Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

Most honored sir, my unalloyed respect
For him who merits well his country's praise!
Can generous heart an honest aim reject?
“No mercenary bard his homage pays,”
Nor strikes he yet a lyre of heavenly lays;
No flowers of rhetoric his pen adorn—
He walks with Nature in her simplest ways,
And boasts himself a true New-England born,
With whom the sun of life is yet in dewy morn.

Upon thy banks, Connecticut,
Alone I pensive strayed;
The glimmering day his eye had shut,
And left the world in shade.
The harvest day of toil was o'er;
To free myself of care
I sought thy loved and lonely shore
To study nature there.

Beside the trunk of ancient oak
I found a mossy seat,
To mind the rippling wave that broke
In murmurs at my feet.
My thoughts o'er different themes diffused,
But yet for none concerned—
Till, like good David, while I mused
The fire within me burned!

I gazed upon the silver tide
That swept in silence by,
Its glassy surface spreading wide
Beneath the starry sky—
When lo! to my astonished view,
Along the winding shore,
An Indian in his light canoe
Impelled a noiseless oar.

The sight itself was wondrous rare
If nothing else were seen;
But now a visionary air
And strange unearthly mien
Awakened more my great surprise,
And filled my mind with awe!
I scarce believed my tell-tale eyes
Were right in what they saw.

But my surprise to horror grew,
When with an easy hand
The Indian wheeled his swift canoe
And straightway came to land.
I felt the frozen current creep
In chilling shudders o'er me,
When with a graceful, airy leap
The phantom stood before me!

Swift as an arrow were my flight,
Tho' quaking sore with dread,
Had not my limbs seemed palsied quite
And senseless like the dead.
The men of saws a proverb have
Which often comes in place:
“Necessity makes cowards brave”—
So in the present case.

The phantom glowered upon me stern—
I quailed beneath his glance,
On him bestowing, in return,
A fearful look askance.
The robes in which he stood arrayed,
Were shadows strangely twined,
And seemed like three-fold gathered shade
With outline dim defined.

The longer I observance made,
The less and less I grew afraid.
But wholly at a loss to know
Whether he came as friend or foe—
Whether a fiend, with fell intent,
On some infernal errand sent;
Or else a sprite that haunts the flood,
With message of some future good.
But soon this train of thought was broke—
With hollow voice the phantom spoke:
“Brother,” quoth he, “whose coming dost thou wait,
That thou shouldst tarry here alone so late?
What restless passions in thy bosom swell,
That thou shouldst love the solitude so well?
Dost thou with life a hostile warfare wage,
And hither stray to vent thy foolish rage?

Is sorrow thine—art thou a son of wo?
Then, brother, speak—she is my mother, too!”
Brother, thought I,—the epithet sounds well!
Thou bidst me speak, then first of all I'll tell
This interview I gladly would escape,
Thou comest in such a “questionable shape.”
Ghost as thou art, and as I plainly see,
Yet as thou deign'st to converse with me,
For information I will answer thee.
But just ago, such was my crazy fright,
I had forgot my purpose here to-night.
My busy thoughts were wandering to and fro
Throughout the whole wide earth, for aught I know;
I thought of changes Time and men have made
Since the sun shone where all before was shade;
How on the shores of this our native stream
The whiteman's footsteps woke the Indian's dream;
How cities flourish where his wigwam stood,
And Commerce quite supplants him on the flood.

“Brother,” the phantom mournfully replied,
(And took a sitting posture at my side,)
“Thou sayest well—thy words are very wise.
I 've seen the cheerful sun and clouded skies;
I saw the gath'ring storm before it sped
To burst its blackness on my fated head!
I heard aloof the bellowing thunders roll,
And dark forebodings filled my troubled soul.

“Your people are a great and mighty race,
Skilled in all arts, and polished well in grace;
Ye have traditions written in a book,
That generations, yet unborn, may look
Therein for noble deed or famed exploit,

And you, perhaps, have read of Massasoit.
I am the spirit of that ancient chief!
I 've seen my nation wasted, and with grief
Have felt the whiteman's ‘perfidy ingrate’—
It turned my fostering kindness into hate.
When first you came, a weak and famished band,
Did I not ope to you a helping hand?
And when your feeble numbers quailed to see
The dark-skinned warriors that surrounded me,
I made a league to quell your rising fears—
Which treaty lasted more than fifty years.
Is it not so? how was my love repaid?
Extermination drew the reeking blade!
Where is my glory now, my kingly pride?
Where the staunch band that rallied at my side?
For a brief space you cherished gratitude,
(But scarcely then returned good for good,)
Whereby I gained an everlasting fame—
You borrowed mine to give your state a name.
But avarice soon quenched the vital spark
Of gratitude, and straightway all was dark!
My wide domains, out-spreading far and near,
Pride of my people—to myself thrice dear—
From my own grasp slipped speedily away,
As dries the dew before the beams of day;
And when no more the country of our birth
Gave us a home, heart-sick we left the earth.

“Yet Massachusetts is my namesake dear,
And for her sake I fain re-visit here.
With jealous eye I 've watched her rising power
E'en from her birth up to the present hour;

I 've seen her sons in Learning's halls preside,
Their light of knowledge spreading far and wide;
I 've seen her Commerce with her sails unfurl'd
Wherever waters wash the mighty world;
When the great king who ruled beyond the sea
Unwisely forged his fetters for the free,
With pride I saw old Massachusetts rise
And boast her freedom to the vaulted skies!
I saw her willing leave the furrowed field,
And snatch the patriot arms she loved to wield.
Oh, never may her patriot fire decay!
'T would be my chiefest wo to see it die away!”

The spirit's voice seemed choked with grief,
And as he paused to rest,
My heart warmed towards the ancient chief
As for a welcome guest.
Thou wast a patriot, too, thought I,
And tho' requited ill,
Our fathers' generous ally,
Who loves our welfare still.

Old Massasoit, I bless thy name!
With me thy peace is made;
I 've learned thy never-dying fame
From this thy wandering shade.
I'll recollect in future time
This evening's interview,
Perhaps to tell of it in rhyme—
But list! he speaks anew:

“Now, brother, hearken well—before I go
I'll tell you something which you ne'er would know
Were not prophetic vision given thee—
A gift, you know, which scarcely well could be.

You are aware that to a spirit's eyes
Time future in a panorama lies,
Wherein they may behold, at one survey,
The farthest confines of futurity;
May note events in which men will engage
When Time has rolled his wheels for many an age;
The rise and fall of empires, too, they see,
Long e'er on earth those empires disagree.

“Peace came at last, and hushed were war's alarms,
And victory reposed upon your arms.
Then the great chief, who all your factions quelled,
Convened his people and a council held.
I, too, was there—an uninvited one;
And since the days of glorious Washington,
Down to the modern councils of the man
Who loved to kill the friendless Indian,
Unasked, unseen, I 've had a station there,
And observation bids me this declare:
Since that your wiser fathers left the stage
Forgotten are their admonitions sage;
Wrangling and discord frequent now I hear,
And these contentions strengthen every year.
A few, unawed by party's growing sway,
Cry error, loud, and point the better way.
Among those few, delighted, I have heard
The great Defender speak that wiser word.
But mortals seldom hearken to reproof;
Headstrong with self they push advice aloof.

“Before one hundred annual suns shall burn,
And earth around the wondrous blaze shall turn,
Time shall to you a mighty change revolve—
The fabric of your Union shall dissolve!

The ancient oak lifts high its vernal head,
And wide its green and leafy limbs are spread;
But the chill frosts of autumn come at last,
And give its withered beauty to the blast!
So shall dissentions and divisions come—
E'en now I hear the stirring fife and drum.
Brother shall lift his hand against his brother,
And hostile states shall war with one another.
New-England shall withdraw from out the fight,
And rear herself against opposing might;
And when these promis'd threat'nings shall be done
She shall elect a ruler of her own.

“Brother, farewell! Remember what I 've said
When Time's hoar frosts have silvered thy young head.
My words are true as that you do not dream”—
He said, and vanished o'er the quiet stream!
I started, waking in amazed affright;
While in my ear the solemn bird of night
Uttered a scream, so startling and so shrill,
The sound itself seemed ominous of ill.
Slow homeward then my stiffened feet were bent
And pondering o'er the vision as I went,
I thought if Time to pass the dream should bring
Who 'd better rule than he to whom I sing?

See Hoyt's Antiquarian Researches, chap. 1, p 21.

Tradition tells us that Massachusetts derived its name from the old chief Massasoit, the famous friend of the whites.