Poetry of the Farm and Rural Life :: :: University of Virginia Library

Here, on this storied shore, within the sound
Of these old voiceful waters, have we met
To spend a profitable hour, and muse
Upon the past,—two hundred years agone.
And while we contemplate the present scene
We, too, may give to Fancy latitude,
In speculation on what here shall be
When centuries again have lapsed away.

And it is well at times to rest from cares
That all engross us, and to step aside
From life's highway, its dollars, din and dust,
To Nature's calm retreats, and let our souls
Be fed by her sweet whisperings,—the same
Forevermore, as yesterday, to-day.

Communing with the spirit of the Past,
And conversant with annals of the Old,
We dwell upon Time's workings, and take note
That he, though ever restless, changeful, swift,

Is like a rapid, overflowing stream
Bearing away our cherished fantasies,
Yet leaving on the shore for us to see
The solid grains of fertilizing Truth.

Lo! this is consecrated ground we tread!
The soil, the rocks, the very air we breathe
Are full of memories of a vanished race
Who here had being, and who cherished life
According to the light to them vouchsafed,—
Called “nature's darkness” by the sons of light.
Here Clio paused, and wrote a bloody page,
Whose color darkens and whose interest grows,—
Dark'ning and deep'ning with the lapse of Time.

O, Nature! let a son of thine bespeak
For thy poor children grace of charity!
Our eyes to-day feast on thy fairness;—see
Thy panorama, mountain, flood, and field,
Spread out in beauty, with the moon of May
Renewing verdure to these shoring fields;
While the broad bosom of our Indian stream
Mirrors thy beauties sweetly as of yore.
Thy look impresses us; thy promptings say:
This is your country! love it!—well you may.

Is it a wreath of mist from yonder flood,
Like to a human form, which there I see
On yonder islet that subtends the fall?
Or the grim spirit of the sylvan chief,
Wrapped in his robe of pride and dignity?
Is it the anthem of the thundering tide
Where Turner battled and the Indian died,
The voice I hear? or does the spirit speak?
O, listen well!—I act interpreter:

Did we not love it too? This goodly scene
Was our ancestral heritage; our right,
Our title, from the great Original.
Here were our Lares, our Penates here!
Our bones are mingled with the soil you till;
Our implements of warfare and the chase
Your plows uncover from the rest of years.
Our spirits note the plowman as he turns
Up to the sunlight of the white man's day
The things that once were ours, and hear him say
This was the Indian's! and with curious eye
Inspect it for a moment—then move on
Without a pang of pity in his breast
For all the Indian's wrongs; without a thought
Save “might makes right,”—the adage of his race.

Were we not men, and like your selfish selves
Called the Great Spirit, Father?—brothers all?
Wild and untutored,—savage, as you say,
But, for all that, your Father's children, too,
By Nature nurtured, and to Nature true.

Where slept the pity that you since have shown
To your black brother whom you could enslave?
What blessed spirit from the Good on high
Prompted your hearts to give them liberty,
Yet generous mercy to our race deny?
Did he possess the soil he trod upon?
Were his such pleasant, goodly scenes as this,
Its teeming soil, its wealth of food and game?—
Speak! was it Christian charity alone,
Or did the elements political,
More potent still, combine and underlie
The glorious act that goes for Mercy's own?

Alas for human goodness! we had lands,
And timbered hills, and food-supplying streams,
And mineral grounds, rich with the precious ores.
You came, and looked upon, and saw them good.
Then Envy sowed her seed; her rank roots grew
And filled your hearts with covetous desire,
Born of the power that wars against the Good.—
Rest for your arms, rest for your marching feet,—
No rest was yours, till, with a conscience scared
By “might makes right,” we're gone, and you are here!

No sachem of your race who aims to be
Its mighty chieftain, and none other who
Desires a seat in your great council lodge,
Declares his purpose and intent to be
To see wrong righted; that his charity,
Broad like a mantle, wraps all in its folds;
That at his hands our wasted nations shall
Receive the honest justice that you boast
Dwells in your temples reared for her abode.

No! such avowal would at once dispel
His hopes, and strike his aspirations dead.
His people crave our lands,—those lands will have,
And still make show of Christian charity:
Grant us a pittance, that the world may see
Their generosity; and still excite
By studied arts, our tribes to useless strife
That the same eyes may see how prompt they are
To plunder and possess in Justice's name.

A prophet of your nation once has said
Words that should ope your ears again to hear:—

“But I can see another sight
To which the white man's eyes are blind:
His race may vanish hence, like mine,
And leave no trace behind,
Save ruins o'er the country spread,
And the white stones above the dead.”

The voice is hushed; but still the form is there,—
Mighty King Philip! Time makes bare to-day
Fair Truth; e'en as the day-king brightening
Dispels the shrouding and distorting fogs
That supervene, at times, autumnal frosts.
Kingly Metacom! warrior, patriot, sage!
Now that thy bones are dust, thy country ours;
Now that Time's hand has poured for centuries
Its Lethean waters o'er the bloody past,
We can review thy actions and can pass
Unbiased judgment on thy motives true.
Maligned as savage, underprized as man,
Thy soul was with that real greatness rich
Which stamps the nobleman of Nature's own,
Distinctive from the misnamed counterfeit.
Condemned by us because thou didst possess
Those lofty qualities which we admire
And glorify, when with us they appear.

No bard with song-wrought laurels crowned thy brow;
No orator thy great deeds magnified;
No press spread forth to an admiring world
Thy statesmanship and patriotic worth;
No grateful country could reward thy deeds
With honors high and fame's emblazonry;—

Nor didst thou covet these. Thy piercing ken
Read through the darkness of futurity
The doom so surely waiting for thy race,
And thy great heart to mighty effort stirred,
Counting life nothing in Oppression's yoke.

Rest! spirit, rest!
The sounding aisles of free New England's woods.—
Her life-blood, gushing from the shaded fonts
That slaked thy thirst, still trickling from the hills
With murmured plaint,—and, ceaseless, leading all,
Yon torrent's voice, deep, solemn, and sublime,
Thy requiem shall be!

The wraith has vanished! still another form
Of eager, restless air, in place succeeds,
Lacking the sachem's pose of dignity.—
Is it his voice now speaks? or varying airs
That change the toning numbers of the fall:—

Behold me, Enterprise!—sprung from the Plow,
The Axe, Loom, Anvil, and the Common School,
I claim them all as ancestry; but first
My filial pride acknowledges the Plow.

I am the spirit that in early days
Did build your barges and contrive the ways,
Obstructions conquering, that Commerce might
The waters of your river utilize,
And bring the recompense that all derive
From well-timed industry. I, too, am he
Who, tiring of the locomotion slow,
Laid down the iron rails these shores along,

Brought forth the iron horse and harnessed him
To thunder through your valley with his freights,
And wake the echoes with his rousing shrieks.

I, too, am he who laid this mighty work
At Nature's own suggestion, and have turned
The tireless energies of this mad tide
To work for man and his aggrandizement.

Yonder you see beginnings; but the end
Is in the future far; when I who speak
And you who listen long have passed away;—
Yea, when the children of your children's child,
As generations shall in turn succeed,
Shall hither gather to renew this day,—
Scarce this sweet spot they'll find,—this cool retreat,
These verdant pines, this grassy shade they'll see,
But blocks of brick and stone, and graded streets;
Nature displaced by crowned and regnant Art,
And Trade's confusion dinning in their ears.

Here, where the fisher stood and speared his prey;
Here, where the Indian, happy in the wild,
Thanked the Great Spirit for this paradise,—
Shall stretch the broad highways from shore to shore,
And din of traffic and its roar shall drown
The thunder of the falling flood below.

That vision vanisheth! What do I see?
Faces of friends, dear and familiar all.
Welcome! thrice welcome to my native haunts,

To interchange those kind amenities
That lighten life's sad burthens, and inspire
The soul to dwell on something else—beyond.