a clear, firm voice demands:
'tis I, the Sagamore !"
Quick, at the summons, hasty hands
Unclose the bolted door;
And on the outlaw's daughter shine
The flashes of the kindled pine.
Tall and erect the maiden stands,
Like some young priestess of the wood,
The free born child of Solitude,
And bearing still the wild and rude,
Yet noble trace of Nature's hands.
Her dark brown cheek has caught its stain
More from the sunshine than the rain;
Yet, where her long fair hair is parting,
A pure white brow into light is starting;
And, where the folds of her blanket sever,
Are a neck and bosom as white as ever
The foam-wreaths rise on the leaping river.
But, in the convulsive quiver and grip
Of the muscles around her bloodless lip,
There is something painful and sad to see;
And her eye has a glance more sternly wild
Than even that of a forest child.
In its fearless and untamed freedom should be.
Yet, seldom in hall or court are seen
So queenly a form and so noble a mien,
As freely and smiling she welcomes them there!
Her outlawed sire and Mogg Megone:
"Pray, father, how does thy hunting fare?
And, Sachem, say does Scamman wear,
In spite of thy promise, a scalp of his own?"
Hurried and light is the maiden's tone;
But a fearful meaning lurks within
Her glance, as it questions the eye of Megone-
An awful meaning of guilt and sin!-
The Indian hath opened his blanket, and there
Hangs a human scalp by its long damp hair!
With hand upraised, with quick-drawn breath,
She meets that ghastly sign of death.
In one long, glassy, spectral stare
The enlarging eye is fastened there,
As if that mesh of pale brown hair
Had power to change at sight alone,
Even as the fearful locks which wound
Medusa's fatal forehead round,
The gazer into stone.
With such a look Herodias read
The features of the bleeding head,
So looked the mad Moor on his dead,
Or the young Cenci as she stood,
O'er-dabbled with a father's blood!
feeling melts that frozen glance,
It moves that marble countenance,
As if at once within her strove
Pity with shame, and hate with love.
The Past recalls its joy and pain,
Old memories rise before her brain-
The lips which love's embraces met,
The hand her tears of parting wet,
The voice whose pleading tones beguiled
The pleased ear of the forest-child, —
And tears she may no more repress
Reveal her lingering tenderness.
Oh! woman wronged, can cherish hate
More deep and dark than manhood may;
But, when the mockery of Fate
Hath left Revenge its chosen way,
And the fell curse, which years have nursed,
Full on the spoiler's head hath burst-
When all her wrong, and shame, and pain,
Burns fiercely on his heart and brain.
Still lingers something of the spell
Which bound her to the traitor's bosom
Still, midst the vengeful fires of hell,
Some flowers of old affection blossom.
John Bonython's eye-brows together are drawn
With a fierce expression of wrath and scorn-
He hoarsely whispers, "Ruth, beware!
Is this the time to be playing the fool-
Crying over a paltry lock of hair,
Like a love-sick girl at school?
Curse on it! an Indian can see and hear:
Away - and prepare our evening cheer!"
How keenly the Indian is watching now
Her tearful eye and her varying brow
With a serpent eye, which kindles and burns,
Like a fiery star in the upper air:
On sire and daughter his fierce glance turns:—
"Has my old white father a scalp to spare ?
For his young one loves the pale brown hair
Of the scalp of an English dog, far more
Than Mogg Megone, or his wigwam floor:
Go Mogg is wise he will keep his land
And Sagamore John, when he feels with his hand,
Shall miss his scalp where it grew before."
The moment's gust of grief is gone
The lip is clenched the tears are still
God pity thee, Ruth Bonython !
With what a strength of will
Are nature's feelings in thy breast,
As with an iron hand repressed!
And how, upon that nameless woe,
Quick as the pulse can come and go,
While shakes the unsteadfast knee, and yet
Has thy dark spirit power to stay
The heart's wild current on its way?
And whence that baleful strength of guile,
Which over that still working brow
And tearful eye and cheek, can throw
The mockery of a smile?
Warned by her father's blackening frown,
With one strong effort crushing down
Grief, hate, remorse, she meets again
The savage murderer's sullen gaze,
And scarcely look or tone betrays
How the heart strives beneath its chain.
"Is the Sachem angry
- angry with Ruth,
Because she cries with an ache in her tooth,
Which would make a Sagamore jump and cry,
And look about with a woman's eye?
No Ruth will sit in the Sachem's door,
And braid the mats for his wigwam floor,
And broil his fish and tender fawn,
And weave his wampum, and grind his corn,
For she loves the brave and the wise, and none
Are braver and wiser than Mogg Megone!"
The Indian's brow is clear once more :
With grave, calm face, and half-shut eye,
He sits upon the wigwam floor,
And watches Ruth go by,
Intent upon her household care;
And ever and anon, the while,
Or on the maiden, or her fare,
Which smokes in grateful promise there,
Bestows his quiet smile.
Ah, Mogg Megone!- what dreams are thine,
But those which love's own fancies dress
The sum of Indian happiness! —
A wigwam, where the warm sunshine
Looks in among the groves of pine-
A stream, where, round thy light canoe,
The trout and salmon dart in view,
And the fair girl, before thee now,
Spreading thy mat with hand of snow,
Or plying, in the dews of morn,
"The tooth-ache," says Roger Williams, in his observations upon the language and customs of the New England tribes, "is the only paine which will force their stoute hearts to cry." He afterwards remarks that even the Indian women never cry as he has heard "some of their men in this paine."
Her hoe amidst thy patch of corn,
Or offering up, at eve, to thee,
Thy birchen dish of hominy!
From the rude board of Bonython,
Venison and suckatash have gone
For long these dwellers of the wood
Have felt the gnawing want of food.
But untasted of Ruth is the frugal cheer-
With head averted, yet ready ear,
She stands by the side of her austere sire,
Feeding, at times, the unequal fire,
With the yellow knots of the pitch-pine tree,
Whose flaring light, as they kindle, falls
On the cottage-roof, and its black log walls,
And over its inmates three.
From Sagamore Bonython's hunting flask
The fire-water burns at the lip of Megone:
"Will the Sachem hear what his father shall ask?
Will he make his mark, that it may be known,
On the speaking-leaf, that he gives the land,
From the Sachem's own, to his father's hand?"
The fire-water shines in the Indian's eyes,
As he rises, the white man's bidding to do:
"Wuttamuttata - weekan! Mogg is wise
For the water he drinks is strong and new,
Mogg's heart is great! - will he shut his hand,
When his father asks for a little land?
With unsteady fingers, the Indian has drawn
On the parchment the shape of a hunter's bow: "Boon water - boon water
Sagamore John ! Wuttamuttata. weekan! our hearts will grow!"
He reels on his bear-skin to and fro
*Wuttamuttata, "Let us drink." Weekan, "It is sweet." Vide Roger Williams's Key to the Indian Language, "in that parte of America called New England." London, 1643, p. 35.
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