As far about as my feet can stray
In the half of a gentle summer's day,

From the leaping brook* to the Saco river
And the fair-haired girl, thou hast sought of me,
Shall sit in the Sachem's wigwam, and be
The wife of Mogg Megone forever."

There's a sudden light in the Indian's glance,
A moment's trace of powerful feeling -
Of love or triumph, or both perchance,
Over his proud, calm features stealing.
"The words of my father are very good;

He shall have the land, and water, and wood;
And he who harms the Sagamore John,

Shall feel the knife of Mogg Megone;

But the fawn of the Yengees shall sleep on my breast,
And the bird of the clearing shall sing in my nest."

"But father! and the Indian's hand

Falls gently on the white man's arm,
And with a smile as shrewdly bland
As the deep voice is slow and calm
"Where is my father's singing-bird-
The sunny eye, and sunset hair?
I know I have my father's word,

And that his word is good and fair;
But, will my father tell me where
Megone shall go and look for his bride?
For he sees her not by her father's side."

The dark, stern eye of Bonython

Flashes over the features of Mogg Megone,
In one of those glances which search within ;
But the stolid calm of the Indian alone

Remains where the trace of emotion has been.
"Does the Sachem doubt? Let him go with me,
And the eyes of the Sachem his bride shall see."

* Foxwell's Brook flows from a marsh or bog, called the "Heath,” in Saco, containing thirteen hundred acres. On this brook, and surrounded by wild and romantic scenery, is a beautiful waterfall, of more than sixty feet.

Cautious and slow, with pauses oft,
And watchful eyes and whispers soft,
The twain are stealing through the wood,
Leaving the downward-rushing flood,
Whose deep and solemn roar behind,
Grows fainter on the evening wind.

Hark! is that the angry howl
Of the wolf, the hills among?
Or the hooting of the owl,

On his leafy cradle swung?
Quickly glancing, to and fro,
Listening to each sound they go:
Round the columns of the pine,

;

Indistinct, in shadow, seeming
Like some old and pillared shrine
With the soft and white moonshine,
Round the foliage-tracery shed
Of each column's branching head,

For its lamps of worship gleaming!

And the sounds awakened there,

In the pine leaves fine and small,
Soft and sweetly musical,

By the fingers of the air,
For the anthem's dying fall

Lingering round some temple's wall!
Niche and cornice round and round
Wailing like the ghost of sound!
Is not Nature's worship thus
Ceaseless ever, going on?

Hath it not a voice for us

In the thunder, or the tone
Of the leaf-harp faint and small,
Speaking to the unsealed ear

Words of blended love and fear,

Of the mighty Soul of all?

Nought had the twain of thoughts like these
As they wound along through the crowded trees,

Where never had rung the axeman's stroke
On the gnarled trunk of the rough-barked oak;
Climbing the dead tree's mossy log,

Breaking the mesh of the bramble fine,
Turning aside the wild grape vine,
And lightly crossing the quaking bog
Whose surface shakes at the leap of the frog,
And out of whose pools the ghostly fog
Creeps into the chill moonshine!

Yet, even that Indian's ear had heard
The preaching of the Holy Word:
Sanchekantacket's isle of sand
Was once his father's hunting land,
Where zealous Hiacoomes * stood
The wild apostle of the wood,

Shook from his soul the fear of harm,
And trampled on the Powwaw's charm;
Until the wizard's curses hung
Suspended on his palsying tongue,
And the fierce warrior, grim and tall,
Trembled before the forest Paul!

A cottage hidden in the wood

Red through its seams a light is glowing,
On rock and bough and tree-trunk rude,

A narrow lustre throwing.

* Hiacoomes, the first Christian preacher on Martha's Vineyard; for a biography of whom the reader is referred to Increase Mayhew's account of the Praying Indians, 1726. The following is related of him: "One Lord's day, after meeting, where Hiacoomes had been preaching, there came in a Powwaw very angry, and said, 'I know all the meeting Indians are liars. You say you do n't care for the Powwaws;'-then, calling two or three of them by name, he railed at them, and told them they were deceived, for the Powwaws could kill all the meeting Indians, if they set about it. But Hiacoomes told him that he would be in the midst of all the Powwaws in the island, and they should do the utmost they could against him; and when they should do their worst by their witchcraft to kill him, he would without fear set himself against them, by remembering Jehovah. He told them also he did put all the Powwaws under his heel. Such was the faith of this good man. Nor were these Powwaws ever able to do these Christian Indians any hurt, though others were frequently hurt and killed by them."― Mayhew's Book, pp. 6, 7, c. 1.

"Who's there?” a clear, firm voice demands : "Hold, Ruth '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!

Look ! 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.