 | The poetical works of William H. C. Hosmer |  |
CANTO SECOND.
THE COTTAGE.
Far in the wild is more to be desired
Than gorgeous chambers of a royal dome,
Where restless hearts, by envy ever fired,
Throb in proud breast, where joyance hath expired;
Mine be the hut, if there affection dwells,
Though meanly be its occupants attired;
For the blind Deity hath wondrous spells
That fill with golden light Earth's worst receptacles.
I.
The rosy pencillings of dawnOn a pleasant sky were clearly drawn,
And changed the clouds of the orient grew
From dull gray tint to a golden hue.
The distant top of the wooded height
Was edged with a rim of tender light,
And thicket, fountain, rock and tree
From cloudless sun a radiance drank,
While washed the rapid Genesee,
With reddened wave the crumbling bank.
Twined round the ponderous sycamore;
And near, in strange confusion piled,
Lay fallen giants of the wild,
Decaying marks of ages flown,
By the fierce tornado overblown:
On the grassy brink thick willows grew,
And gloom on the passing current threw,
While pensile boughs hung down to lave
Their pale green leaves in the gurgling wave;
On the long unbroken ridge above,
The walnut, oak, and maple spread
Their knotted, barky arms, and wove
A dark pavilion overhead:
Beyond, encircled by the grove,
A glade lay basking in the light,
Like an emerald gem in the locks of night,
And the fresh and unpolluted earth
To flowers of an hundred hues gave birth.
Such haunt the dreaming bards of old
Chose for the fay his court to hold,
From din of crowded mart afar,
When the moon was in her diamond car;
And a being of celestial mien
Was moving on its carpet green,
Bright as the fabled Fairy-queen:—
But her cheek with sorrowing was pale,
Nor could the breath of morning dry,
Or the vivid beam of day exhale
The tear-drop in her dark blue eye.
II.
A zone of brilliant damask gracedHer delicate and rounded waist,
Confining, in its clasping fold,
Her bodice by a brooch of gold.
Was beautiful with studding pearls,
And the costly texture of her dress
Was passing strange in a wilderness.
The proud bird of the cliff had shed,
To grace the bonnet on her head,
The richest plumage of its wings;
And, magnet of admiring eyes,
She would have borne the dazzling prize
Of beauty in the hall of kings.
III.
Contrasting with her paler charms,White neck, fair cheek, and snowy arms,
An Indian maiden by her side
Moved with an air of native pride,
Clad in rich robe of otter-hide.
Her features were of swarthy dye,
But darker was her tameless eye,
And wavy tresses, thick and black,
Hung unrestrained adown her back,
The fawn had yielded up its skin
To form her velvet moccasin;
The bird of fire and noisy jay,
To fringe her dress, their feathers gay;
And her cheek was bright with lively stains,
Redder than blood in her branching veins.
Large beads were pendent from her ear,
Strung on the pliant thew of deer;
And on her bosom brightly shone
An amulet of mystic stone—
“Among a people in the infancy of reflection and improvement, the deities themselves are not so much the objects of attention, as the great changes and revolutions of nature, to which they are conceived to give rise. To avert the calamities which threaten them, is, therefore, the chief concern of the rude tribes scattered over the American continent.
“In order to effectuate this purpose, they have not recourse, as among nations more civilized, to prayers and penance, offerings and victims; but to charms, amulets, and incantations, which are fancied to have the power of saving them from all events of a disastrous nature.”
Edinburg Encyclopedia, vol. 1, p. 597.The gift of venerated seer,
To guard her form in the darkest hour,
From spirits fraught with evil power,
Who ride on the pinions of the breeze
And taint frail mortals with disease
IV.
“Cease, daughter of the Rising Sun!Lamenting for thy little one!
The Land of fadeless verdure now
Is gladdened by his sunny brow;
Beyond the gulf of death, he smiles,
Inhabitant of Happy Isles;
But, vanishing like April snow,
A few more years will come and go,
And mother and her babe again
Will meet where ties break not in twain.”
While in her glance soft pity shone,
Thus in wild, sweet, condoling tone,
The maid of deep black eye and hair
Addrest the lady, sad and fair,
Who answered—“Yester-eve the spot
Grim wood-wolves had molested not;
But dread the change since yester-eve—
Can I do otherwise than grieve?”
Then, to another Continent,
In thought the pale young mourner went,
Till rose before her mental sight,
Home's ancient hall, and landscape bright;
While strains, consorting with her woe,
Gushed from her lips in warbling low.
V.
SONG.
1.
There is a lordly castleA vine-clad hill that crowns;
All darkly its stern battlement
Upon the valley frowns!
My father, old and gray,
Perchance, in grief and loneliness,
Is looking forth to-day.
2.
In vain close watch he keepeth;For on her native shore,
The foot of one he loveth
Will lightly tread no more.
The cup that he is drinking,
Is drugged with shame and tears;
And who will cheer the winter
Of his declining years?
3.
The grave hath won my mother,In strife my brothers fell,
And when the old man dieth,
No child will ring his knell.
Oh, would that I had never
Heard Love's beguiling lay,
And fled with him in darkness
‘Who stole my heart away.’
4.
There is a lordly castleThat stands beyond the sea;
And in the dreams of midnight
Its towers appear to me:
The cold and lonely chambers
Seem peopled by the dead,
And there my father boweth
In grief his aged head.
VI.
Why wandered, in so wild a place,Descendant of a Christian race,
From home of childhood, far away,
Beyond the deep, and its tossing spray?
Ask Love, wild lord, to whose control
Woman resigns her trusting soul;
Who tempts her by his wizard-spell,
Against a parent to rebel,
And hall of princely pomp exchange
Within a land of bloom and sun,
For wilderness, remote and strange,
Protected by her chosen one,
And in its trackless bosom share
His cup of comfort or despair.
VII.
On the dark borders of the woodA lodge of rude construction stood,
And, upward from its hearth, the smoke
Rose, in blue wreaths, above the oak.
The wild hop to its hanging eaves
Clung with its prickly wealth of leaves;
And poles, set firmly in the ground,
With upright forks before the door,
The weight of unhewn rafters bore;
And honey-suckles twined around
The sylvan framework, rough and low,
Forming a verdant portico.
Rare, blooming shrubs of forest land,
Transplanted by a tasteful hand,
On the smooth lawn in front were growing,
Profusely round an odor throwing.
The waving sumach, pride of bowers,
And dogwood, white with snowy flowers—
Flung shadows on the velvet grass.
A welling fount of water clear
In rocky basin bubbled near,
And air was vocal with the notes
Of rustling leaves and warbling throats.
The partridge beat his drum, and quail
Rose in dense coveys from the swale;
And, adding romance to the scene,
The shambling elk shrill whistle gave,
Dr. Smith says, “The hunters assure us that the elk possesses the power, by strictly closing the nostrils, of forcing the air through these apertures (meaning a slit or depression below the inner angle of each eye, called by French naturalists larmiers,) in such a manner as to make a noise which may be heard at a great distance.” This, however, is inaccurate; it is true that the elk, when alarmed, or his attention strongly excited, makes a whistling noise at the moment these lachrymal appendages are opened, and vibrates in a peculiar manner. But having dissected these appendages in an elk, recently dead, we are perfectly assured that there is no communication between the nostrils of the animal and these sacs.”
Godman's Natural History, vol. ii. p. 298.While breaking through the thicket green
To plunge his muzzle in the wave.
The squirrel, from his snug retreat,
Came chattering on nimble feet;
In quest of sweets, the house-wife bee
Left her populous home in the hollow tree
And morn of summer never smiled
On brighter Eden in the wild.
VIII.
The lady, sorrowful and pale,Attended by the forest maid,
Followed a narrow, beaten trail,
Till reached the cot embowered in shade.
Its creaking door was open thrown,
When her foot drew near the threshold-stone;
And forth a gallant hunter came,
Accoutred for the chase of game.
The pride of birth was in his bearing;
His look denoted noble daring,
And workmanship of foreign land
Was the long carbine in his hand.
A gay, green mantle, fringed with pelt,
Was lightly round his person flung,
And, from an ornamented belt,
His silver-mounted dagger hung;
Betokened a decisive mind;
He bore, in haughty manhood's flower,
Bold heart in hate or friendship warm,
And elements of grace and power
Commingled in his stately form.
Browned by pursuits of war and chase
Were the lower features of his face;
But closely curled, his dark brown hair
Lay shadowing a forehead fair.
His full, gray eye that mildly gleamed,
The brow's expression stern redeemed;
Yet something told that wakened ire,
From its dark depths, would call up fire.
His mellow voice, not over-loud,
Accorded with a form so proud,
While questioned he his beauteous bride,
In tone to deep concern allied—
“The cause of thy despondence tell!
Hath aught our favorite befell,
My peerless Blanche?” “Alas! we found
The gift of Can-ne-hoot, the Chief,”
Responded she in tones of grief,
“By wild-wolf mangled on the ground.
To lifeless limb and silken throat,
Clung dark red drops of clotted gore;
My nimble fawn of dappled coat,
Will glad its mistress' gaze no more,
Or fly, on silver hoof of speed,
From her caressing hand to feed.”
“Hah! the wan color of those cheeks
A deeper source of woe bespeaks,
Than loss of fondling in the shade,
By forest prowler victim made;
Why closely to thy bosom press
That blossom of the wilderness?”
IX.
“This flower,” replied his weeping spouse,“Now dying on my bosom, grew
Beneath those melancholy boughs,
More gloomy than sepulchral yew,
That bar the daylight out, and wave
Their leaves above our infant's grave.
Some fierce, disturbing beast of prey
Hath partly torn the mound away;
The piping storm hath overthrown
The mossy, rude memorial-stone;
And the brown, desecrating mole
In the loose soil hath dug his hole;
While near, the terror-waking snake
Darts, coils, and rattles in the brake
I saw no pleasant sunlight fall
On the cold sod of burial,
And wept, as if my heart would break,
While strove kind Wun-nut-hay, in vain,
To smooth the broken sod again,
And ranged the wild for flowers to spread,
In dewy wreaths, above the dead;
For well we know, though dark her skin,
A generous soul abides within.”
X.
The hunter spoke not in reply,But on his wife gazed tenderly;
And memories came back, unsealing
The bitter fount of mournful feeling,
While sob and trembling lip confessed
The father waking in his breast.
He thought of vaults across the brine,
That held the dead of his lofty line—
And coffins rich in plated gold;
Then sighed to think his only child
Lay sepulchred in noteless mould,
Dim with the shadows of the wild,
And printed by the paw of beast
In quest of his grim, revolting feast.
He tried, but bootless was the task,
Drear Sorrow's outward sign to mask;
For his manly heart within him melt,—
Though armed with enduring strength, he felt.
He turned, at length, to find relief,
In woodland sports, from haunting grief,
When warning hand, by the Indian maid,
Was lightly on his shoulder laid,
While a warrior from the wood emerged,
On by some pressing errand urged,
Who traced with swift, but noiseless tread,
A trail to his cottage-home that led.
XI.
“On-yit-ha comes,” the maiden said:“I know him by his bounding tread,
And figure like the cedar proud
That springs upon the mountain-head—
His face, more dark than midnight-cloud
When the Great Spirit speaks aloud—
His toughened battle-bow,
And arrows bound by fearful tether,
The skin of rattle-snake together,
Are signs of war and woe!”
XII.
“How fares my brother?” said De Grai,When nearer the young chieftain drew;
Comes he with brow of sable hue?”
Response the warrior of the shade,
With startling emphasis, thus made:
“White robbers from beyond the sea,
And tribesmen of Algonquin-stock,
Thick as the long grass on the lea,
And eager for the battle-shock,
Have boldly landed on our soil;
But vain will prove their dreams of spoil!
Fierce, lurking messengers of wrath,
Dark, deadly serpents in their path,
'Mid leaves and brush will coil.—
Lured by the chase from home away,
My sire and I paced yesterday
Blue Ca-da-rac-qui's strand,
And saw the foe in big canoes,
Near the dim hour of falling dews,
In fearful numbers land.
Homeward I hurried with the news,
And soon will wake the battle-yell;
For borne hath been the signal-word,
By our fleetest runner, to tribes that dwell
Where the roar of the Upper Falls is heard.
“At Portageville, about fifteen miles from the angle at Caneadea, begin the great Portage Falls in this river. From the Upper Falls to Mount Morris and Squawkie Hill, a distance of sixteen miles, the river runs through a chasm, the sides of which are the greater part of the distance formed by solid and almost or quite perpendicular walls of rock, from two to four hundred feet high. In some places, however, these walls diverge so far from each other, as to allow spots of excellent alluvial flats to be formed on one side of the river or the other, and in some places on both.
Immediately above the Upper Falls, there exists all the appearance of a ridge of rock having once run across the river, in which case it would have raised the water some two hundred feet above its present level, and of course formed a lake from one to two miles wide, and extending back over the Caneadea and other flats, to Belvidere, a distance of twenty-eight or thirty miles; but if ever this was the case, the river has centuries ago cut through this ridge and formed considerable rapids where it stood, above and opposite Portageville. The river, after apparently cutting through this ridge, precipitates itself into the chasm below, by a somewhat broken, although what would be termed perpendicular fall of sixty feet. The stream at this place is about twelve rods wide, after which it flows through a chasm on a smooth rock bottom. Half a mile below the Upper Falls, the river (where it is about fifteen rods wide) again precipitates itself, in an unbroken sheet, one hundred and ten feet perpendicularly into a deeper channel, forming the “Middle Falls.” The magnificence and beauty of these falls are not exceeded by anything in the State, except the cataract of Niagara.
On the west bank of the river at the top of the falls, is a small flat piece of land, o, rather rock, which can be approached down a ravine from the west, with any kind of carriage. The stream pursues its course in the same direction, pent within its rockbound and precipitous shores, about two miles, where it takes its third and last leap in this vicinity, of ninety-three feet, into a still deeper chasm; the greater body of water falling on the eastern side, where a portion of it falls into a kind of hanging rock basin, about one-third of the distance down, and then takes another leap.
This fall can be approached on the east side by pedestrians with perfect safety. The river then pursues its north-eastern course through its deep and narrow channel to Gardow Flats, about five miles from the lower falls. The banks of the river, or rather the land bordering on the chasm, the greater portion of this distance, is covered with elegant white and Norway pines.”
Mix.All the fighting men of remote Gardow,
And braves from Ton-ne-wan-da's stream,
Round the council-fire are gathering now,
While scalp-locks wave, and weapons gleam;
And thither, if the red man's friend,
Will On-yit-ha's adopted brother wend.
The mighty War-God of my race
“Il paroit, madame, que dans ces chansons on invoque le dieu de la guerre, que les Hurons appellent Areskoui et les Iroquois Agreskoue. Je ne sais pas quel nom on lui donne dans les langues Algonquines.” “L'Areskoui des Hurons et l'Agreskoue des Iroquois est dans l'opinion de ces peuples le souverain etre et le Dieu de le Guerre.”
Charlevoix, iii. 207–344.Calls on his children the danger to face;
For thus to old seers spoke his terrible voice:—
‘Expecting grim banquet, the ravens rejoice;
Up, up with the hatchet, long rusting in clay,
And wash, in red waters, the rust-stain away!’”
XIII.
The lady heard the tidings dread,With hand upon her forehead prest,
As if to lull its throb to rest;
Then, in despairing accent, said—
“Has Earth no place of bloom and light,
Where Peace may spread her wing of white?
No pleasant isle, amid the sea,
Where mortal finds not misery?
I nursed a pleasant dream that here
Our lives away would gently glide,
Like summer currents, calm and clear,
That meet no rocks in their career,
While mingling in one peaceful tide—
That virgin-charms, unknown to France,
In this New World would woo the glance
But vainly have we reared yon cot,
Environed by the mossy wild;
For sorrow, in thy greenest spot,
Oh Earth, attends a thankless child!
The little prattler, on whose face
A husband's image I could trace,
Was early torn from my embrace!
And now the men of blood are nigh,
With battle-smoke to hide the sky,
And drive us from our forest-home,
Like animals of chase to roam.
Ah! since that dark and stormy night
Of hurried and clandestine flight,
When filial duty tried in vain
Lost sway from tyrant-Love to gain—
And, reckless of the dreadful ire,
And curse of imprecating sire,
I scourged my palfrey, fleet as wind,
And left ancestral towers behind,
My heart—my heart no quiet known!
Though deep my guilt, and dark my lot,
Thy bride, De Grai, rebukes thee not;
For on the suitor for his child,
A father fondly gazed, and smiled,
Till the black falsehood of my page
Changed his encouragement to rage.
I loved thee then, and love thee still,
Bright object of my girlish dream!
For herbless waste, or land of ill,
Would Eden, thou beside me, seem.”
XIV.
In tone of cheerfulness repliedThe hunter to his weeping bride—
“Let shadows from thy troubled heart,
Like mist before the morn depart;
And trust in Him who reigns above,
Though now the sky is overcast,
For green, unfading home of love,
And days of sunny calm at last.
Though soon will wake to fearful life
The rushing hurricane of strife,
And bathe in blood the sinless flowers
That bloom in these primeval bowers,
Mine arm, while weapon it can wield,
Will buckler prove to thee, and shield;
And angels, if I fall, will bear
To Providence my dying prayer,
And He will guard his stricken child
Amid the perils of the wild.”
XV.
“Thanks, dearest, for thy words of cheer!They fill with melody mine ear;
Give birth to hope within my breast.
Oh God! forgive a thing of dust,
Who, in a dark, desponding hour,
In Thee forgot to place her trust,
Unmindful of thy saving power.
Though black the welkin overhead,
Thine eye the light of joy can shed;
Though whelming surges round me roll,
Thy whisper can becalm my soul,
And change the thunders of the sea
To low and lute-like melody.”
XVI.
On the blue sky, with face upraised,One moment brief, the lady gazed;
No cloud was on her forehead fair,
Fled were the shadows of despair,
And her bland countenance, the while,
Was lighted by a holy smile;
As if she read of sin effaced,
In bright, celestial letters traced,
And heard, though darkly-born of earth,
The melody of golden lyres,
While creatures of immortal birth
Woke sweetly the transporting wires.
On-yit-ha, though untamed and rude,
On the fair daughter of old France,
In hushed and graceful attitude,
Fixed his admiring glance;
And Wun-nut-hay, his forest-dove,
Gazed on her with a look of love,
While the proud husband, to her side
Advancing with a rapid stride,
His arm affectionately threw
Around her neck of snowy hue.
XVII.
“Betake thee to thy favorite spot,Yon vine-hung arbor near the cot,
Where, guarded from the summer heat,
Is rudely framed a rustic seat,
And the wild cherry-tree in bloom
Gives out a delicate perfume:
There, blithely in the cooling shade,
A garland for thy temples braid,
Or watch the hum-bird while around
The rose he wheels with buzzing sound,
Or list while gentle Wun-nut-hay
Narrates some legend, strange and old,
To speed the weary hours away,
Of gifted seer and sachem bold.
Hence to the council-fire I go,
Where, planning ruin for the foe,
Old Can-ne-hoot and chiefs convene;
The name of the Indian hero, who figures in the author's poem, belongs to the stirring history of the period, though poetical license has been taken in ending his career with the battle; for he was present at a general council of the confederates holden at Onondaga, in January, 1690, as appears by the following extract from Thatcher. “Can-ne-hoot, the Seneca Sachem, next proceeded to give the council a particular account of a treaty made during the summer previous, between his own tribe and the Wayunhos.”
My homeward whistle will be heard,
Ere twilight warns the roving bird
To mossy perch in forest green.
Why look around with timorous eye,
As if the day of doom was nigh,
The fierce invader close at hand?
Between him and our cabin lie
Full many roods of forest-land:
And ere his banner courts the gale
That oversweeps this beauteous vale,
And the wood-warblers flee afar,
Scared by the thunder-tones of war,
I will provide a still retreat,
And thither, Blanche, conduct thy feet.”
XVIII.
In haste the hunter breathed adieu;Then, guided by On-yit-ha, cross'd
The archway of the grove, to view
In leafy gloom was lost.
The forester his path pursued,
With look cast down in musing mood:
He paused not when his careless tread
Awoke the glittering copper-head;
Nor did his deadly carbine ring
When bounded by the bleating doe,
And the wild crane, on heavy wing,
Rose from still pond, in dingle low.
Unnoted by his glance, the bear
Went growling to his distant lair:
Dark thoughts, a melancholy train,
And sting of self-reproach, we fain
Once felt, would never feel again,
Within his heart's most deep recess
Unsealed the spring of bitterness.
XIX.
“Alone the blame fall on my head!”Communing with himself he said;
“I lured her from a sunny clime,
Bright with the wrecks of olden time,
The luxuries of titled Pride,
And vineyards on each green hill-side;
Attendants waiting on her word,
Clad in the livery of their lord;
Her favorite bower, and castled dome,
Amid the cultured fields of Gaul,
With me across the sea to roam,
And told her that a forest-home
Was brighter than a father's hall—
That fruits would blush on every tree,
And air be fraught with melody—
That life would prove one summer-morn
While Heaven would weave for us a charm
To banish ill and ward off harm.
Alas! the love of womankind,
How deep, how lasting, but how blind!
She laughed with joy, believing true
The portraiture of bliss I drew,
Foreseeing not a father wear
For her the crimson blush of shame;
Affliction whitening his hair,
And scandal busy with her name.”
XX.
Thus communed with himself De Grai,Proceeding on his woodland-way,
Until a loud, long, fearful cry
Awoke him from his revery;
And searchingly he fixed his glance
On the red warrior in advance,
Who stood, like form of sculpture rare,
With face directed toward the river,
And scalp-lock-fluttering in the air,
And shaft drawn partly from the quiver.
Again that startling cry was heard,
By mimicking the cry of beast or bird, known to frequent the place from which the sound proceeds, an Indian scout communicates good or evil tidings to his tribe; when a party of warriors stop on their route to lie in ambush for enemies they understand to be out against them, they range themselves cautiously on both sides the expected path, frequently in a half moon line, and as far apart as they can hear the travelling signal from each other, which is either a low whistle, or cry of some wild creature of the woods imitated with surprising accuracy. See Adair and Charlevoix.
Harsh as the croak of carrion-bird,
When prey, long watched, expires at last,
Alluring to a red repast;
And far more dismal than the scream
Of the fierce panther in the night;
When the bold hunter, from his dream
Amid the leaves, his sylvan bed,
Wakes with a shudder of affright,
And scans the broad boughs overhead,
Expecting momently to feel
The mangling tush, and claw of steel.
XXI.
“Pale brother, haste!” On-yit-ha said,And grasped convulsively his bow,—
“Our runner, with impatient tread,
Brings tidings of the ruthless foe:
Haste! for the soil beneath our feet,
Ere morrow ends, may blush with gore,
And bosoms that now warmly beat,
Pierced by the victor, throb no more;
That shout, still ringing in the dell,
Announces woe—I know it well!”
De Grai pursued his tawny guide
With fleeter foot and longer stride;
The swamp they threaded, and around
Impenetrable thickets wound,
Whose solemn depths of twilight-gloom
Day could not enter, and illume;
Nor paused the savage scene to view,
While the dread warning louder grew:
Then crossing streams, obscure with shade,
Haunts by the lonely heron made,
And where the wood-duck reared her brood
In deep, unbroken solitude,
Reached a broad opening in the wood.
XXII.
Fair was the scene!—before the gazeLay verdant fields of twinkling maize,
Bared to the full bright blaze of day;
And meads, to charm romantic eye,
Whereon the grass was thick and high,
Spread their green carpets far away.
Oft had the youthful Chevalier
Paused, in pursuit of antlered deer,
Charmed by the painted tribe of flowers,
Frail offspring of June's laughing showers,
And Nature's richest mould:
But heeding not its beauties now,
He hurried on with heated brow,
And sent, though on enchanted ground,
No glance of admiration round.
Tall orchards, near the river shore,
The germs of bright abundance bore;
The remains of an extensive Indian orchard may still be seen on the western bank of the Genesee. The wind-bowed and mossy trunks have a desolate appearance, as if they shared in the miseries of the race who planted them. The early settlers of Avon, discovered peach-trees growing in the forest on the site of an old corn-field of the Indians, the fruit of which was of good flavor.
And, farther on, in clusters dark,
Stood many cone-like huts that sent,
From open roofs of cedarn bark,
Blue smoke wreaths toward the firmament.
Though in the school of Vauban trained,
De Grai had often wielded lance,
And his fierce charger sternly reined
On the red battle-field for France,
The scene before him in his soul
Roused a deep dread that mocked control.
XXIII.
A rugged structure, low and long,A few years since, the council-house at Cannewaugus, was standing. When last visited by the author, it was in a state of decay—the roof, overlaid with bark, was falling in, and the storm had partly beaten down the walls. The building was low and about sixty feet in length. In the centre of the roof, which was bark bent to a rounded form over the ridge pole, was an open place for the escape of smoke, when the elders of the tribe were convened in grave deliberation. The confederation of the Iroquois, stretching from the Hudson to Lake Erie, was often compared by their orators to a council-house. In the speech of condolence, addressed by the Mohawk chiefs to the inhabitants of Albany, after the destruction of Schenectady, the perfidy of the French is thus portrayed:—“Brethren, we do not think that what the French have done can be called a victory: it is only a farther proof of their cruel deceit; the Governor of Canada sent to Onondaga, and talks to us of peace with our whole house; but war was in his heart, as you now see by woful experience. He did the same, formerly at Cadaracqui, and in the Senecas' country. This is the third time he has acted so deceitfully. He has broken open our house at both ends; formerly in the Senecas' country, and now here. We hope, however, to be revenged of them.”
Was circled by a savage throng,
Armed, decked and painted for the fight;
While sachem, seer, and chiefs of fame,
To light the fire of council, came
With brows more dark than night.
A thousand scalp-locks, trimmed with care,
Streamed like wild coursers' manes in air,
When, riderless, they turn to fly:
Dark, glowing eyes destruction breathed,
And the long dagger was unsheathed,
The hatchet whirled on high:
The chich-hi-kon, full loudly blown,
Gave out lugubrious monotone,
And o'erdrawn hide of wild-deer made,
Rung to the war-club's measured stroke,
While the deep-booming music woke
The sleeping echoes of the shade.
XXIV.
The weak and tottering old man,Whose arm was shrunken with decay,
Roused by the tocsin of his clan,
Grasped the dread implement of fray;
And sternly moved amid the crowd,
Forgetful that his form was bowed,
And that his palsied limbs would fail,
And falter on the battle-trail.
XXV.
The nimble stripling, who had thrownThe tomahawk in sport alone—
From the light echo of whose tread
The timid mink would scarce have fled—
Who hitherto, on his young cheek,
Had never worn war's clouded streak;
Whose puny shaft had only drawn
The blood of bird or bounding fawn,—
Fired by the common danger, round
His slender waist the war-belt bound,
And, proudly for the conflict plumed,
The bearing of the brave assumed.
XXVI.
Old spoils of victory, that longHad hung upon the wigwam wall,
Forth by the tribe were brought with song
Ancestral glory to recall,
To rival in renown his sire.
Scalps from the fallen rudely torn,
In smoke cured artfully, and dried,
By wrinkled hags about were borne
With gestures of ferocious pride.
From some, on crimson hoop extended,
Scalps preserved as trophies of victory, were cured, hooped, and painted by the Indians with marks on the flesh side expressive of the age and sex of the slain. In the letter of James Crawford to Col. Haldiman, Governor of Canada, appended to Stone's Life of Brant, is a description of eight packages of scalps taken by the Seneca Indians from the inhabitants of New York. To denote scalps taken from farmers killed in their houses, the skin was painted brown, and marked with a hoe—a black circle signified that they were surprised in the night, and a black hatchet in the middle that they were killed with that weapon. The hair on the scalps of the women was braided in the Indian fashion, to show that they were mothers. The hoops were blue, skin yellow ground, with little red tadpoles, to represent, by way of triumph, the tears of grief occasioned to their relations. Seventeen gray-haired scalps were stretched on black hoops of brown color, with no mark but the short club or cassetete, to show they were knocked down dead, or had their brains beaten out!
The grizzly hair of age depended,
And thick, coarse locks, unblanched by time,
Of manhood butchered ere his prime:
From others, in soft clusters, hung
The silken ringlets of the young,
And the long tress of golden grain
That told of Christian mother slain.
De Grai a look of horror cast
On these sad records of the past,
And felt a sense of terror tame
The beating pulses of his frame—
An icy chill, one instant, stay
Life's crimson current on its way.
XXVII.
Dark arms were menacingly raised,While on the hideous spoil he gazed:—
Though Can-ne-hoot in peace had met
The stranger form his country driven—
Had smoked with him the calumet,
And food and habitation given,
His garb and face revealed him one
Whose race were from the Rising Sun—
A subject of the “Grand Monarque”
Whose disciplined and banded braves
Were piercing forests, deep and dark,
To awe their nation into slaves—
Then quench in blood their cabin-fires,
Of patriarchal sires.
XXVIII.
Amid that raging crew alone,Ill would the son of France have fared;
For daggers, wrought of flint and bone,
With fell intent were round him bared,
The ancient dagger of the Senecas was an implement, shaped, with great labor, from bone and flint. The author is in possession of one made of the latter material, the blade of which, after swelling in the middle, tapers to a rugged point. Bone daggers have been found in Lima, Livingston County, by citizens while working on the highway, shaped with elegance, and elaborately polished.
And knives, that Christian blood had shed,
Described bright circles round his head:
But the fierce natives of the wood,
Though madly thirsting for his blood,
From murderous assault forbore,
Restrained by their young Sagamore,
Who forced, through groups of warriors tall,
A passage to the Council-Hall.
| The poetical works of William H. C. Hosmer | |