The poetical works of William H. C. Hosmer

Go, tourist, where the Genesee
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.

Go, tourist, where the Genesee,
In falling, shakes the solid land!
Cam, Avon, Teviot and Dee
Roll not through scenes more truly grand:

233

The vision, from one point of view,
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.

A legend of the past will cling
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.”

234

“On me keeps watch an evil eye”—
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.”

Faint from a long, fatiguing tramp,
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

235

Than the deaf adder's house of stone?—
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.

On fells of wolf and otter brown
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.

236

With skilful hand the bark she steered,
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.

Joninedah, from a troubled dream,
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.

Her footsteps, that had dashed aside
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.

237

Canoe and tapering oar were gone,
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.

Hope in his wildly troubled soul
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.

University of Virginia Library

MONA-SHA-SHA.

(A LEGEND OF THE UPPER FALLS.)