Empty and broken, circled the canoe In the vexed pool below but, where was Weetamoo? SONG OF INDIAN WOMEN. The Dark eye has left us, The Spring-bird has flown, On the pathway of spirits She wanders alone. The song of the wood-dove has died on our shore Oh, dark water Spirit! We cast on thy wave These furs which may never Hang over her grave; Bear down to the lost one the robes that she wore ; Of the strange land she walks in No Powah has told : It may burn with the sunshine, Or freeze with the cold. Let us give to our lost one the robes that she wore, The path she is treading Shall soon be our own; Unseen and alone! In vain shall we call on the souls gone before - They hear us no more! Oh mighty Sowanna! † Thy gateways unfold, From thy wigwam of sunset Lift curtains of gold! Take home the poor Spirit whose journey is o'er Mat wonck kunna-monee ! — We see her no more! "Mat wonck kunna-monee." We shall see thee or her no more.- Vide Roger Williams's "Key to the Indian Language." "The Great South West God.". See Roger Williams's "Observations,” &c. So sang Now low, now harsh, with sob-like pause and swell MOGG MEGONE. PART I. [THE story of MOGG MEGONE has been considered by the author only as a frame-work for sketches of the scenery of New England, and of its early inhabitants. In portraying the Indian character, he has followed, as closely as his story would admit, the rough but natural delineations of Church, Mayhew, Charlevoix, and Roger Williams; and in so doing he has necessarily discarded much of the romance which poets and novelists have thrown around the ill-fated red man.] - ED. WHO stands on that cliff, like a figure of stone, While beneath him the Saco its work is doing, And slow through the rock its pathway hewing! *MOGG MEGONE, or Hegone, was a leader among the Saco Indians, in the bloody war of 1677. He attacked and captured the garrison at Black Point, October 12th of that year; and cut off, at the same time, a party of Englishmen near Saco river. From a deed signed by this Indian in 1664, and from other circumstances, it seems that, previous to the war, he had mingled much with the colonists. On this account, he was probably selected by the principal sachems as their agent, in the treaty signed in November, 1676. But Mogg Megone never trembled yet He is watchful: each form, in the moonlight dim, He listens; each sound from afar is caught, The faintest shiver of leaf and limb: But he sees not the waters, which foam and fret, The moonlight, through the open bough Of the gnarl'd beech, whose naked root When breast to breast and knee to knee, Gleams, quick and keen, the scalping-knife. Megone hath his knife and hatchet and gun, And Modocawando's wives had strung The brass and the beads, which tinkle and shine *Baron de St. Castine came to Canada in 1644. Leaving his civilized companions, he plunged into the great wilderness, and settled among the Penobscot Indians, near the mouth of their noble river. He here took for his wives the daughters of the great Modocawando- the most powerful sachem of the His castle was plundered by Governor Andros, during his reckless administration; and the enraged Baron is supposed to have excited the Indians into open hostility to the English. cast. |