 | Yamoyden, a tale of the wars of King Philip : in six cantos |  |
CANTO THIRD.
“The notion which the Chepewyans entertain of the creation, is of a very singular nature. They believe that at the first the globe was one vast and entire ocean, inhabited by no living creature, except a mighty bird, whose eyes were fire, whose glances were lightnings, and the clapping of whose wings was thunder. On his descent to the ocean, and touching it, the earth instantly arose, and remained on the surface of the waters. This omnipotent bird then called forth all the variety of animals from the earth,” &c. &c.— Mackenzie's Voyages, p. 74. E.
Whose glance was lightning, and whose eye was flame,
The deep-voiced thunder trembling in his wing,
When from the ocean earth emerging came;—
Fair freedom soars with wing and glance the same,
And calls, from depths profound and cheerless waste,
The quickening spark that fires the burning frame,
Glows deathless in the patriot's ardent breast,
While loud the thunders speak, where lie her sons opprest.
Drank vigorous life beneath her wings outspread,
And would not that the scenes of nature fair
Lay rather like the desert seared and dead,—
Quenched the bright lightnings of her awful eye;
Hope, valour, crushed beneath oppression's tread,
And o'er the darkening scene of death descry
How stern destruction holds her drear ascendency.
From fellow men, that birthright which they blest;
And they, to whom religion's cause was dear,
Fanned the unholy passion in their breast;—
The persecuted sought on the opprest
To trample;—bared the exterminating sword,
Above their victim's last, defenceless rest;
Yea, self-deluded, loud their cries they pour'd
For aid, to HIM, the God of peace, whom they adored.
I.
While hot pursuit a moment failed,The victor host their council held;—
Tho' boastful hope had vaunted sure
Their victim and his band secure,
Yet varied tale and rumours dark
Misled them from their destined mark;
And on Pocasset's winding shore,
Awhile they gave the hunting o'er,
Which blooms o'er ocean's placid breast,
In its bright emerald livery drest,
The garden of the deep;
The island of Rhode-island has always been celebrated for its picturesque beauty, and the salubrity of its climate. Its surface is delightfully varied into hill and dale, wood and field, and unquestionably merits the appellation here bestowed. It was the rendezvous of the English colonists during the wars with Philip. E.
They heeded not its verdant bowers,
Its peaceful groves and myriad flowers,—
Snatching a few uncertain hours,
Their council stern to keep.
But few were met;—their scouts afar
Pursued the scent of failing war;
While here in anxious doubt they stay,
Thus rose the supplicating lay.
II.
War Hymn.
1.
O Thou! for whom in the heavens highSeraphim embattled fly!
Before us be thy banner spread
Like the pillar of fire which thy people led!
2.
Almighty Conqueror! to thee we cry;—Gird thy bright falchion on thy thigh;
Proclaim our God's victorious march!
3.
King of all kings! to thee belongsTo inspire our weak and mortal songs;
Hear the strains thy Spirit taught
Through Him that our ransom from death hath bought.
4.
May we break on the foe, to blaspheme thee who dared,With the sword of thy righteousness, whetted and bared,
As burst, when their fountains are broken, the floods,
As the storm when it tears up the pride of the woods.
5.
They shall fade like the smoke which is lost in the air,They shall melt from thy wrath when its fury shall glare;
By the light of our battle, thy conquering star!
III.
Ceased the deep strain. On every browSat exultation's crimson glow;
And every bosom beat, as high
Swelled the loud anthem to the sky.
They felt, as if on promised land,
Like Israel's guided host,
They followed heaven's directing hand,
To every isle and coast;
They felt as if his word had bade
Their ranks unsheath the glittering blade,
Whose high command to Joshua given
Led Jacob to his earthly heaven!
No throb was there of pity's mood,
For native of the solitude;
Doomed to the carnage of the sword
They deemed the country and its lord;
The callous thirst of slaughter gave.
—On each flushed cheek, and glistening eye,
The glowing fever revelled high;
While fancy's fixed—unbounded gaze,
Almost beheld the Godhead's blaze;
As upwards, in extatic trance,
Beamed on the azure heaven their glance.
Awhile they stood. No word was spoken—
Deep was that silence, and unbroken—
Even the dark water's hollow roar
Was hushed upon the rocky shore,—
The wood-wind's music clear and shrill
Amid that solemn pause was still;—
Till, with one sudden burst again
Arose the animating strain.
IV.
Hymn.
1.
Lift up thy banner, Lord, afar,Arrayed in robes of dazzling light!
In all the glories of thy might!
2.
For who is God, save Thou, and whereShall man find safety but in Thee?
Thy strength shall aid, thy kindly care
Preserve in blest security.
3.
The God of armies on our sideHath waged his warfare, and o'ercome;
And he shall be our stay and guide,
Our hope, our refuge, and our home.
4.
High as the heavens, to God againLift then the song that tells his praise;
And earth prolong the solemn strain,
And angels tune their golden lays.
V.
As dies, far heard along the shore,The ocean's deep and sullen roar;
The failing thunder's echoes flow;
At first, in cadence wild and strong,
The notes profound their voice prolong,
Till, rolling far, they part and die,
Tho' still unquenched their majesty;—
So hushed the strain;—so sunk away
The Christian warrior's ardent lay;
So far the mighty echoes flow.
The Indian, in his light canoe,
E'en at Seaconet's troubled wave,
Felt terror shake his bosom brave;
And shrunk, within his fragile boat,
To hear that long re-echoed note:—
Omen of sorrow, deep and dire,
Of rending sword,—of wasting fire,—
Of hopes destroyed,—of bosoms torn,—
Of exile, cheerless and forlorn,—
Of power extinct, and glory gone,—
And his last boon—despair alone.
VI.
Fair breathes the morn; but not for himIts floods of golden glory swim,
The outcast wretch forlorn;
There is no sunrise in his breast—
He turns him from the kindling east,
And, like some wandering ghost unblest,
Flies the sweet breath of morn.
The sea-gull skims along the waves,
Its snow-white bosom gladly laves;
The eagle cleaves the rack, and sails
High o'er the clouds and nether gales;
The red deer heaves his antlers high,
Bounding in “tameless transport by;”—
But what with them to do hath he?
They, like the elements, are FREE!
And thoughts, than death more dread and deep,
Across his mental vision sweep,
While only lives the soul for pain,
Like vulture trying on the brain.
VII.
Yet to the camp no tidings comeWhere Philip and his followers roam;
And, while the scent was cold,
The English band that tracked his way,
Beneath broad oaks embowering lay,
And varying converse hold.
Small space between them, and the rout
Of Indians who had joined the shout,
That hung on Philip's flight:
Mohegans and Seaconets too,
A motley band, in numbers few,
Were gathered for the fight.
VIII.
Amid the Christian corps there stoodA gray old man; the book of God
Was in his hand; with holy verse
That spoke the ancient heathen's curse,
He blest the murders they had done,
And called on heaven the work to crown.
His eye with inspiration burned,
While thus his speech began to flow
O'er earlier scenes of toils and wo.
IX.
“Nor lure of conquest's meteor beam,Nor dazzling mines of fancy's dream,
Nor wild adventure's love to roam,
Brought from their father's ancient home,
Mid labours, deaths, and dangers tost,
O'er the wide sea the pilgrim host.
They braved the battle and the flood,
To worship here their fathers' God.
With shreds of papal vesture tied
To flaunting robes of princely pride,
In formal state, on sumptuous throne,
Daughter of her of Babylon,
Sat bigotry. Her chilling breath
To fires of heavenly warmth was death;
Her iron sceptre England swayed,
Religion withering in its shade.
On Him, the common sire of all,
Unless his lips, with harsh constraint,
Were tuned to accents cold and faint:
For man's devices had o'erwrought
The volume by a Saviour bought;
And clogged devotion's soaring wing
That up to heaven should instant spring,
With phrases set, that bore no part
In the warm service of the heart.
But why recount their sorrows past,
From the first martyr to the last?
Or pope's or bishop's bigot zeal,
Alike their hate of Christian weal;
Or torture's pangs and faggot's flame,
Or fines and exile, 'twas the same,
Same Antichrist, whom prophets old
With sad announcing voice foretold!
X.
“Such were the wrongs that cried to heaven—What time shall see those wrongs forgiven!
Land of the warrior and the sage!
Eyrie of freedom, reared on rocks
That frown o'er ancient ocean's shocks!
Cradle of art! religion's fane,
Whose incense ne'er aspired in vain!
Temple of laws that shall not die,
When brass and marble crumbled lie!
Parent of bards whose harps rehearse
Immortal deeds in deathless verse!
O England! can thy pride forget
Thy soil with martyrs' blood is wet?
Bethink thee,—like the plagues which sleep
In earth's dark bosom buried deep,
As the poor savage deems,—that o'er
It is mentioned in “New England's Memorial,” that the Indians supposed the whitemen had the power of burying the small pox under ground, or letting it escape among them. They were severely afflicted with this disease, particularly in the spring of 1634. Owing to their total want of comfort and cleanliness, few of them could escape, who caught it. “Being very sore,” say the memorial, “what with cold and other distempers, they die like rotten sheep.” Cotton Mather says, it was the plague, which Squanto told his countrymen the English kept in a cellar.
Thine head, the vials yet in store,
Vials of righteous wrath must pour!
XI.
“Strong was the love to heaven which bareFrom their dear homes and altars far,
The rich, the noble and the fair,
And led them, o'er the mighty wave,
Uncertain peril's front to dare.
Strong was their love; and strong the Power
Whose red right arm, in danger's hour,
Was bared on high their path to show,
Through changeful scenes of weal and wo;
By signs and wonders, as of old,
When Israel journeyed through the waste,
Was its mysterious guidance told;
Though lightnings flashed, and thunders rolled,
The sunbeam glorious smiled at last.
XII.
“How oft the storm their barks delayed,The difficulties encountered by the first emigrants, in crossing the ocean, and after their arrival, are generally known.—They are faithfully narrated in the Magnalia, Prince's Chronological History, New-England's Memorial, Purchas's Collections, &c. and in the modern histories of Hutchinson, Trumbull, &c. It would be useless to make any extracts, in these brief notes, unless required by the text.
How oft their prows they turned dismayed;
How oft his wings above their head
The death-announcing angel spread;
While the chill pestilential gale
Sung in the shrouds and shrinking sail!
Where they might worship Nature's God;—
But not, as erst from Pisgah's height,
Burst on the Patriarch's aching sight
The promised realms of life and light,
Rose on their view the land they sought,
By exile, want, and misery bought.
XIII.
“Blazing o'er heaven with sickly flame,A meteor fierce their herald came;
“Some of the ancient Indians, that are surviving at the writing hereof, do affirm, that about some two or three years before the first English arrived here, they saw a blazing star, or comet, which was a forerunner of this sad mortality, for soon after it came upon them in extremity. Thus God made way for his people, by removing the heathen,” &c.— N. E. Memorial, Boston printed, Newport reprinted, 1772. Of this mortality among the Indians, mentioned in the Notes to Canto first, the Memorial says,—“The Lord was disposed much to waste them by a great mortality, together with which were their own civil dissentions, and bloody wars, so as the twentieth person was scarce left alive when these people arrived, there remaining sad spectacles of that mortality in the place where they seated, by many bones and skulls of the dead lying above ground: whereby it appeared that the living of them were not able to bury them.”
Id. p. 25.C. Mather, Magnalia, I. 7, speaking of this mortality, says, “It is remarkable, that a Frenchman who not long before these transactions, had by a shipwreck been made a Captive among the Indians of this Country, did, as the Survivors reported, just before he dy'd in their Hands, tell these Tawny Pagans, that God, being angry with them for their wickedness, would not only destroy them all, but also People the place with another Nation, which would not live after their Brutish Manners. Those Infidels then Blasphemously reply'd, God could not kill them; which Blasphemous mistake was confuted by an horrible and unusual Plague, &c.” This story is told more at length, in N. E. Memorial, pp. 29, 30.
Plagues filled with death the tainted air,
To yield the Pilgrims entrance there.
A golgotha of skulls was spread
O'er all the land beneath their tread:—
For backward flew the savage race,
To give the new intruders space;
Expected now their wilds among,
Foretold by captive's prophet tongue.
In dismal depths of swampy dell
Their Powahs met with purpose fell,—
“But before I pass on, let the reader take notice of a very remarkable particular, which was made known to the planters at Plymouth, some short space after their arrival, that the Indians, before they came the English to make friendship with them, got all the Powahs in the country, who, for three days together, in a horrid and devilish manner, did curse and execrate them with their conjurations; which assembly and service they held in a dark and dismal swamp. Behold how satan laboured to hinder the gospel from coming into New England.” N. E. Memorial, p. 32.
They called on famine, sword, and fire,
To fill the air with Christian groans,
And whiten earth with Christian bones.
XIV.
“God heard their blasphemy. Though notBy spells of theirs was ruin wrought,
For wisest ends, from man concealed,
The Indian curse was half fulfilled.
Gaunt famine came; —with ghastly train
Of all the screaming fiends of pain,
He stalked o'er forest, hill and plain;
On herb and tree his mildew dealt,
And man and beast the syroc felt.
Long fed they on the withering roots,
Wild berries and the forest fruits;
With what the barren ocean flung,
From its vast womb their rocks among;
Until their numbers grow too weak,
Such scanty sustenance to seek.
Then fled the rose from beauty's cheek;
Gleamed in its socket and expired;
Then youth unripe its stem forsook;
Untimely blasts the sapling shook;
Then manhood's sterner sinews bowed;
Till death sat scowling o'er the crowd—
None left to lay, with pious pains,
In decent earth their cold remains.—
The heaven was brass above their head;
The earth was iron 'neath their tread;—
Then from its surface cracked and dry,
Egypt's worst pests their fears espy;
Crawled forth the myriad insect host,
“It is to be observed, that the spring before this sickness, there was a numerous company of flies, which were like for bigness unto wasps' bumble-bees; they came out of little holes in the ground, and did eat up the green things, and made such a constant yelling noise, as made the woods ring of them, and ready to deafen the hearers; the Indians said that sickness would follow, and so it did very hot in the months of June, July and August, of that summer.” N. E. Memorial, 99. The account of the sickness is given in the same place.
With shrilly wings o'er all the coast;
The coming plagues their swarms declared,
Disease destroyed whom death had spared.
Sore were their trials; oft their toil
Was vainly spent on sterile soil;
Oft blazed their roofs with raging flame;
And oft the fierce tornado came,
And in its whelming fury ran
O'er all the works of God and man:
Plucked from its roots the giant oak,
Made all its mighty fibres writhe,
And whirled and wound it like a withe.
XV.
“Yet mark the all-preserving care,—When helpless, faint, and sick they were,
And when the heathen might have trod
In dust and death the church of God,
A mortal terror o'er them came,
Withheld the sword and wasting flame;
And dread and reverence like a spell
On their unholy purpose fell.
XVI.
“Such were their changeful woes for yearsOf toils and doubts, and hopes and fears.
Yet still before the freshening gale
New Pilgrims bade their canvass swell;
And he who whilome walked the sea,
The turbid waves of Galilee,
And bade the waters yield them way;
Till in the wilderness arose
His church triumphant o'er her foes.
O'er heathen rage, and lips profane,
That mocked the sufferers' mortal pain,
When in their agonies they cried
On Christ
“After the English of the Massachusetts were returned, the Pequots took their time and opportunity to cut off some of the English at Connecticut, as they passed up and down upon their occasions; and tortured some of them in putting them to death, in a most barbarous manner, and most blasphemously in (the Pequots' horrible blasphemy) this their cruelty, bade them call upon their God, or mocked and derided them when they so did.”—
N. E. Memorial, 107.“Those who fell into their hands alive, were cruelly tortured, after a most barbarous manner, by insulting over their prisoners in a blasphemous wise, when in their dying agonies, under the extremity of their pains, (their flesh being first slashed with knives, and then filled with burning embers,) they called upon God and Christ, with gasping groans, resigning up their souls into their hands; with which words these wretched caitiffs used to mock the English afterwards, when they came within their hearing and view.”— Hubbard, pp. 23,24.
O'er daring sin, that strove to rear
The shrine of Dagon, even hear;—
O'er damning error's secret wiles,
Prolific schism's delusive toils;—
Alluding to the differences in religious opinions, which were so unsavoury in the nostrils of those worthy and stubborn sectarians, who had themselves emigrated that they might enjoy the free exercise of their tenets. One Thomas Morton, at an early period, appears to have been particularly and deservedly obnoxious, for his open profanity. See N. E. Memorial, pp. 76, 77. Magnalia, &c.This man, among the other offences laid to his charge, is said to have sold guns and powder to the natives.
O'er pagan and apostate foes,
The church of God triumphant rose.
Till now, o'er wilds where murder swayed,
Her branches cast their sacred shade,
Springing with instant growth to heaven,
Like the blest gourd to Jonah given.
Wo to the worm, whate'er it be,
“But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it withered.”—
Jonah, c. 4. v. 7.“Verba Doct. Arrowsmith, in Orat, Antiweigelianâ. Faxit Deus Optimus, Maximus, tenacem adeo veritatis hanc Academiam, ut deinceps, in Angliâ Lupum, in Hiberniâ Bufonem, invenire facilius sit, quàm aut Socinianum aut Arminianum in Cantabrigiâ.”—
Magnalia, iv. 139.Whose tooth corrodes that goodly tree!
If e'er the thirst for novel lore,
Half learnt pretension's shallow store,
To lay the goodly structure low,
Corrupt the sacred faith we own,
Or pluck from Christ the Godhead's crown,
Then shall the Indian curse yet fall
In whelming fury on them all!
Ruin and havoc shall again
Destroy their homes and blight their plain;
To after ages shall they be
A proverb for their infamy!
XVII.
“The hour is come; the pagan hostScattered, dissolves like morning frost.
The hour is come, when we shall tread
In dust the writhing serpent's head.
What mercy shall to him be shown
Who weds eternal hate alone?
Revenge his God—to murder led,
For this he woos e'en Christian aid;
When wreaked his wrath, he turns to dart
His sting into his patron's heart.
He gives his children to the fire.
For this in torture he will die,
Smiling through all his agony;
Till, in its horrid transport lost,
To Tophet flies the howling ghost!
Thus saith the Lord —fear not their spite,
The outcast heathen's power to harm;
Against my people, in my sight,
They shall not raise the murderous arm.
His works in latter days proclaim
From age to age his power the same;
Even as of old when Joshua's word
The lights of heaven obedient heard;
O'er Gibeon's towers the lingering ray
Prolonged the unwonted blaze of day;
While hung the moon with crescent pale,
O'er Ajalon's undarkened vale.”
XVIII.
Thus ran the preacher's theme; and longDwelt on his words the listening throng;
On rumour's gales inconstant driven,
Whence superstition's greedy ear
Drank in the immediate voice of heaven.
They talked of that polluted night
That saw the heathen's damning rite;
“The Indians took five or six of the English Prisoners; and, that the Reader may understand, crimine ab uno, what it is to be taken by such Devils Incarnate, I shall here inform him: They Stripp'd these unhappy Prisoners, and caused them to run the Gantlet, and Whipped them after a Cruel and Bloody manner; they then threw Hot Ashes upon them, and cutting off Collops of their Flesh, they put Fire into their Wounds, and so, with Exquisite, Leisurely, Horrible Torments, Roasted them out of the World.”— Magnalia, vii. 51. b. “But NOW was the time for Deliverance! There was an Evil Spirit of Dissention strangely sent among the Indians, which disposed them to separate from one another: The Dæmons, who visibly exhibited themselves among them at their Powawing or Conjuring, signified still unto them, that they could now do no more for them: the Maquas, a Powerful Nation in the West, made a Descent upon them, ranging and raging through the Desart with irresistible Fury; Fevers and Fluxes became Epidemical among them, &c. And an unaccountable Terror at the same time so Dispirited them, that they were like Men under a Fascination.”— Idem, p. 52. a.
“Whether for the loss of some of their own company in that day's enterprise, (said to be an hundred and twenty,) or whether it was the Devil in whom they trusted, that deceived them, and to whom they made their address the day before, by sundry conjurations of their powaws; or whether it were by any dread that the Almighty sent upon their execrable blasphemies, which it is said they used in torturing some of their poor captives, (bidding Jesus come and deliver them out of their hands from death, if he could,) sure it is that after this day they never prospered in any attempt they made against the English, but were continually scattered and broken, till they were in a manner all consumed.”— Hubbard, new ed. p. 186.
By God forsaken, when their spell
Conjured in aid the Prince of Hell:
When groans of tortured martyrs blended
With yells of furious joy ascended;
When, while the sacrifice was screaming,
The hot, baked earth was wet and steaming,
As drop by drop it caught the blood
Of saints, whose latest prayer to God
In blasphemy was drowned.
Since then the savage crest was bowed,
Sunk was their spirit stern and proud,
Nor more was heard their war-cry loud,
Through echoing groves to sound.
But judgment, with destruction fraught,
Hung o'er their heads, where'er they sought
Escape from tempests round,
The routed Amorites of yore.
Then talked they of the sign beheld
By their advancing troop,
A central eclipse of the moon in Capricorn, according to Hubbard, happened on the 26th of June, when some troops from Boston were on their march to Mount Hope. “Some melancholy fancies would not be persuaded but that the eclipse, falling out at that instant of time, was ominous, conceiving also that in the centre of the moon they discerned an unusual black spot, not a little resembling the scalp of an Indian: As others, not long before, imagined they saw the form of an Indian bow, accounting that likewise ominous, (although the mischiefs following were done by guns, and not by bows.) Both the one and the other might rather have thought of what Marcus Crassus, the Roman General, going forth with an army against the Parthians, once wisely replied to a private soldier, that would have dissuaded him from marching that time, because of an eclipse of the moon in Capricorn, that he was more afraid of Sagittarius than of Capricornus, meaning the arrows of the Parthians,”&c.—
Hubbard, p. 74.Cotton Mather, recording this circumstance, has the same remark with respect to Sagittarius and Capricornus. This is not the only instance in which he condescends to borrow from Hubbard. The latter, speaking of the butchery, in cold blood, of thirty Pequods, says, “they were turned presently into Charon's ferryboat, under the command of Skipper Gallop, who dispatched them a little without the harbor.” This sentimental piece of wit is thus copied in the Magnalia, VII. p. 44. “They put the men on board a vessel of one Skipper Gallop, which proved a Charon's ferryboat unto them, for it was found the quickest Way to feed the Fishes with 'em.”
When through their borders first was yelled
The death-announcing whoop;
When at the midnight's ghostly noon,
A crimson scar deformed the moon:
Like Indian scalp the shape it had;
And, while they gazed, the planet bright
Plunged into earth's o'erwhelming shade,
And veiled her silver orb in night.
From thence with awe had holy lips
Presaged the foe's more dark eclipse.
Nor this alone portended war;
“Yea, and now we speak of things Ominous, we may add, Some time before this, in a Clear, Still, Sunshiny Morning, there were divers persons in Malden who heard in the Air, on the South-East of them, a Great Gun go off, and presently thereupon the Report of Small Guns like Musket Shot, very thick discharging, as if there had been a Battel. But that which most of all astonished them was the Flying of Bullets, which came Singing over their Heads, and seemed very near to them; after which the sound of Drums passing along Westward was very Audible; and on the same day, in Plymouth Colony, in several Places, invisible Troops of Horses were heard Riding to and fro.”— Magnalia, VII. p. 46. For a further account of these prodigies, see Hubbard, p. 74. and Increase Mather, p. 34, who says he had the relation “from serious, faithfull and Judicious hands, even of those who were ear-witnesses of these things.”
Through the clear æther heard afar,
Strange sounds were pealed with deafening din,
As from the mouth of culverin;
As if aërial hosts on high
Waged strife sublime for victory.
And whizzing balls with musket knell
Like wintry hail descending fell;
With rolling drum and clarion blast;
And trampling steeds, with thunder shod,
O'er heaven's rebounding arches trod.
They talked of God's immediate hand
Outstretched above the suffering land;
Of timely rains that often came,
There are several instances related of the interposition of divine providence in behalf of the English, during their conflicts with the Indians. One of the most remarkable is said to have happened at Bridgewater. We borrow the words of Hubbard. “The Indians presently began to fire the town, but it pleased God so to spirit and encourage several of the inhabitants, issuing out of their garrison houses, that they fell upon them with great resolution, and beat them off; at the same instant of time, the Lord of Hosts also fighting for them from Heaven, by sending a storm of thunder and rain very seasonably, which prevented the burning of the houses which were fired.” E.
To quench the fiercely conquering flame,
That wrapt their homes in helpless hour—
They spoke, and blest the saving power.
And long, to while the hours away,
They talk of many a former day;
Of native hill and peaceful plain,
Far o'er the wild and severing main;
While some with anxious speech prepare
The future councils of the war.
XIX.
Upon a hillock's tufted breast,Holding no converse with the rest,
An aged man there sate;
As if he had endured the brunt
Of long and adverse fate.
Scarce sixty winters' snows were spread
Upon his venerable head;
And still within his full gray eye
There was a tameless energy,
That told a heart enured to bear
Each form of wo without despair,
And stands aloof, unchilled by sorrow,
No cheer from earthly hope to borrow.
Religion's promise in his view
Was fixed, and he believed it true;
Star of his soul! in glory beaming,
A light worth all earth's sweetest dreaming!
As many a busy murmur fell
On his scarce conscious ear,
At times to memory, audible,
They told of vanished scenes, too well
Remembered, and too dear.
Still at some half-caught sentence rose
The troublous image of his woes;
And memory with obtrusive hand
Would point his vision there;
He heard them tell of tender ties,
And the full tide of agonies
Rushed o'er his soul left sad and lone;
A deep, involuntary groan
The inward conflict told;
It was so strange for him to show,
Such outward sign of secret wo,
That silence followed straight, profound,
As if at supernatural sound;
And every speaker's eye around
Turned on that warrior old.
Oft had they longed in vain to hear
That ancient man, of life austere,
His trials dark relate;
For his stern mien, his sadness mixt
With lines of wo subdued, had fixt
Their interest on his fate:
But sorrow's sacred mystery
Can reverential sympathy
In every heart create;
Appeared to break the spell respect
Had thrown around his fortunes wrecked,
Lone misery's robe of state!
And they besought him to disclose,
At large, the story of his woes.
XX.
It seemed that feeling's bursting tideHad half o'erborne the silent pride,
That barred communion with its pain,
And made the wish to comfort vain.
A struggle passed, intense and brief,
While thus began his tale of grief.
“Dark even in youth the orphan's fate,
The story of Fitzgerald, previous to his emigration, is irrelevant to our subject. I have retained it however, as it formed so considerable a portion of my friend's share of the poem. I have added three long stanzas, narrating the manner in which the daughter was won and carried off by the Indian. The ideas are probably borrowed from the wooing of Othello. How should they not be?
But youth is ne'er quite desolate;
Its tears revive with moisture sweet,
The wild flowers springing at its feet;
And round in goodly prospect rise
Green, smooth ascents, and cloudless skies.
For who, when fancy warm and young,
Depicts the future's dazzling scope,
Owns not the power of suasive hope?
Would that in after years of grief,
I could have felt the sadness brief
That infancy bestows!
Would that my heart by madness wrung,
To hope's sweet comfort could have clung,
Amid severer woes!
But rolling years of varied sorrow,
Have bade me nought from hope to borrow;
Far is her flight, and strong her wing,
And eagle-like her foot will cling,
Above the storm, to cliffs that raise
Their fronts to catch the solar blaze.
Yet lives she not amid the skies,
Like eastern birds of Paradise,
Whose food in fragrant air is given,
Who quaff the balmy dews of heaven:
Deserted on her eyry high,
Her bosom faints, and fails her eye,
And hope herself unfed will die.
Shall in no future darkness grope;
Who builds not on her promise fair,
Needs fear no earthquake of despair.
XXI.
“I had a brother whom I loved,The only kindred death had left;
And wo our mutual friendship proved,
Of those who cherished us bereft.
I loved him—and he clung to me,
Though nearly young and weak as he;
For friends were cold; and coldness made
Us seek each other's feeble aid.
And oft together would we mourn
O'er days that never could return;
We wept for those whom memory still
Would to our youthful hearts reveal;
We wandered to their sepulchre,—
For all we loved was resting there:
Where oft till midnight we would stay,
And watch, and weep again, and pray;
A fellow-feeling with the dead.
XXII.
“We parted, when a venturous bandIn quest of wealth, to foreign land,
The aspiring Edward drew;
'Twas with a deep, foreboding gloom
Beside our parents' sacred tomb,
We spoke our last adieu.
And tidings rare and far between,
Told where the wanderer's steps had been;
Till silence o'er his fate was spread,
And when long years had come and fled,
I deemed him numbered with the dead.
But now, to blast the realm's repose,
The banner dark of discord rose,
And friends became each other's foes
In that unnatural war:
My soul was young, untutored then,
In all the evil ways of men;
Set all my bosom in a flame,
The glorious strife to share.
The infant's inexperienced sight
Of distance cannot judge aright;
And youthful dreams will still deceive,
And youthful bosoms still believe,
When passion has the sway:
Alas! that time can but disclose
The snares that trap the soul's repose,
In youth's misguided day!
When wisdom learns too late to shun
The snares by which we were undone,—
In age's dim decay.
XXIII.
“Grand, but delusive, is the dream,When dazzling rays of glory seem,
With light celestial, to illume
The burnished crest, and dancing plume;
When angel tones are heard to fill
The trump's inspiring clamours shrill;
Rolls onward with resistless sway;
While with one pulse each heart beats high,
One sacred fire in every eye,
And one the unbroken battle cry,
‘For conscience and for liberty!’
The cause for which I fought and bled,
Is dear, though all its hopes have fled,—
Fled from our country's ark, to trace
In western wilds a resting place,
Where yet, in solemn groves, the soul
Communes with heaven without control,
And, like the Patriarch in the wood,
Invokes the everlasting God!
XXIV.
“It boots not now with pains to tellOf all that in that war befell;
How king and state with various chance
Encountered each the other's lance;
How, bleeding fresh from every pore,
Our country weltered in her gore;
Told but of war's wild revelry;
When even the brother had imbrued
His hands amid his brother's blood;—
The parent wept no more his son,
In that disastrous strife undone;
For all was hostile;—all arose
To fill the cup of England's woes.
XXV.
“It was on Naseby's fatal plainThe decisive battle of Naseby was fought in the year 1645, with nearly equal forces, on the sides both of the king and parliament. The fortune of the day turned against Charles, and he was finally obliged to quit the field, with a loss of about eight hundred men; though the parliament lost above a thousand. E.
Our host was marshalled once again;
And, on their common soil, for blood
The kindred ranks impatient stood.
While Charles and Rupert on the right
In triumph brief maintained the fight,
I followed Cromwell's sage command,
Where Langdale led his loyal band,
And vainly strove to check the tide
That all his vigilance defied.
Routed and broken as he flew,
More wide the scattering slaughter grew.
At bay restrain the impetuous throng;
Fierce fell the flashes of his blade,
Like lightning on the foeman's head;
And death was dealt in every wound,
Till parted his assailants round;
I marked him, where alone, amain
His courser scoured the encumbered plain:
Filled with the fury of the day,
I followed reckless on his way;
Fainter and faltering in their course,
The blood drops fell from knight and horse;
He turned, as my descending sword
Through the reft mail his bosom gored,
Then sunk, his fleeting vigour gone;—
The staggering steed rushed blindly on;—
O God! as round my victim gazed,
His eye with death's dull amel glazed,
I saw my brother in my foe!
And he his murderer seemed to know—
For pardon lingered in his eye,
As death's drear shadow flitted by;—
But quivering vainly, closed for ever!
XXVI.
“No more with martial zeal inspired,To a lone valley I retired,
To spend what yet remained of years
In penitential thoughts and tears:
But sadness came as horror past,
New objects charmed my soul at last,
And from my wounded core anew
A scion green of promise grew.
I loved—was blest—'tis briefly said—
As swift those blissful moments fled:
The angel partner who had smiled
On my lone path, through deserts wild,
And led to earth's sole Paradise,
Was wrapt to her congenial skies.
XXVII.
“One pledge she left; I could not brookLonger upon those scenes to look,
Started, where'er my glance was cast.
I bore my daughter o'er the flood,
Trembling at ocean's wild alarms,
Just blooming into womanhood,
And ripe in all her mother's charms.
Ye know the rest;—an Indian sought
Ere long our newly rising cot:
It seemed the friendship which he bare
The white man's race had led him there,
With strong desire their love to learn,
And Christian usages discern.
He showed what soil would bear the grain,
What best our scanty herds sustain;
For he had learnt to speak our tongue,
And he would listen, fixed and long,
When of sublimer themes I spoke,
Revealed in inspiration's book;
Unfolding thence the wondrous plan
Of all that God had done for man.
By converse oft, and frequent view,
Almost as one of us he grew;
How he would win my Nora's ear,
With legends of his tawny race,
And feats that Nipnet annals grace.
XXVIII.
“In sooth his form was free and bold,And cast in nature's noblest mould;
His martial head full lightly bore
The many-tinctured plumes he wore;
His glossy locks beneath their band
Were clipt with no unskilful hand;
His polished limbs unseamed with scars,
And wonted stains of Indian wars—
And well the robe we gave became
With graceful fold his goodly frame.
Frank was his speech; but ne'er would rove,
Tutored by cunning, or by love,
To themes for woman's ear unfit:
And Nora listening long would sit,
By words and signs while he expressed
Creation's wonders in the west;
Through woods and wolds the hunter's road;
How plain, and swamp, and forest through,
They chased the mighty buffalo;
Or winged the unerring arrow, where
High coiling in his leafy lair,
They saw the panther's eyeballs glare.
Of ambush base and torture fell,
Of midnight fire and murderous yell,
Of blood-stained rites and league with hell,
The treacherous spoiler did not tell!
And she would ask to hear again
The feats of wild and martial men;
Or told in turn, what art had done,
In lands beyond the rising sun;
Of those vast hives of human homes;
Proud palaces and glittering domes;
Of loaded quays, and sails that bear
From all the globe their tribute there;
Of armies in their panoply,
And floating bulwarks on the sea.
The pomp her memory could recall.
But better was she pleased, to tell
Of her own loved and pastoral vale,
Its sheltering hills, and banks of green,
Of childhood's gladsome pranks the scene.
Then rapt, his ear he would incline,
As if some seraph's voice divine
Brought tidings from those opal fields
Which Autumn's sun, descending, gilds.
I should have looked to see as soon
The uncaverned wolf, in frolics boon,
With bounding fawn unfeared agree,
As that between them love should be.
But I abhorred such converse vain,
And checked the Pagan's speech profane.
I chided and forbade. Alas!
Too late to save my child it was.
Perchance, too long alone she strayed,
“As fern grows in untild grounds, and all manner of weeds, so do grose humours in an idle body: ignavum corrumpunt otia corpus.” “Cozen german to idleness, and a concomitant cause, which goes hand in hand with it, is nimia solitudo, too much solitude—which is either coact, enforced, or else voluntary.” “Voluntary solitude is that which is familiar with melancholy, and gently brings on, like a Screw, a shooing horn, or some Sphinx, to this irrevocable gulf. Most pleasant it is at first, to such as are melancholy given, to lie in bed whole dayes, and keep their chambers, to walk alone in some solitary grove, betwixt wood and water, by a brook side, to meditate upon some delightsome and pleasant subject which shall affect them most; amabilis insania, and mentis gratissimus error, &c. &c. Anat. Mel.
In her young hours, within the shade
Of those blest scenes where life began,
Far from the busy haunts of man.
To people mountains, caves and groves;
By whispering leaves and murmuring rill,
The tempter speaks, when all is still,
And phantoms in the brain will raise,
That haunt the paths of after days.
Weeds o'er the uncultured mind will spread,
As fern from earth's neglected bed.
Perchance, and I believe it true,
Of herb and spell the powers he knew;
Tutored in their foul jugglers' art,
By fiendish craft he won her heart.
XXIX.
“I drove the Pagan forth too late,For they at stolen hours had met;—
Haply, too sternly to my child
I spoke; her nature was most mild,
Her feelings warm, but never wild.
I trod too rudely on the shoot
Of that young passion's embryo root;
Luxuriant from the bruise anew.
An English youth her suitor came;
I hoped to quench the unholy flame
The heathen lit, by sacred vows
Of wedlock with a Christian spouse.
It did but haste her final doom,—
On one sad night she left her home;
She parted, with the tawny chief,
And left me lonely in my grief.
Research was vain, though long pursued,
I sought again my solitude:—
She sowed the winds that madly blew,—
She could but reap the whirlwind too!
'Twas cruel, in the stranger's clime,
Thus from her gray old sire to part,
And barb the only shaft that time
Had yet in store to pierce my heart.
But O, my child! where'er thou art—
Whether beneath the inclement sky,
Thy whitening bones unburied lie;
Thou sharest the apostate's slough unclean,
This, this the undying source of pain,
We cannot meet in heaven again!
Is it not written—‘when thy God
Shall make the nations' realm thine own,
Thou shalt not mingle with their blood,
Nor yield thy daughter to his son.
For from the path her fathers trod,
Her steps to idols will be won;
And swift destruction's fiery doom
The accursëd union shall consume!’”
XXX.
Fitzgerald ceased; and every eyePaid tribute to his agony:
Even hearts were moved, long hardened made,
By cold, deliberate murder's trade.
On rough-worn features, stern and rude,
The glistening tear unwonted stood;
As on the gnarled oak's scathëd boughs,
The dew-drop of the morning glows.
Up to the camp, two horsemen rode,
In the account of the means by which the intelligence of Philip was conveyed, we have deviated, not materially however, from historical accuracy, in order the better to interweave it with the story. We quote the following from Church's history.—“Not seeing or hearing of any of the enemy, they went over the ferry (from Pocasset) to Rhode-Island, to refresh themselves. The Captain, with about half a dozen in his company, took horse and rid about eight miles down the island, to Mr. Sandford's where he had left his wife; who no sooner saw him but fainted with surprise; and by that time she was a little revived, they spied two horsemen coming a great pace. Captain Church told his company that those men (by their riding) came with tidings. When they came up they proved to be Major Sandford and Captain Golding; who immediately asked Captain Church, what he would give to hear some news of Philip? He reply'd, That was what he wanted. They told him, They had rid hard with some hopes of overtaking him, and were now come on purpose to inform him, that there were just now tidings from Mount-Hope; an Indian came down from thence (where Philip's camp now was) on to Sand-point, over against Trip's, and halloo'd, and made signs to be fetched over, he reported, That he was fled from Philip, who (said he) has killed my BROTHER just before I came away, for giving some advice there displeased him. And said, he was fled for fear of meeting with the same thing his brother had met with; told them also, That Philip was now in Mount-Hope neck.” E.
Wayworn, as if with tidings bound;
And quick, their panting coursers round,
The troop impatient thronged, to hear
What news they brought of hope or fear.
Right glad their leader was, to view,
His former comrades, bold and true;
And loud the joyous murmurs broke,
As thus the elder soldier spoke.
XXXI.
“News from the Sachem! trapt at last,In his own den we hold him fast,
An Indian from the rebel fled,
Incensed for blood of kindred shed,
From Haup's wild fastnesses last night
Escaped, and beckoning met our sight.
Brought from the adverse bank, he told
Where now the traitor keeps his hold;
And bade us haste, from murderous knife,
If we would save a Christian's life.
Had sought, by Metacom's command,
At eventide, the island shore,
Its central forests to explore.
And with them had his friend been sent,
Who told him of their black intent,
Some secret foul, which but those few
Of Philip's trusted followers knew.
Brief time for rescue was allowed,
We took what followers chance bestowed;—
Swift was our journey; but 'twas yet,
To intercept the foe too late.
Just on the bank their band we met,
And one, beneath our instant shot,
Was stretched in death upon the spot.
The rest in terror o'er the flood,
Through the dim shades their flight made good.
Clasped by the friendly Indian there,
A Christian woman, young and fair,
Fainted we found; the Indian's art
Recalled the life-pulse to her heart,
Which only gazed on vacancy:—
Her child was gone—her cry was vain,
And feverish madness fir'd her brain;
On woven boughs and leaves upborne,
We brought the unconscious dame forlorn.
Through tangled brake and forest screen
Long has our toilsome journey been:—
Waste we no more of idle breath,
But hunt the outlaw to the death!”
XXXII.
Meantime, the oaks' tall columns through,The expected band appeared in view;
Slow through the glade their steps advance;
Locked in a calm and deathlike trance,
With them the rescued dame was brought,
Free from the agonies of thought.
Near, in an opening of the wood,
A long-forsaken wigwam stood.
Its ruins nought but curious quest
The former haunt of men had guessed;
Thick round the rustic dwelling grew.
The twisted creeper's verdant woof
O'erspread the boughs, and bearskin tough,
And birchen bark, its simple roof;
And wild flowers mid the foliage twine;
The many-coated columbine,
And bittersweet luxuriant sprung,
Robust and statelier vines among.
Now from that pyramid of green,
A curling smoke was rising seen,
Mid sycamore's o'erarching screen.
A transient shelter it became,
To a poor settler and his dame;—
Though comfortless such dwelling be,
'Twas yet the home of liberty.—
Straightway the two Mohegans there
The litter with its burden bare.
O'er the fair form, in pitying mood,
The lowly cabin's inmates stood;
They bathed her brow, and raised her head,
Until again her stupor fled:
Was stained with redly gushing die;
Streaks which the storm of anguish past,
Across its liquid heaven had cast
Now those bright orbs, with wandering roll,
Betrayed the twilight of the soul;
And now a shriek, on every ear,
Fell, like lost wretch's cry of fear,
When toppling from the dizzy steep,
He sinks into the roaring deep!
Fitzgerald heard that frenzied cry—
It struck on his bosom suddenly,
Like a chord's sad sound, when bursting near,
From a harp whose music was most dear.
XXXIII.
He rushed to the hut;—with a start he metThe child he loved too fondly yet;
Up springing wildly at the sight,
Her madness yields to nature's might.
At first the father would have prest
The hapless wanderer to his breast;
Of all her guilt and all his woes:
While a drear conflict was begun,
And nature now, now anger won,
Pale Nora hid her face to shun
The glance she dared no longer meet:—
Prostrate and trembling at his feet,
She only clasped his knees and wept,
While round her auburn tresses swept:—
She only sighed, in murmurs low,
“O do not curse me!” “Curse thee! no;
Tho' down the vale of years alone,
I bear my cross with tottering frame,
And pangs than death more dread have known,
Pangs from a daughter's hand that came—
I would not call the eternal wrath,
To burst o'er thy misguided path!
Tho' hopeless of forgiveness there,
I can but plead with earnest prayer,
Against its heavier curse:
Oh! I had borne to see thy bloom
Of youth, slow withering o'er its tomb—
Had borne to see thy hearse,
That told thy purity in death.
But thus—from heathen's couch defiled,
Polluted outcast of the wild—
I cannot brook to see my child!”
“Then, then, I am indeed undone,
And light or hope on earth is none!
Here let me die!” “No! sinful one!
Live! rising from the gloomier grave
Of guilt, no more the tempter's slave.
Live! let thy days in tears be spent,
In mental penance deep repent;
Thou art not fit to die!” he said,
And raised the mourner from the ground,
And all his gathered sternness fled,
When in his arms his child he found.
Their tears together blending flow—
Her crime forgiven, almost forgot,
Till severing from her pressure slow,
Calmer he left the lonely cot.
“Nora, farewell! if heaven should spare
Thy sire, his home thou still shalt share;
An Indian ball destroy my life,
Christians, I know, my child will save;
And, when I moulder in the grave,
Remember—that thy sire forgave.”
He left her, but his parting word
His shuddering daughter had not heard;
On adverse sides—her only thought—
Her father and her husband fought.
XXXIV.
Counsel meantime the soldiers hold—The Indian there his injury told;
He said Ahauton was his name,
And of Mohegan line he came;
Told how the death of Agamoun
A brother's vengeance must atone;
And how to dust by sorrow borne,
“Sir,” (said some of the Indians to Captain Church,) “you have now made Philip ready to die, for you have made him as poor and miserable as he used to make the English; for you have now killed or taken all his relations. That they believed he would now soon have his head, and that this bout had almost broke his heart.”— Church. E.
By pain, defeat, and famine worn,
The wily Sachem could not hope
Much longer with his foes to cope.
Yet his stout heart was almost broke,
When last were slain, round Taunton's wave,
His counsellors and his warriors brave.
Left now of all his tribe alone,
The Wampanoags' glory gone—
His every friend and kinsman dead,
Soon he must yield his forfeit head.
XXXV.
Their eager conference o'er at last,The mandate for the march was past.
Swiftly the scanty files withdrew,
As shrill the warning bugle blew;
Their arms thro' thickets glittering bright,
Before the sun's retiring light,
Who, waning from his central throne,
Thro' clouds and forests lurid shone.
The rising wind that shook the trees,
Or curled the waving of the seas;
The shrieking birds that sped along,
Or plunged the rising waves among,
The bursting of a storm was near.
As past the eager troop away,
Fitzgerald made a brief delay,
With the Mohegan chief, before
He joined their march along the shore.
They spoke in low and whispered tone,
But, when their earnest speech was done,
“Lead thou my steps,” the old man cried,
“To their foul haunts be thou my guide.
Heaven bids me mar the rites defiled,
And seek and save my daughter's child.”
| Yamoyden, a tale of the wars of King Philip : in six cantos | |