["The Indians speak of a beautiful river, far to the south, which they call Merrimack." SIEUR DE MONTS: 1604.]
STREAM of my fathers! sweetly still The sunset rays thy valley fill; Poured slantwise down the long defile, Wave, wood, and spire beneath them smile.
I see the winding Powow fold The green hill in its belt of gold, And following down its wavy line, Its sparkling waters blend with thine. There's not a tree upon thy side, Nor rock, which thy returning tide As yet hath left abrupt and stark Above thy evening water-mark; No calm cove with its rocky hem, No isle whose emerald swells begem Thy broad, smooth current; not a sail Bowed to the freshening ocean gale; No small boat with its busy oars, Nor gray wall sloping to thy shores; Nor farm-house with its maple shade, Or rigid poplar colonnade, But lies distinct and full in sight, Beneath this gush of sunset light. Centuries ago, that harbor-bar, Stretching its length of foam afar, And Salisbury's beach of shining sand, And yonder island's wave-smoothed
Which channels vast Agioochook When spring-time's sun and shower unlock
The frozen fountains of the rock, And more abundant waters given From that pure lake, "The Smile of Heaven," 28
Tributes from vale and mountain-side,- With ocean's dark, eternal tide!
On yonder rocky cape, which braves The stormy challenge of the waves, Midst tangled vine and dwarfish wood, The hardy Anglo-Saxon stood, Planting upon the topmost crag The staff of England's battle-flag; And, while from out its heavy fold Saint George's crimson cross unrolled, Midst roll of drum and trumpet blare, And weapons brandishing in air, He gave to that lone promontory The sweetest name in all his story;29 Of her, the flower of Islam's daughters. Whose harems look on Stamboul's
Who, when the chance of war had bound
The Moslem chain his limbs around, Wreathed o'er with silk that iron chain, Soothed with her smiles his hours of pain,
And fondly to her youthful slave A dearer gift than freedom gave.
But look!-the yellow light no more Streams down on wave and verdant
And clearly on the calm air swells The twilight voice of distant bells. From Ocean's bosom, white and thin, The mists come slowly rolling in; Hills, woods, the river's rocky rim, Amidst the sea-like vapor swim,
While yonder lonely coast-light, set Within its wave-washed minaret, Half quenched, a beamless star and pale,
Shines dimly through its cloudy veil !
Home of my fathers! I have stood Where Hudson rolled his lordly flood: Seen sunrise rest and sunset fade Along his frowning Palisade; Looked down the Apalachian peak On Juniata's silver streak; Have seen along his valley gleam The Mohawk's softly winding stream; The level light of sunset shine Through broad Potomac's hem of pine; And autumn's rainbow-tinted banner Hang lightly o'er the Susquehanna; Yet, wheresoe'er his step might be, Thy wandering child looked back to thee!
Heard in his dreams thy river's sound Of murmuring on its pebbly bound, The unforgotten swell and roar Of waves on thy familiar shore; And saw, amidst the curtained gloom And quiet of his lonely room, Thy sunset scenes before him pass; As, in Agrippa's magic glass, The loved and lost arose to view, Remembered groves in greenness grew, Bathed still in childhood's morning dew,
Along whose bowers of beauty swept Whatever Memory's mourners wept, Sweet faces, which the charnel kept, Young, gentle eyes, which long had slept;
And while the gazer leaned to trace, More near, some dear familiar face, He wept to find the vision flown, A phantom and a dream alone!
GIFT from the cold and silent Past! A relic to the present cast; Left on the ever-changing strand Of shifting and unstable sand, Which wastes beneath the steady chime
And beating of the waves of Time!
Who from its bed of primal rock First wrenched thy dark, unshapely block?
Whose hand, of curious skill untaught, Thy rude and savage outline wrought? The waters of my native stream Are glancing in the sun's warm beam : From sail-urged keel and flashing oar The circles widen to its shore; And cultured field and peopled town Slope to its willowed margin down. Yet, while this morning breeze is bring- ing
The home-life sound of school-bells ringing,
And rolling wheel, and rapid jar Of the fire-winged and steedless car, And voices from the wayside near Come quick and blended on my ear, A spell is in this old gray stone,- My thoughts are with the Past alone! A change!-The steepled town no mo Stretches along the sail-thronged shore: Like palace-domes in sunset's cloud, Fade sun-gilt spire and mansion proud: Spectrally rising where they stood, I see the old, primeval wood: Dark, shadow-like, on either hand I see its solemn waste expand: It climbs the green and cultured hill, It arches o'er the valley's rill; And leans from cliff and crag, to thro Its wild arms o'er the stream below. Unchanged, alone, the same bright river
Flows on, as it will flow forever! I listen, and I hear the low Soft ripple where its waters go; I hear behind the panther's cry, The wild-bird's scream goes thrilling hy, And shyly on the river's brink The deer is stooping down to drink. But hark! from wood and rock flung back,
What sound comes up the Merrimack? What sea-worn barks are those which
The light spray from each rushing prow? Have they not in the North Sea's blast Bowed to the waves the straining mast? Their frozen sails the low, pale sun Of Thulé's night has shone upon;
Flapped by the sea-wind's gusty sweep Round icy drift, and headland steep. Wild Jutland's wives and Lochlin's daughters
Have watched them fading o'er the waters,
Lessening through driving mist and spray,
Like white-winged sea-birds on their way!
Onward they glide, - and now I view Their iron-armed and stalwart crew; Joy glistens in each wild blue eye, Turned to green earth and summer sky: Each broad, seamed breast has cast aside Its cumbering vest of shaggy hide; Bared to the sun and soft warm air, Streams back the Norsemen's yellow hair.
I see the gleam of axe and spear, The sound of smitten shields I hear, Keeping a harsh and fitting time To Saga's chant, and Runic rhyme; Such lays as Zetland's Scald has sung, His gray and naked isles among; Or muttered low at midnight hour Round Odin's mossy stone of power. The wolf beneath the Arctic moon Has answered to that startling rune; The Gael has heard its stormy swell, The light Frank knows its summons well;
Iona's sable-stoled Culdee
Has heard it sounding o'er the sea, And swept, with hoary beard and hair, His altar's foot in trembling prayer! 'Tis past, the 'wildering vision dies In darkness on my dreaming eyes!
The forest vanishes in air, Hill-slope and vale lie starkly bare; I hear the common tread of men, And hum of work-day life again: The mystic relic seems alone A broken mass of common stone; And if it be the chiselled limb Of Berserker or idol grim, - A fragment of Valhalla's Thor, The stormy Viking's god of War, Or Praga of the Runic lay, Or love-awakening Siona, I know not, for no graven line, Nor Druid mark, nor Runic sign, Is left me here, by which to trace Its name, or origin, or place. Yet, for this vision of the Past, This glance upon its darkness cast, My spirit bows in gratitude Before the Giver of all good, Who fashioned so the human mind, That, from the waste of Time behind A simple stone, or mound of earth, Can summon the departed forth; Quicken the Past to life again, — The Present lose in what hath been, And in their primal freshness show The buried forms of long ago. As if a portion of that Thought By which the Eternal will is wrought, Whose impulse fills anew with breath The frozen solitude of Death, To mortal mind were sometimes lent, To mortal musings sometimes sent, To whisper - even when it seems But Memory's fantasy of dreams - Through the mind's waste of woe and sin,
Of an immortal origin !
To the God of all sure mercies let my blessing rise to-day,
From the scoffer and the cruel He hath plucked the spoil away,- Yea, He who cooled the furnace around the faithful three, And tamed the Chaldean lions, hath set His handmaid free!
Last night I saw the sunset melt through my prison bars, Last night across my damp earth-floor fell the pale gleam of stars; In the coldness and the darkness all through the long night-time, My grated casement whitened with autumn's early rime.
Alone, in that dark sorrow, hour after hour crept by ; Star after star looked palely in and sank adown the sky; No sound amid night's stillness, save that which seemed to be The dull and heavy beating of the pulses of the sea;
All night I sat unsleeping, for I knew that on the morrow The ruler and the cruel priest would mock me in my sorrow, Dragged to their place of market, and bargained for and sold, Like a lamb before the shambles, like a heifer from the fold!
O, the weakness of the flesh was there, -the shrinking and the shame; And the low voice of the Tempter like whispers to me came : "Why sit'st thou thus forlornly!" the wicked murmur said,
'Damp walls thy bower of beauty, cold earth thy maiden bed?
"Where be the smiling faces, and voices soft and sweet, Seen in thy father's dwelling, heard in the pleasant street? Where be the youths whose glances, the summer Sabbath through, Turned tenderly and timidly unto thy father's pew?
"Why sit'st thou here, Cassandra? - Bethink thee with what mirth Thy happy schoolmates gather around the warm bright hearth; How the crimson shadows tremble on foreheads white and fair, On eyes of merry girlhood, half hid in golden hair.
"Not for thee the hearth-fire brightens, not for thee kind words are spoken Not for thee the nuts of Wenham woods by laughing boys are broken, No first-fruits of the orchard within thy lap are laid,
For thee no flowers of autumn the youthful hunters braid.
"O, weak, deluded maiden !
With wild and raving railers an evil path to tread;
To leave a wholesome worship, and teaching pure and sound; And mate with maniac women, loose-haired and sackcloth bound.
"Mad scoffers of the priesthood, who mock at things divine, Who rail against the pulpit, and holy bread and wine; Sore from their cart-tail scourgings, and from the pillory lame, Rejoicing in their wretchedness, and glorying in their shame.
"And what a fate awaits thee?-a sadly toiling slave, Dragging the slowly lengthening chain of bondage to the grave! Think of thy woman's nature, subdued in hopeless thrall, The easy prey of any, the scoff and scorn of all!"
O, ever as the Tempter spoke, and feeble Nature's fears Wrung drop by drop the scalding flow of unavailing tears, I wrestled down the evil thoughts, and strove in silent prayer, To feel, O Helper of the weak! that Thou indeed wert there!
I thought of Paul and Silas, within Philippi's cell, And how from Peter's sleeping limbs the prison-shackles fell, Till I seemed to hear the trailing of an angel's robe of white, And to feel a blessed presence invisible to sight.
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