produce of the hunt.
A tribe moved briskly in the dance
To sound of drum, and Indian flute
On this broad meadow's green expanse.
The swelling sound of joy arose,
The voice of jubilee was drowned
By the shrill battle cry of foes.
Filled with a wild, contagious fear,
Fled like some scattered covey when
The screaming hawk is hovering near.
Rallied to cover their retreat,
Stayed by a chieftain's stern command
Who loved the conflict-shock to meet.
Throughout the land, our sires were famed—
Now prove we that their children still
Are archers good”—the chief exclaimed:
A steel-barbed arrow to the head—
Three hundred yards the missile flew,
Striking a fierce pursuer dead.
No mortal hand the shaft dismissed—
That with the few in number fought
Some demon-born antagonist.
By the same matchless bowman fell,
Who answered their retreat-halloo
With one long, loud, triumphant yell.
When fled his enemies, to see
In dying state the victor lean
Against the trunk of this old tree.
Unharmed by thrust of hostile lance,
Throbbed with a laboring beat his heart,
While dimmer grew his eagle glance.
While round him met his sorrowing band—
“She-gua-on's foot ere long must tread
The green shore of the Spirit Land.
Indian names are generally significant of something in nature. Occurrences happening at the time of the birth frequently suggest names. She-gua-on anglicized is (Rattle Snake)—Su-ah-dis, mentioned in the legend of Silver Lake, (Black Snake)— Chu-gah-gos (Young Hickory), and Con-yok-way-oo (Daughter of the Lake). Also, Te-yos-yu, in the legend of the Big Hill, is the Seneca word for (Bright Eye)—Ge-met-e-gah (Raccoon).
Curiosity prompted me to inquire of a squaw the name of her pappoose; “On-yit-hah!” was her reply; soon after meeting with my mother, who converses fluently in the Seneca, I learned from her the definition, which was “Bird of the starry wing.” Though somewhat familiar with ornothology, I could not think of a feathered minstrel in our latitude answering the description, and I inquired if the name was any thing more than a fanciful appellation—with a smile my mother answered that the night hawk was referred to—and that the white spots upon its wings were likened, by this imaginative people, to stars.
Names are now and then changed in consequence of remarkable circumstances taking place, or of particular employments, or acts of individuals.
Was warned of danger to beware—
I woke, and near a glittering sheaf
Of arrows found the bow I bear.
Its wood is not of earthly grain,
But grew where winds blow soft and warm,
Forever o'er the ‘Dead Man's Plain.’
In needful hour were also given
Those tapering shafts so true and far
By this elastic weapon driven.
That heads their feather'd shafts, in fight;
And medicine can never heal
Wound made by them, however slight.
Beneath this mighty council oak—
Here, pall the dropping leaves will spread,
And dirge the forest raven croak.”
On meadow fair, and river side,
Then, while his limbs with coldness shook,
Low death-song breathed, and calmly died.
Three days the painted corse was throned,
When a distinguished person died, sometimes the Senecas erected a scaffold, on which they placed the departed, in the attitude and habiliments of life. For a full description of the ceremony, I refer the reader to the concluding chapter of Stone's Life of Red Jacket, entitled “Black Chief's Daughter,” and the facts of which were related to the lamented writer by my mother, while on a western tour gathering material for his work.
In a rich robe of fur arrayed,
With bead-inwoven baldrick zoned.
Pillowed on trophies of the foe,
With groans and tears the tribe inhumed
Still grasping his enchanted bow.
Who wished the trail of war to tread,
Broke the green roofing of his grave
To rob, of weapon charmed, the dead.
The night dew clinging to his hair—
No stain of blood was on the clay,
No mark of desperate combat there.
The red man placed the turf again,
Assured that by his place of rest,
Armed spirits did a watch maintain.
When moonlight falls upon the river—
Within his shadowy hand a bow,
And at his back a gleaming quiver.
To wound his funeral-oak with steel!
Oh, never will he see gray hairs,
Or peace in brain, or bosom feel!
Beneath its old, protecting bough,
With hollow groans, and rending sighs,
The wretch, at midnight hour, will rouse.
Flesh from his bones will melt away,
And, in a dark, dishonored tomb,
Unquiet will his ashes lay.
REPLY OF THE GREAT OAK AT GENESEO TO THE CHARTER OAK AT HARTFORD.
Towers, athlete-like, the oak.”
For missive unto me addrest!
The fay, who bore thy greeting fair,
Is waiting my response to bear;
And while his acorn-cup is filled
With nectar by the night distilled,
And, full of mischief, banquets he
On luscious comb of swarming bee,
I'll mar, with crabbed lines of age,
The greenness of this leafy page.
Have poured their golden sunlight down—
Winds of a thousand winters wild
Snows at my feet have high up-piled,
And still my venerable form
Towers, in defiance of the storm.
I stand, a melancholy tree,
In valley of the Genesee—
My throne is on the river bank,
Once dark with oaks that, rank on rank,
Raised their proud, rustling plumes on high,
Encased in barken panoply.
From acorns, sown by me, they sprung,
For the bright axe their knell hath rung,
A king of realm and subjects reft.
Unsound am I at heart—and clay
Is crumbling from my roots away,
As if my mother earth would shun
In his decline her royal son.
Tall elk have grazed, wild antlered brows:
Crouching for prey, on mossy limb,
My leaves have screened the panther grim,
And I have heard the mammoth's roar
A few years since, the skeleton of a mammoth was exhumed, within two miles of the site of the Great Oak of Geneseo, from a marshy spot, near a spring on the upland height, near were Temple Hill Academy now stands. The bones were too much decayed for preservation, except the teeth which may still be seen.
Shake, far and wide, the forest-floor.
Since rose, by light and rain-drops fed,
From forest-mould my branching head,
Like flowers have flourished and declined
The wasting tribes of human kind.
Above their unrecorded graves
Primeval wood no longer waves;
But flinty implements of chase,
That tell of a forgotten race,
While furrow broad his plough-share turns,
Oft the brown husbandman discerns.
These meadows, is of modern date—
Long ere his blazing camp-fire shed
On yon dark river gleam of red,
A people, now extinct, possest
There is a tradition among the Senecas that a people formerly lived in the Genesee valley who tilled the earth like the white man, and who were skilled in many useful and ornamental arts. Remains of their pottery may still be seen. They were exterminated by tribes of the Algonquin stock, who were in turn subdued by the conquering Iroquois, styled by the Jesuits the Romans of the west. The “Reply of the Great Oak,” which was suggested by a letter from the Charter Oak of Connecticut, to the Great Oak at Geneseo, written by Mrs. Sigourney, appeared a few months ago in Graham's Magazine, and though not strictly a legend, was deemed worthy of a place in this collection, by reason of its reference to some old traditions.
This vale with health and beauty blest.
They reared their tent-poles in my shade,
First fruits on smoking altars laid:
With blood they reddened not the sod,
Nor shaded trail of battle trod;
And skilled were they in peaceful arts,
For love found harbor in their hearts.
In evil hour, a robber horde—
This harmless race they hunted down,
As wolves shy deer in forest brown;
To flame their pleasant hamlets gave,
To young and old a common grave.
Brief reign the conquerors enjoyed,
By fiercer foes in turn destroyed:
Braves of bold port and haughty crest,
Well named the “Romans of the West,”
For signal was their triumph shout
That tribes from earth were rooted out.
Gone are the Aganuschion now;
Pale children of the rising sun
At length the mastery have won—
Their painted structures crown the height
With roofs and spires, in sunshine bright;
Changed is wide wood to thymy mead,
Where “lordly horse” and heifer feed,
And commerce guides her freighted ark
Where the plumed Indian steered his bark.
When through my top the night-wind sings,
Forsake the dust old forest-kings;
Around my patriarchal bole,
While near the moon-lit waters roll,
They meet, a throng of shadows frail,
Chanting a low and mournful wail.
Patient of toil and strong of hand,
Who left New England homes to rear
An empire's proud foundation here.
Beneath the landscape's verdure bright
They rescued from domain of night
Their consecrated bones repose.
Ancient brother, in their fame
Equal honor may we claim!
Bound are thy coiled roots to earth
In the land that gave them birth,
Near thee were their cradles made,
They in childhood near thee played;
But a realm of virgin soil
Was their theatre of toil.
Here their iron manhood passed—
Here they won the prize at last—
Here their funeral hillocks rise
Linked with holy memories.—
Have I written all have fled
To the country of the dead?
Still a cherished few remain,
Bright links of a broken chain!
Lord of those hills, these pastures green,
And foremost of the Pioneers,
In the pale winter of his years
Yet lives with youthful strength endowed,
And sends like me, though worn and old,
To scythe-armed Time defiance bold.
The name he bears that warrior bore
“The lights were instantly extinguished, and one Captain Wadsworth, of Hartford, in the most silent and secret manner carried off the charter, and secreted it in a large hollow tree.”—
Connecticut Historical Collections.The venerable James Wadsworth, since this poem was written, has paid the debt of nature. His efforts in the cause of education.
“Will long keep his memory green in our souls.”Who hid, when night dusk mantle wore,
Deep in thy gray and caverned bole
Insulted Freedom's parchment-scroll.
Brave men, who, in a desert lone
To lay a nation's corner-stone,
The joys of polished life forsake,
And solitude's long slumber break—
Dread pangs of thirst and hunger bear,
And Genius of Distemper dare,—
Than ever followed martial deed.
Late to their graves such men should go,
For them the tide of song should flow,
And generations, as they pass
Like chasing rain-drops down the glass,
From age to age, with pious care,
Should tombs that hold their dust repair.
The raven croak prophetic word,
And voices, at deep midnight, cry:—
“The moment of thy fall is nigh!”
Boon nature's law must be obeyed,
Her debt by man and oak be paid—
But long at foot of Wyllis' Hill
In reply to an inquiry respecting this tree, (says Dr. Holmes,) a daughter of Secretary Wyllis wrote to me from Hartford, “That venerable tree which concealed the charter of our rights, stands at the foot of Wyllis' Hill. The first inhabitants of that name found it standing in the height of its glory. Age seems to have curtailed its branches, yet it is not exceeded in the height of its coloring, or richness of its foliage. The trunk measures twenty-one feet in circumference, and near seven in diameter. The cavity which was the asylum of our charter, was near the roots, and large enough to admit a child. Within a space of eight years that cavity has closed, as if it had fulfilled the divine purpose for which it had been reared.”
Thy stem may healthful juices fill!
Loved by the free-born and the brave,
Long may thine honored branches wave!
Neglected in my sad decline,
The fate of waning power is mine;
The vines that round me clung of yore
My rugged bark embrace no more,
And birds, that erst my praises trilled,
Their nests 'mid richer foliage build.
Gone is the glory of my prime,
And near is my appointed time—
Full grown I wrestled with the gale
When thou wert but a sapling frail—
Aye!—ere the warming breath of spring
Woke thee, a tender infant thing,
Red chiefs, in beaded garb array'd,
Held their war-councils in my shade.
Last of the wood, I lift my head,
My sylvan family are dead;
And may the blast soon pipe my knell—
Yours, while a twig remains—Farewell!
JA-DA-QUA.
These lines allude to a beautiful Seneca tradition that lends an added charm to
Chau-tau-que Lake, in the State of New York. A young squaw is said to have eaten
of a root shedding on its banks, which created tormenting thirst. To slake it she stooped
down to drink of its clear waters, and disappeared for ever. Thence the name of the
lake, Ja-da-qua, or the place of easy death, where one disappears and is seen no more.
The renowned Corn Planter, in a speech to the president, complaining of his
people's wrongs, eloquently exclaims: “One of our sachems has said he would ask you
to put him out of pain. Another, who will not think of dying by the hand of his
Father, has said he would retire to Chau-tau-que, eat of the fatal root, and sleep with
his father in peace.”—
Turner's Pioneer History.
These lines allude to a beautiful Seneca tradition that lends an added charm to Chau-tau-que Lake, in the State of New York. A young squaw is said to have eaten of a root shedding on its banks, which created tormenting thirst. To slake it she stooped down to drink of its clear waters, and disappeared for ever. Thence the name of the lake, Ja-da-qua, or the place of easy death, where one disappears and is seen no more.
The renowned Corn Planter, in a speech to the president, complaining of his people's wrongs, eloquently exclaims: “One of our sachems has said he would ask you to put him out of pain. Another, who will not think of dying by the hand of his Father, has said he would retire to Chau-tau-que, eat of the fatal root, and sleep with his father in peace.”—
Turner's Pioneer History.Bright Ja-da-qua! was thy shore,
And the stranger treasures yet
Pebbles that thy waves have wet;
For they catch an added glow
From a tale of long ago,
Ere the settler's flashing steel
Rang the green-wood's funeral peal,
Or the plough-share in the vale
Blotted out the red man's trail.
Near thy sheet of glimmering blue,
But the mystic leaves were known
To our wandering tribe alone.
Sweeter far than honeyed fruit
Of the wild plum was its root;
But the smallest morsel cursed
Those who tasted, with a thirst
That impelled them to leap down
In thy cooling depths, and drown.
Sat O-wa-na wreathing flowers,
And, with whortleberries sweet,
Filled were baskets at her feet.
Nature to a form of grace
Had allied a faultless face;
But the music of her tread
Made the prophet shake his head,
For the mark of early doom
He had seen through beauty bloom.
Round her brow she clasped the braid;
Then her roving eye, alas!
Flowering in the summer grass,
Did the fatal plant behold,
And she plucked it from the mould:
Of the honeyed root she ate,
And her peril learned too late,
Flying fast her thirst to slake
From thy wave, enchanting Lake!
Stooped O-wa-na down to drink;
Then the waters, calm before,
Waking, burst upon the shore,
And the maid was seen no more.
Azure glass! in emerald framed,
Since that hour Ja-da-qua named,
Or “the place of easy death,”
When I pant with failing breath,
I will eat the root that grows
On thy banks, and find repose
With the loveliest of our daughters,
In thy blue engulfing waters.
THE GREAT YELLOW BIRD.
His way winging hither so fearful and fast?
Oh, bright are the tints of a mid-summer day,
But his plumes have a far richer golden than they;
Now larger, and larger he looms on the sight,
And rises and falls like a wave in his flight;—
Fly, fly to your cabins! disaster he brings,
And a storm is uproused by the rush of his wings.”
Sent homeward the sons of the forest in fear;
They prayed to the Master of Life in their need—
Outstripped by the cloud-cleaving creature in speed,
The roar of a battle would not have been heard,
If raging, when by flew that ominous bird;
The voice of the mighty Heh-nù have been drowned
By the flap of his pinions—Oh! terrible sound!
And rent was the cabin from ridge-pole to hearth—
In passing, so strong was the tempest it made
That low was the pride of the wilderness laid:
O'er the Lake of Oncida it swept on its way,
Awaking the waters in thunder and spray:
Then hurried along, in its merciless course,
Announced by the whirlwind, its trumpeter hoarse.
By the Great Spirit here was the Yellow Bird sent;
It comes from the south in the season when passed
That fiend, o'er this beautiful land, on the blast;
Its feathers the same golden coloring wear,
Up and down, up and down is its motion through air—
Woe! woe to the bowman who crimsons its breast!
Woe! woe to the stripling who rifles its nest!
ORIGIN OF THE CROW.
Was slumbering, in the days of yore,
Under a leafy white-wood tree
That grew beside his cabin-door.
Giving the wood a deeper brown,
A raven, huge and black, came down,
And, hungering for human prey,
In his talons bore the chief away.
With bleeding prize that cruel bird,
A rush of wings—a dismal shriek
His tribe, with horror voiceless, heard:
Soon finished was its dread repast,
And up the monster hurried fast,
Leaving, to whiten in the wind,
A pile of naked bones behind.
The creature flying to its nest
Far in those regions, blue and wide,
That over stormy Cloud-land rest:—
On his resounding bow he laid
A shaft of ragged lightning made
While the gorged monster, at the sight,
Clapped pinions for a swifter flight.
Soaring through air with frightful cries
To reach its azure perch again
On wall that fenced remoter skies;
Scorched was each plume by hissing fire,
And redly the dismembered form
Was showered to earth in atoms warm.
Watched the torn fragments as they fell,
Forgetful of a wounded deer
That limped for shelter to the dell;
But wilder terror thrilled his heart
When shape took each disrupted part,
And darkly, from the ground, uprose,
Croaking their joy, a flock of crows.
The bones of Tar-yon-ee were laid;
His mountain-tomb may yet be seen
Within its ever-during shade:
Ill-omened ravens blacken oft
Its branches towering aloft,
And load, with clamors loud, the air
As if they held a council there.
NEUGA.
A warrior lies below;
Red rust hath spoiled his hatchet keen,
And broken is his bow;
He looked upon this pleasant scene
A thousand years ago.
This fearful tale of him,
While burned our camp-fire, high up-piled,
Far in the forest dim;
And fear old giants of the wild
Changed into phantoms grim.
A younger brother slew,
Who faltered on the battle-path,
And weak and timorous grew—
Unused was he to blood and scath,
And, ah! his years were few.
Upon the murderer fell;
He could not look upon the sun,
Nor range the shadowed dell—
Black cords around his heart were spun,
And demons howled his knell.
The body, gashed and red;
A shuddering coward from the spot
With frantic bound he fled,
While feasting on the dead.
He couched to find repose;
Round him would gather, to affright,
Flame-eyed, unearthly foes,
Arousing him to hopeless flight
With stings and cruel blows
But on his rugged trail
A brother's awful ghost pursued,
Waking a hollow wail,
And curses on that man of blood
Were muttered by the gale.
His beaded knee-belt found,
And tracked the haggard murderer here
With instinct like a hound,
Who told this tale of guilt and fear,
Expiring on the ground.
Of his dishonored grave;
No flowers of summer there unfold,
But weeds and nettles wave;
And fiends troop thither when the cold,
Rude winds of autumn rave.
When westward strayed his ghost;
A mighty spirit, keeping guard,
Cried:—‘Seek that gloomy coast
Where dwell the doomed and thunder-scarred,
A melancholy host!’”
MONA-SHA-SHA.
(A LEGEND OF THE UPPER FALLS.)
Takes rise among the southern hills,
And, swollen by a thousand rills,
Flows on at last unclogged and free!
Rocks vainly piled to bar his way,
Look dim through clouds of mounting spray,
And over ragged, flinty stairs
The silver feet of his waves trip down,
And beetling cliffs above him frown,
But little the restless rover cares.
Turrets tremble with pealing bells—
Joy loudly winds his bugle horn,
And the heart of a nation proudly swells
When an heir to royalty is born;
But, greeted by a strain more wild,
Leaps from its fount the mountain-child:
Old piny groves a mellow roar
From their mysterious depths outpour
Commingled with the panther's scream—
Murmur of torrents, and the cry
Of the gray eagle circling high—
Meet welcome for a stream
That dashes down, in youthful force,
From the green hills to run its course.
In falling, shakes the solid land!
Cam, Avon, Teviot and Dee
Roll not through scenes more truly grand:
Is gladdened by a rainbow, blending
Its colors with the snow-white hue
Of cataracts descending;
Through walls of rock, on either shore,
That rise three hundred feet, or more,
The river, like an arrow, sweeps,
When taken three, tremendous leaps.
To these romantic falls forever,
And time unfolds his cloudy wing
To hide it with a vain endeavor.
When came the moon, to hunter dear,
Joninedah built his cabin near
Their boiling rapids, white with foam,
And brought with him a wife and child,
To gladden, in the dreary wild,
His temporary home.
The region round was full of game,
But back each night Joninedah came
With empty hands, though bow more true
No marksman of his nation drew.
In vain some olden forest lay
Light-hearted Mona-sha-sha sung,
In low, sweet tones, to drive away
The cloud upon his spirit flung;
Then, while her infant boy she tossed
To win a look of love from him,
In soothing accent would accost
The hunter, weak and worn of limb:—
“Cheer up! and break your lengthened fast—
Success will crown your toil at last;
Fish in the river I have caught,
And wild fruit from the forest brought,
And golden comb of hiving bee
Have found within the hollow tree.”
Would he despondingly reply—
“In swamps I cannot enter, hide
At my approach the fallow deer;
Bad spirits turn my shaft aside,
And gibber curses in mine ear:
Duck, pigeon, and the partridge shy,
Admonished of my coming, fly;
The fox scents danger in the breeze,
And to a closer covert flees;
The wolf a mystic signal heeds,
Then to a place of safety speeds,
And timely warning to the bear
Is wafted by the whispering air.
When near the grazing elk, my tread
Is lighter than the falling dew,
But the scared creature lifts its head,
Looks round, and vanishes from view.
Bad spirits are abroad to harm,
They rob of strength the hunter's arm,
And curtain with a mist his sight,
Though nature laughs in noon-day light.”
One night returned he to his camp;
Of no avail were arts employed
By the fond wife to wake a thought
Of brighter hours—and unenjoyed,
Untasted was the meal she brought.
Within her trembling heart, at length,
By anguish riven, was created
A dark suspicion that the strength
Of his affection had abated.
Vexed that her most endearing phrase
Brought back no sunshine to his gaze,
Young Mona-sha-sha changed her tone:—
“Why fall my words on ear more cold
It was not so of old.”
With moody brow and temper soured,
By disappointment overpowered,
The chief responded:—“I have heard
The chirrup of a silly bird;
As well, when howls the midnight storm,
Look for a gleam of sunshine warm—
For blossom hunt to grace thy hair,
When snows descend, and woods are bare,
As idly hope to drive away
The powers of darkness from their prey.
There was a time, with joy replete,
When Mona-sha-sha's voice was sweet,
And not one cloud a shadow cast;
But joy is dead—that time is passed!”
Without betrayal of her woe
By tear-drop, or convulsive start,
The wife had listened, while the flow
Of bitter waters drenched her heart.
Soon the tired hunter laid him down,
And near young Mona-sha-sha kept
Keen, silent watch until he slept;
Then lashed the boy upon her back,
And, darting through the cabin-door,
Pursued a dark and dangerous track
Conducting to the rocky shore
Above the Falls, that filled with sound
The gray, columnar woods around.
When reached the water-side, she drew
From cover dark a light canoe,
And launched it on the tide
That foamed and thundered, while her boy
Clapped his little hands in joy
By moonlight thus to glide.
Until the cataract was neared;
Then threw away her paddle light,
And hurried on by rapids white
Like shaft of springing bow,
The wailing mother and her child
A tomb, walled in by rocks up-piled,
Found in the depths below.
When morning dawned, in terror woke;
No eyes of love on him did beam—
No voice of honeyed cadence spoke:
And he was gone—that prattler gay!
From whose endearing wile he turned,
Of arts demoniac the prey,
In moody discontent away,
As if the tie of blood he spurned.
Unhappy man!—one ember still,
Though deep the gloom around him thrown,
Unquenched by fiends who worked him ill,
Burned on affection's altar-stone,
And forth, aroused from posture hushed,
To find those missing ones he rushed.
The dew upon the grass, betrayed
That she had sought the river-side,
And thitherward his course he laid.
Oh! fearful in expression grew
The visage of that man forlorn,
When answer to his shrill halloo!
Came not upon the breeze of morn.
Rough were the banks with rock, and steep,
But down he dashed with frantic leap,
And bloody drops his vesture stained
Ere margin of the stream he gained.
And round he looked with startled eye
When suddenly a doe and fawn,
Whiter than foam-flakes, darted by.
No sound their hoofs, in passing, woke,
And wondering the hunter stood
Until they vanished in the smoke
Thrown upward by the tumbling flood.
Died, giving black despair control;
And, looking on the sun his last,
Quoth he, in mournful tones and hollow:—
“The spirits of the dead have passed
Inviting me to follow.”
A knife he drew with haggard mien,
And feeling that its edge was keen,
The weapon plunged, while demons laughed,
Thrice in his bosom to the haft:
Then feebly staggering to the shore—
His hunting shirt bedabbled o'er
With life-blood, red and warm—
Shrieked out—“I come!” with arms upheaved,
As the wild, whelming waves received
His gashed and falling form:
A dirge the wind-swept forest sung,
His knell descending waters rung.
| The poetical works of William H. C. Hosmer | |