Page:Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier (1895).djvu/41

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With corn-leaves waving freshly green The thick and blackened stumps between. Behind, unbroken, deep and dread, The wild, untravelled forest spread, Back to those mountains, white and cold, Of which the Indian trapper told, Upon whose summits never yet Was mortal foot in safety set.

Quiet and calm without a fear, Of danger darkly lurking near, The weary laborer left his plough, The milkmaid carolled by her cow; From cottage door and household hearth Rose songs of praise, or tones of mirth. At length the murmur died away, And silence on that village lay. —So slept Pompeii, tower and hall, Ere the quick earthquake swallowed all, Undreaming of the fiery fate Which made its dwellings desolate!

Hours passed away. By moonlight sped The Merrimac along his bed. Bathed in the pallid lustre, stood Dark cottage-wall and rock and wood, Silent, beneath that tranquil beam, As the hushed grouping of a dream. Yet on the still air crept a sound, No bark of fox, nor rabbit’s bound, Nor stir of wings, nor waters flowing, Nor leaves in midnight breezes blowing.

Was that the tread of many feet, Which downward from the hillside beat? What forms were those which darkly stood Just on the margin of the wood? Charred tree-stumps in the moonlight dim, Or paling rude, or leafless limb? No,—through the trees fierce eyeballs glowed, Dark human forms in moonshine showed, Wild from their native wilderness, With painted limbs and battle-dress!

A yell the dead might wake to hear Swelled on the night air, far and clear; Then smote the Indian tomahawk On crashing door and shattering lock; Then rang the rifle-shot, and then The shrill death-scream of stricken men,— Sank the red axe in woman’s brain, And childhood’s cry arose in vain. Bursting through roof and window came, Red, fast, and fierce, the kindled flame, And blended fire and moonlight glared On still dead men and scalp-knives bared.

The morning sun looked brightly through The river willows, wet with dew. No sound of combat filled the air, No shout was heard, nor gunshot there; Yet still the thick and sullen smoke From smouldering ruins slowly broke; And on the greensward many a stain, And, here and there, the mangled slain, Told how that midnight bolt had sped Pentucket, on thy fated head!

Even now the villager can tell Where Rolfe beside his hearthstone fell, Still show the door of wasting oak, Through which the fatal death-shot broke, And point the curious stranger where De Rouville’s corse lay grim and bare; Whose hideous head, in death still feared, Bore not a trace of hair or beard; And still, within the churchyard ground, Heaves darkly up the ancient mound, Whose grass-grovn surface overlies The victims of that sacrifice.

from the cold and silent Past! A relic to the present cast, Left on the ever-changing strand Of shifting and unstable sand, Which wastes beneath the steady chime And beating of the waves of Time! Who from its bed of primal rock First wrenched thy dark, unshapely block? Whose hand, of curious skill untaught, Thy rude and savage outline wrought?

The waters of my native stream Are glancing in the sun’s warm beam; From sail-urged keel and flashing oar The circles widen to its shore;