Page:Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier (1895).djvu/59

Rh In the smoke his scalp-locks swung
 * Grimly to and fro.

Nightly down the river going, Swifter was the hunter’s rowing, When he saw that lodge-fire glowing
 * O’er the waters still and red;

And the squaw’s dark eye burned brighter, And she drew her blanket tighter, As, with quicker step and lighter,
 * From that door she fled.

For that chief had magic skill, And a Panisee’s dark will, Over powers of good and ill,
 * Powers which bless and powers which ban;

Wizard lord of Pennacook, Chiefs upon their war-path shook, When they met the steady look
 * Of that wise dark man.

Tales of him the gray squaw told, When the winter night-wind cold Pierced her blanket’s thickest fold,
 * And her fire burned low and small,

Till the very child abed, Drew its bear-skin over head, Shrinking from the pale lights shed
 * On the trembling wall.

All the subtle spirits hiding Under earth or wave, abiding In the caverned rock, or riding
 * Misty clouds or morning breeze;

Every dark intelligence, Secret soul, and influence Of all things which outward sense
 * Feels, or hears, or sees,—

These the wizard’s skill confessed, At his bidding banned or blessed, Stormful woke or lulled to rest
 * Wind and cloud, and fire and flood;

Burned for him the drifted snow, Bade through ice fresh lilies blow, And the leaves of summer grow
 * Over winter’s wood!

Not untrue that tale of old! Now, as then, the wise and bold All the powers of Nature hold
 * Subject to their kingly will;

From the wondering crowds ashore, Treading life’s wild waters o’er, As upon a marble floor,
 * Moves the strong man still.

Still, to such, life’s elements With their sterner laws dispense, And the chain of consequence
 * Broken in their pathway lies;

Time and change their vassals making, Flowers from icy pillows waking, Tresses of the sunrise shaking
 * Over midnight skies.

Still, to th’ earnest soul, the sun Rests on towered Gibeon, And the moon of Ajalon
 * Lights the battle-grounds of life;

To his aid the strong reverses Hidden powers and giant forces, And the high stars, in their courses,
 * Mingle in his strife!


 * Of women thronging round the bed,
 * The tinkling charm of ring and shell,
 * The Powah whispering o’er the dead!
 * All these the Sachem’s home had known,
 * When, on her journey long and wild
 * To the dim World of Souls, alone,

In her young beauty passed the mother of his child.


 * Three bow-shots from the Sachem’s dwelling
 * They laid her in the walnut shade,
 * Where a green hillock gently swelling
 * Her fitting mound of burial made.
 * There trailed the vine in summer hours,
 * The tree-perched squirrel dropped his shell,—
 * On velvet moss and pale-hued flowers,

Woven with leaf and spray, the softened sunshine fell!


 * The Indian’s heart is hard and cold,
 * It closes darkly o’er its care,
 * And formed in Nature’s sternest mould,
 * Is slow to feel, and strong to bear.
 * The war-paint on the Sachem’s face,
 * Unwet with tears, shone fierce and red,
 * And still, in battle or in chase,

Dry leaf and snow-rime crisped beneath his foremost tread.