Page:Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier (1895).djvu/169

Rh You shall be a warrior great, Wise as fox and strong as bear; Many scalps your belt shall wear, If with patient heart you wait Bravely till your task is done. Better you should starving die Than that boy and squaw should cry Shame upon your father’s son!”

When next morn the sun’s first rays Glistened on the hemlock sprays, Straight that lodge the old chief sought, And boiled samp and moose meat brought. “Rise and eat, my son!” he said. Lo, he found the poor boy dead! As with grief his grave they made, And his bow beside him laid, Pipe, and knife, and wampum-braid, On the lodge-top overhead, Preening smooth its breast of red And the brown coat that it wore, Sat a bird, unknown before. And as if with human tongue, “Mourn me not,” it said, or sung; “I, a bird, am still your son, Happier than if hunter fleet, Or a brave, before your feet Laying scalps in battle won. Friend of man, my song shall cheer Lodge and corn-land; hovering near, To each wigwam I shall bring Tidings of the coming spring; Every child my voice shall know In the moon of melting snow, When the maple’s red bud swells, And the wind-flower lifts its bells. As their fond companion Men shall henceforth own your son, And my song shall testify That of human kin am I.”

Thus the Indian legend saith How, at first, the robin came With a sweeter life than death, Bird for boy, and still the same. If my young friends doubt that this Is the robin’s genesis, Not in vain is still the myth If a truth be found therewith: Unto gentleness belong Gifts unknown to pride and wrong; Happier far than hate is praise,— He who sings than he who slays.

the threshold of his pleasant home
 * Set in green clearings passed the exiled Friend,
 * In simple trust, misdoubting not the end.

“Dear heart of mine!” he said, “the time has come To trust the Lord for shelter.” One long gaze
 * The goodwife turned on each familiar thing,—
 * The lowing kine, the orchard blossoming,

The open door that showed the hearth-fire’s blaze,— And calmly answered, “Yes, He will provide.”
 * Silent and slow they crossed the homestead’s bound,
 * Lingering the longest by their child’s grave-mound.

“Move on, or stay and hang!” the sheriff cried. They left behind them more than home or land, And set sad faces to an alien strand.

Safer with winds and waves than human wrath,
 * With ravening wolves than those whose zeal for God
 * Was cruelty to man, the exiles trod

Drear leagues of forest without guide or path, Or launching frail boats on the uncharted sea,
 * Round storm-vexed capes, whose teeth of granite ground
 * The waves to foam, their perilous way they wound,

Enduring all things so their souls were free. Oh, true confessors, shaming them who did
 * Anew the wrong their Pilgrim Fathers bore!