Page:The Poets and Poetry of the West.djvu/669

 1850-60.] GRANVILLE M. BALLARD. 653 BLOOD FOR BLOOD. A BALLAD OF GXARLWOOD TREE.* Red was the sun in Autumn, And the Autumn's leaves were red ; And the green old earth was dappled brown, And the sky was blue overhead. The alder bush was leafless, The sweet fern's leaves were seared. And smoky, and dull, and old and gi'ay, The hills far off appeared. From caverns came the west wind. Where sleep her fairy clan. And over the chords of a viewless harp The west wind's fingers ran. Nimbly the west wind's fingers Over the old harp swept. And a thousand monarchs of the wood In russet and purple wept. It was a mournful music Such as the Autumn brings, For it was the weird October winds That swept the wizard stiings. In such a time of Autumn, In years now long gone by, In a dense old forest of the West Where spires now pierce the sky. With blankets wound about them. And with bows and arrows three. tiful capital of Indiana, stands Gnarlwood Tree, with which the incidents of this ballad are associated. It is a native elm, and has been adjudged by travelers to stand without a rival, in all the cities of the Union, in point of beauty. The interest that clusters around it, on account of the tragedies supposed to have been enacted beneath its branches, should book it upon the page of romance. This tree has attained an altitude of about ninety feet, and the greatest diameter of its top is almost one hundred feet. Its trunk measures one hundred and eighteen inches in circumfei-ence, at a point equally distant from the ground and the lowest limbs. Its massive crown out- lines a beautiful curve, and its roots extend over an area of nearly nine hundred square yards. Big Ears, Elk, and Eagle Eye sat Under old Gnarlwood Tree. Sad and sullen they sat. Dreamers at noon of day ; And they looked intently upon the earth, But neither a word did say. From noon till night they sat Under old Gnarlwood Tree, When Big Ears, chief of the Dela- wares. Rose up, and thus spoke he : " Brothers, this day we've passed In penance for the dead; — Blood for blood was the olden law That turned our fathers red. " Swift as the fiillow-deer I vow to speed away. Nor heed the elk nor the buffalo Till I the pale face slay." He knit his brow in wrath, He scowled on earth and sky. And the hot revenge that warmed his blood. Shot fire from his eye. Then Elk, an Indian brave, Grim as the twilight oak, Arose as silently as the moon And these words fiercely spoke : " Black is the evil bird — Black are the clouds of night — Black was the young Pokomah's hair. But contrast makes them white, — " White as the wild swan's breast Whose feathers plume this dart, White as the winter's new-born snow. Beside the pale man's heart. " Over the dreary moor. Over the steep hill-side. And over the prairie and through the wood. And over the rivers wide,
 * Prominent among the objects of interest in the beau-