Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848

"How far distant are they now?" asked the woman.

"A three hours walk down stream," was the answer. "To-morrow they will ascend the falls to surprise our people, and burn the village. To-night, when the moon is down, we are to light a fire at still-water above the falls, and the Terrentines will join us at the signal, leave their canoes in the care of the women, and descend upon our foes. The fire will warn our people how near to approach the falls, for the night will be dark." This was told at intervals, and to the questionings of the woman.

"Where is the Sagamore of Saco," asked Ascáshe.

"John Bonyton heads our foes, but to-night is the last one to the Sagamore."

At this name the white hair stirred violently, and then a low wail escaped from beneath. The group started, and one of the men, with Ascáshe, scanned the face of the girl, who seemed to sleep in perfect unconsciousness; but the panther rolled itself over, stretched out its claws, and threw back his head, showing his long, red tongue, and uttered a yawn so nearly a howl, that the woman declared the sounds must have been the same.

Presently the group disposed themselves to sleep till the moon should set, when they must once more be upon the trail. Previous to this, many were the charges enjoined upon the woman in regard to Bridget.

"Guard her well," said the leader of the band. "In a few suns more she will be a great medicine woman, foretelling things that shall come to the tribes."

We must now visit the encampment of John Bonyton, where he and his followers slept, waiting till the first dawn of day should send them on their deadly path. The moon had set; the night was intensely dark, for clouds flitted over the sky, now and then disburdening themselves with gusts of wind, which swayed the old woods to and fro, while big drops of rain fell amid the leaves and were hushed.

Suddenly a white figure stood over the sleeping chief, so slight, so unearthly in its shroud of wet, white hair, that one might well be pardoned a superstitious tremor. She wrung her hands and wept bitterly as she gazed – then she knelt down and looked more closely; then, with a quick cry, she flung herself into his bosom.

"Oh, John Bonyton, did I not tell you this? Did I not tell you, years ago, that little Hope stood in my path, with hair white as snow?"

The man raised himself up, he gathered the slight figure in his arms – he uncovered a torch and held it to her face.

"Oh, my God! my God!" he cried – and his strength departed, and he was helpless as a child. The years of agony, the lapse of thirty years were concentrated in that fearful moment. Bridget, too, lay motionless and silent, clinging to his neck. Long, long was that hour of suffering to the two. What was life to them! stricken and changed, living and breathing, they only felt that they lived and breathed by the pangs that betrayed the beating pulse. Oh, life! life! thou art a fearful boon, and thy love not the least fearful of thy gifts.

At length Bridget raised herself up, and would have left his arms; but John Bonyton held her fast.

"Nay, Hope, never again. My tender, my beautiful bird, it has fared ill with thee;" and smoothing her white locks, the tears gushed to the eyes of the strong man. Indeed, he, in his full strength and manhood, she, diminutive and bleached by solitude and grief, contrasted so powerfully in his mind, that a paternal tenderness grew upon him, and he kissed her brow reverently, saying,

"How have I searched for thee, my birdie, my child; I have been haunted by the furies, and goaded well nigh to murder – but thou art here – yet not thou. Oh, Hope! Hope!"

The girl listened intent and breathless.

"I knew it would be so, John Bonyton; I knew if parted we could never be the same again – the same cloud returns not to the sky; the same blossom blooms not twice; human faces wear never twice the same look; and, alas! alas! the heart of to-day is not that of to-morrow."

"Say on, Hope – years are annihilated, and we are children again, hoping, loving children."

But the girl only buried her face in his bosom, weeping and sobbing. At this moment a red glare of light shot up into the sky, and Bridget sprung to her feet.

"I had forgotten. Come, John Bonyton, come and see the only work that poor little Hope could do to save thee;" and she darted forward with the eager step which Bonyton so well remembered. As they approached the falls, the light of the burning tree, kindled by the hands of Bridget below the falls, flickered and glared upon the waters; the winds had died away; the stars beamed forth, and nothing mingled with the roar of waters, save an occasional screech of some nocturnal creature prowling for its prey.

Ever and ever poured on the untiring flood, till one wondered it did not pour itself out; and the heart grew oppressed at the vast images crowding into it, swelling and pressing, as did the tumultuous waves over their impediment of granite – water, still water, till the nerves ached from weariness at the perpetual flow, and the mind questioned if the sound itself were not silence, so lonely was the spell – questioned if it were stopped if the heart would not cease to beat, and life become annihilate.

Suddenly the girl stopped with hand pointing to the falls. A black mass gleamed amid the foam – one wild, fearful yell arose, even above the roar of waters, and then the waves flowed on as before.

"Tell me, what is this?" cried John Bonyton, seizing the hand of Bridget, and staying her flight with a strong grasp.

"Ascáshe did not know I could plunge under the falls – she did not know the strength of little Hope, when she heard the name of John Bonyton. She then went on to tell how she had escaped the cave – how she had kindled a signal fire below the falls in advance of that to be kindled above – and how she had dared, alone, the terrors of the forest, and the black night, that she might once more look upon the face of her lover. When she had finished, she threw her arms tenderly around his neck, she pressed her lips to his, and then, with a gentleness unwonted to her nature, would have disengaged herself from his arms.

"Why do you leave me, Hope – where will you go?" asked the Sagamore.

She looked up with a face so pale, so hopeless, so mournfully tender, as was most affecting to behold. "I will go under the falls, and there sleep – oh! so long will I sleep, John Bonyton.

He folded her like a little child to his bosom. "You must not leave me, Hope – do you not love me?"

She answered only by a low wail, that was more affecting than any words; and when the Sagamore pressed her again to his heart, she answered, calling him John Bonyton, as she used to call him in the days of her childhood.

"Little Hope is a terror to herself, John Bonyton. Her heart is all love – all lost in yours; but she is a child, a child just as she was years ago; but you, you are not the same – more beautiful – greater; poor little Hope grows fearful before you;" and again her voice was lost in tears.

The sun now began to tinge the sky with his ruddy hue; the birds filled the woods with an out-gush of melody; the rainbow, as ever, spanned the abyss of waters, while below, drifting in eddies, were fragments of canoes, and still more ghastly fragments telling of the night's destruction. The stratagem of the girl had been entirely successful – deluded by the false beacon, the unhappy savages had drifted on with the tide, unconscious of danger, till the one terrible pang of danger, and the terrible plunge of death came at the one and same moment.

Upon a headland overlooking the falls stood the group of the cavern, stirred with feelings to which words give no utterance, and which find expression only in some deadly act. Ascáshe descended stealthily along the bank, watching intently the group upon the opposite shore, in the midst of which floated the white, abundant locks of Bridget Vines, visible at a great distance. She now stood beside the Sagamore, saying,

"Forget poor little Hope, John Bonyton, or only remember that her life was one long, long thought of thee."

She started – gave one wild look of love and grief at the Sagamore – and then darted down the bank, marking her path with streams of blood, and disappeared under the falls. The aim of the savage had done its work.

"Ascáshe is revenged, John Bonyton," cried a loud voice – and a dozen arrows stopped it in its utterance. Fierce was the pursuit, and desperate the flight of the few surviving foes. The "Sagamore of Saco" never rested day nor night till he and his followers had cut off the last vestige of the Terrantines, and avenged the blood of the unhappy maiden. Then for years did he linger about the falls in the vain hope of seeing once more her wild spectral beauty – but she appeared no more in the flesh; though to this, men not romantic nor visionary declare they have seen a figure, slight and beautiful, clad in robe of skin, with moccasoned feet, and long, white hair, nearly reaching to the ground, hovering sorrowfully around the falls; and this strange figure they believe to be the wraith of the lost Bridget Vines.

THE SACHEM's HILL

BY ALFRED B. STREET'T was a green towering hill-top: on its sidesJune showered her red delicious strawberries,Spotting the mounds, and in the hollows spreadHer pink brier roses, and gold johnswort stars.The top was scattered, here and there, with pines,Making soft music in the summer wind,And painting underneath each other's boughsSpaces of auburn from their withered fringe.Below, a scene of rural lovelinessWas pictured, vivid with its varied hues;The yellow of the wheat – the fallow's black —The buckwheat's foam-like whiteness, and the greenOf pasture-field and meadow, whilst amidstWound a slim, snake-like streamlet. Here I oftHave come in summer days, and with the shadeCast by one hollowed pine upon my brow,Have couched upon the grass, and let my eyeRoam o'er the landscape, from the green hill's footTo where the hazy distance wrapped the scene.Beneath this pine a long and narrow moundHeaves up its grassy shape; the silver tuftsOf the wild clover richly spangle it,And breathe such fragrance that each passing windIs turned into an odor. UnderneathA Mohawk Sachem sleeps, whose form had borneA century's burthen. Oft have I the taleHeard from a pioneer, who, with a bandOf comrades, broke into the unshorn wildsThat shadowed then this region, and awokeThe echoes with their axes. By the streamThey found this Indian Sachem in a hutOf bark and boughs. One of the pioneersHad lived a captive 'mid the Iroquois.And knew their language, and he told the chiefHow they had come to mow the woods away,And change the forest earth to meadows green,And the tall trees to dwellings. Rearing upHis aged form, the Sachem proud replied,That he had seen a hundred winters passOver this spot; that here his tribe had died,Parents and children, braves, old men and all,Until he stood a withered tree amidstHis prostrate kind; that he had hoped he ne'erWould see the race, whose skin was like the flowerOf the spring dogwood, blasting his old sight;And that beholding them amidst his haunts,He called on Hah-wen-ne-yo to bear offHis spirit to the happy hunting-grounds.Shrouding his face within his deer-skin robe,And chanting the low death-song of his tribe,He then with trembling footsteps left the hutAnd sought the hill-top; here he sat him downWith his back placed within this hollowed tree,And fixing his dull eye upon the sceneOf woods below him, rocked with guttural chantThe livelong day, whilst plyed the pioneersTheir axes round him. Sunset came, and stillThere rocked his form. The twilight glimmered gray,Then kindled to the moon, and still he rocked;Till stretched the pioneers upon the earthTheir wearied limbs for sleep. One, wakeful, leftHis plump moss couch, and strolling near the treeSaw in the pomp of moonlight that old formStill rocking, and, with deep awe at his heart,Hastened to join his comrades. Morn awoke,And the first light discovered to their eyesThat weird shape rocking still. The pioneers,With kindly hands, took food and at his sidePlaced it, and tried to rouse him, but in vain.He fixed his eye still dully down the hill,And when they took their hands from off his frameIt still renewed its rocking. Morning went,And noon and sunset. Often had they glancedFrom their hard toil as passed the hours awayUpon that rocking form, and wondered much;And when the sunset vanished they approachedTheir kindness to renew; but suddenly,As came they near, they saw the rocking cease,And the head drop upon his naked breast.Close came they, and the shorn head lifting up,In the glazed eye and fallen jaw beheldDeath's awful presence. With deep sorrowing heartsThey scooped a grave amidst the soft black mould,Laid the old Sachem in its narrow depth,Then heaped the sod above, and left him thereTo hallow the green hill-top with his name

VISIT TO GREENWOOD CEMETERY

BY MRS. LYDIA H. SIGOURNEYCity of marble! whose lone structures riseIn pomp of sculpture beautifully rare,On thy still brow a mournful shadow lies,For round thy haunts no busy feet repair;No curling smoke ascends from roof-tree fair,Nor cry of warning time the clock repeats —No voice of Sabbath-bell doth call to prayer —There are no children playing in thy streets,Nor sounds of echoing toil invade thy green retreats.Rich vines around thy graceful columns wind,Young buds unfold, the dewy skies to bless,Yet no fresh wreaths thine inmates wake to bind —Prune no wild spray, nor pleasant garden dress —From no luxuriant flower its fragrance press —The golden sunsets through enwoven treesTremble and flash, but they no praise express —They lift no casement to the balmy breeze,For fairest scenes of earth have lost their power to please.A ceaseless tide of emigration flowsOn through thy gates, for thou forbiddest noneIn thy close-curtained couches to repose,Or lease thy narrow tenements of stone,It matters not where first the sunbeam shoneUpon their cradle – 'neath the foliage freeWhere dark palmettos fleck the torrid zone,Or 'mid the icebergs of the Arctic sea —Thou dost no questions ask; all are at home with thee.One pledge alone they give, before their nameIs with thy peaceful denizens enrolled —The vow of silence thou from each dost claim,More strict and stern than Sparta's rule of old,Bidding no secrets of thy realm be told,Nor slightest whisper from its precincts spread —Sealing each whitened lip with signet cold,To stamp the oath of fealty, ere they treadThy never-echoing halls, oh city of the dead!'Mid scenes like thine, fond memories find their home,For sweet it was to me, in childhood's hours,'Neath every village church-yard's shade to roam,Where humblest mounds were decked with grassy flowers,And I have roamed where dear Mount Auburn towers,Where Laurel-Hill a cordial welcome gaveTo the rich tracery of its hallowed bowers,And where, by quiet Lehigh's crystal wave,The meek Moravian smooths his turf-embroidered grave:Where too, in Scotia, o'er the Bridge of Sighs,The Clyde's Necropolis uprears its head,Or that old abbey's sacred turrets riseWhose crypts contain proud Albion's noblest dead, —And where, by leafy canopy o'erspread,The lyre of Gray its pensive descant made —And where, beside the dancing city's tread,Famed Père La Chaise all gorgeously displayedIts meretricious robes, with chaplets overlaid.But thou, oh Greenwood! sweetest art to me,Enriched with tints of ocean, earth and sky,Solemn and sweet, to meditation free,Most like a mother, who with pleading eyeDost turn to Him who for the lost did die —And with thy many children at thy breast,Invoke His aid, with low and prayerful sigh,To bless the lowly pillow of their rest,And shield them, when the tomb no longer guards its guest.Calm, holy shades! we come to you for health, —Sickness is with the living – wo and pain —And dire diseases thronging on, by stealthFrom the worn heart its vital flood to drain,Or smite with sudden shaft the reeling brain,Till lingering on, with nameless ills distrest,We find the healer's vaunted armor vain,The undrawn spear-point in our bleeding breast, —Fain would we hide with you, and win the boon of rest.Sorrow is with the living! Youth doth fade —And Joy unclasp its tendril green, to die —The mocking tares our harvest-hopes invade,On wrecking blasts our garnered treasures fly,Our idols shame the soul's idolatry,Unkindness gnaws the bosom's secret core,Long-trusted friendship turns an altered eyeWhen, helpless, we its sympathies implore —Oh! take us to your arms, that we may weep no more.

THE HALL OF INDEPENDENCE

BY GEO. W. DEWEYThis is the sacred fane wherein assembledThe fearless champions on the side of Right;Men, at whose declaration empires trembled,Moved by the truth's immortal might.Here stood the patriot band – one union foldingThe Eastern, Northern, Southern sage and seer,Within that living bond which truth upholding,Proclaims each man his fellow's peer.Here rose the anthem, which all nations hearing,In loud response the echoes backward hurled;Reverberating still the ceaseless cheering,Our continent repeats it to the world.This is the hallowed spot where first, unfurling,Fair Freedom spread her blazing scroll of light;Here, from oppression's throne the tyrant hurling,She stood supreme in majesty and might!

THE LAST OF THE BOURBONS

A FRENCH PATRIOTIC SONG,WRITTEN BY ALEXANDRE PANTOLÉON,THE MUSIC COMPOSED AND DEDICATED TO THE NATIONAL GUARD OF FRANCE, BYJ. C. N. GIIOh thou spirit of lightningThat movest the FrenchFrom the hands of the tyrant,The sceptre to wrench.Thou no more wilt be cheatedBut keep under armsTill the sway thou upholdestIs free from alarms!Hurrah! hurrah! &c.IIJ'entends gronder la foudreDes braves FrançaisIls ont réduit en poudreLe siége des forfaits.Leurs éclairs épouvantentLes rois étrangersDont les glaives tourmententDes coeurs opprimés.Vive, vive, &c.IIITis too late for an InfantTo govern a landWhich a tyrant long practicedHas failed to command.For the men of fair GalliaAt home will be free,And extend independenceTo lands o'er the sea!Hurrah! hurrah! &c.IIIDésormais soyez sagesRestez tous armésProtégeant vos suffragesEt vos droits sacrés.Comblez l'espoir uniqueDe France! en avant!Vive la République!A bas les tyrans!Vive, vive, &c.

TO AN ISLE OF THE SEA. 15

BY MRS. J. W. MERCURBright Isle of the Ocean, and gem of the sea,Thou art stately and fair as an island can be,With thy clifts tow'ring upward, thy valleys outspread,And thy fir-crested hills, where the mountain deer tread,So crowned with rich verdure, so kissed by each rayOf the day-god that mounts on and upward his way,While thy wild rushing torrent, thy streams in their flow,Reflect the high archway of heaven below,Whose clear azure curtains, so cloudless and bright,Are here ever tinged with the red gold at night;Then with one burst of glory the sun sinks to rest,And the stars they shine out on the land that is blest.Thy foliage is fadeless, no chilling winds blow,No frost has embraced thee, no mantle of snow;Then hail to each sunbeam whose swift airy flightSpeeds on for thy valleys each hill-top and height!To clothe them in glory then die 'mid the roarOf the sea-waves which echo far up from the shore!They will rest for a day, as if bound by a spell,They will noiselessly fall where the beautiful dwell,They will beam on thy summits so lofty and lone,Where nature hath sway and her emerald throne,Then each pearly dew-drop descending at even,At morn they will bear to the portals of Heaven.Thou art rich in the spoils of the deep sounding sea,Thou art blest in thy clime, (of all climates for me,)Thou hast wealth on thy bosom, where orange-flowers blow,And thy groves with their golden-hued fruit bending low,In thy broad-leafed banana, thy fig and the lime,And grandeur and beauty, in palm-tree and vine.Thou hast wreaths on thy brow, and gay flowers ever bloom,Wafting upward and onward a deathless perfume,While round thee the sea-birds first circle, then rise,Then sink to the wave and then glance tow'rd the skies!While their bright plumage glows 'neath the sun's burning light,And their screams echo back in a song of delight.Thou hast hearts that are noble, and doubtless are brave,Thou hast altars to bow at, for worship and praise,Thou hast light when night's curtains around thee are drivenFrom the Cross which beams out in the far southern heaven,Yet one spot of darkness remains on thy breast,As a cloud in the depth of a calm sky at rest.Like a queen that is crowned, or a king on his throne,In grandeur thou sittest majestic and lone,And the power of thy beauty is breathed on each galeAs it sweeps o'er thy hills or descends to the vale;And homage is offered most boundless and free,Oh, Isle of the Ocean, in gladness to thee,So circled with waters, so dashed by the sprayOf the waves which leap upward then stop in their way.And lo! thou art loved by a child of the West,For the beauty and bloom of thy tropical breast,Yet dearer by far is that land where the skiesThough colder bends o'er it and bleak winds arise,Where the broad chart of Nature is boldly unfurled,And a light from the free beameth out o'er the world.Yes, dearer that land where the eagle on highSpreads his wings to the wind as he cleaves the cold sky,Where mountain, and torrent, and forest and vale,Are swept by the path of the storm-ridden gale,And each rock is an altar, each heart is a shrine,Where Freedom is worshiped in Liberty clime,And her banners float out on the breath of the gale,Bright symbols of glory which proudly we hail,And her bulwarks are reared where the heart of the braveRefused to be subject, and scorned to be slave.

SONNET: – TO ARABELLA,

BY MRS. E. C. KINNEYThere is a pathos in those azure eyes,Touching, and beautiful, and strange, fair child!When the fringed lids upturn, such radiance mildBeams out as in some brimming lakelet lies,Which undisturbed reflects the cloudless skies:No tokens glitter there of passion wild,That into ecstasy with time shall rise;But in the deep of those clear orbs are signs —Which Poesy's prophetic eye divines —Of woman's love, enduring, undefiled!If, like the lake at rest, through life we seeThy face reflect the heaven that in it shines,No idol to thy worshipers thou'lt be,For he will worship Heaven, who worships thee.

PROTESTATION

No, I will not forget thee. Hearts may breakAround us, as old lifeless trees are snaptBy the swift breath of whirlwinds as they wakeTheir path amid the forest. Lightning-wrapt,(For love is fire from Heaven,) we calmly stand —Heart pressed to answering heart – hand linked with hand.

REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS

Endymion. By Henry B. Hirst. Boston: Wm. D. Ticknor & Co. 1 vol. 12mo.

It was Goethe, we believe, who objected to some poet, that he put too much water in his ink. This objection would apply to the uncounted host of our amateur versifiers, and poets by the grace of verbiage. If an idea, or part of an idea, chances to stray into the brain of an American gentleman, he quickly apparels it in an old coat from his wardrobe of worn phrases, and rushes off in mad haste to the first magazine or newspaper, in order that the public may enjoy its delectable beauty at once. We have on hand enough MSS. of this kind, which we never intend to print, to freight the navy of Great Britain. But mediocrity and stupidity are not the only sinners in respect to this habit of writing carelessly. Hasty composition is an epidemic among many of our writers, whose powers, if disciplined by study, and directed to a definite object, would enable them to produce beautiful and permanent works. So general is the mental malady to which we have alluded, that it affects the judgments of criticism, and if a collection of lines, going under the name of a poem, contains fine passages, or felicitous flashes of thought, it commonly passes muster as satisfying the requirements of the critical code. Careless writers, therefore, are sustained by indulgent critics, and between both good literature is apt to be strangled in its birth.

Now it is due to Mr. Hirst to say that his poem belongs not to the class we have described. It is no transcript of chance conceptions, expressed in loose language, and recklessly huddled together, without coherence and without artistic form, but a true and consistent creation, with a central principle of vitality and a definite shape. He has, in short, produced an original poem on a classic subject, written in a style of classic grace, sweetness and simplicity, rejecting all superfluous ornament and sentimental prettinesses, and conveying one clear and strong impression throughout all its variety of incident, character and description. It is no conglomeration of parts, but an organic whole. This merit alone should give him a high rank among the leading poets of the country, for it evidences that he has a clear notion of what the word poem means.