- Lli;UAUi OF COXGRi-iS. ;;: 
 
 7. I 
 :fTXITED STATES OF Ml\a(^kM 
 
X 
 
KEEUKA 
 
 AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 BY 
 
 COATES-KINNEY. 
 
 PRIVATE EDITION. 
 PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR 
 
 1855. 
 
 C^-^'M^'Z. 
 

 Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1854, by 
 
 COATES-KINNEY, 
 
 In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the District 
 of Ohio. 
 
TO 
 
 CHAKLES SHERMAN ABBOTT, 
 
 OF CINCINNATI, 
 
 MY BEST FHIEND, 
 
 AS A HDMBLE TRIBUTE TO UNOSTENTATIOUS TALENT, GENEROUS SENTIMENT, 
 AND INSTINOTIVE INTEGRITY, 
 
 f p look 
 
 IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED. 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 Keeuka, 9 
 
 Rain on the Roof, 87 
 
 The Heroes of the Pen, 90 
 
 Threnody for Flora, 94 
 
 On ! Right On ! 96 
 
 The Eden of Wishes, 98 
 
 Caroline, 101 
 
 Mabelle, 103 
 
 Immortal Glory, , 105 
 
 Emma Stuart, 108 
 
 To My Wife, Ill 
 
 The End of the Rainbow, 113 
 
 Misgiving, 116 
 
 Eyes, 119 
 
 Minnehaha, 121 
 
 A Song for the Crats, 124 
 
 Legend of the Alabama, 127 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 Wrestling, 132 
 
 Eeminiscences, 134 
 
 The Land Redeemed, 137 
 
 Little Fanny, 141 
 
 To Eliza Logan, 145 
 
 The Spirit's Response, .^ 147 
 
 Love, 150 
 
 Scottish Song, 153 
 
 To Otway Curry, 155 
 
 On an Indian's Grave, 157 
 
KEEUKA: AN AMERICAN LEGEM). 
 
lEEUKA: 
 
 AN AMERICAN LEGEND 
 
 CANTO I. 
 I. 
 
 Were mine the language Sappho wont to sing, 
 Whose tones were brooks of honey in the soul ; 
 Could I the fall Hellenic thunders fling 
 Down from sublime thought's empyrean pole, 
 With Argiye auditors to hear them roll, 
 Then mote I not in vain invoke the Muse, 
 Whose mythic spells of inspiration stole 
 Upon old bards, and filled their hearts, as dews 
 Mysterious fill the buds, with glory's folded hues. 
 
10 KEEUKA. 
 
 II 
 
 But most the power I lack ; for Saxon speech, 
 Tliough rough as ragged ocean, yet is grand 
 As the great sound of billows on the beach. 
 That winds in wrath scourge beUowing to land. 
 Yet, though the Muse ne beck me with her hand 
 Up where Parnassian rills of passion flow, 
 "Where fancy's rainbows biilliantly are spanned 
 Above thought's purest, most ethereal snow, 
 ISTathless I meekly sing this museless lay below. 
 
 III. 
 
 I^ow welcome. Lake Keeuka ! hail to thee, 
 Thou hill-hugged bosom of blue waters, hail ! 
 Dark clouds of sorrow have flocked over me, 
 And snowed upon this young haii-, since my sail, 
 Coquetting with the sighful summer gale. 
 Wont to dance daintily thy waves along ; 
 Yet ne'er thy scenes, recalled in fancy, fail 
 With pleasant memories my soul to throng ; 
 And haply such may grace this legendary song. 
 
K E E U K A . 11 
 
 IV. 
 
 Thou crystal chamber of the rambling brooks ! — 
 Where, after play, they prattle home to sleep — 
 How oft I long for thy delightsome nooks, 
 Whereround the bosky banks rise high and steep, 
 And calm inclosed the basined waters keep ! 
 There my canoe would float in summer time, 
 And I dream dreams that in my bosom deep 
 Are germs of thought now in an other clime ; 
 And sometime one of these thus blossomed into rhyme : 
 
 1. 
 
 Twin of the summer sky 
 
 Azum above. 
 Soft as a maiden's eye 
 
 Swimming in love. 
 Is the Keeuka. 
 
 2. 
 
 Lato its bosom blue 
 
 Early birds fly, 
 Oft as they wake anew, 
 
 Taking for sky 
 Crj^stal Keeuka. 
 
12 
 
 KEEUKA. 
 
 3. 
 
 Morning's red pinions fly 
 
 Over its breast, 
 And the night's bashful e 
 
 Looks from the west 
 Into Keeuka. 
 
 4. 
 
 Clumps of the olden woods 
 
 Yet o'er its brink 
 Stoop down their leafy hoods 
 
 As if to think, 
 By the Keeiika, 
 
 Of the brave werowance 
 
 Wont to roam here, 
 Or the sqnaw maiden's glance 
 Into the clear 
 Breast of Keeuka. 
 
KEEUKA. 
 
 e. 
 
 13 
 
 Then, when the moonlight shone 
 
 Down on the blue, 
 Here and there glode a lone 
 
 Indian canoe 
 O'er the Keeuka. 
 
 Here sat the savage maid 
 
 In the dark cove. 
 Where the low ripples played, 
 
 Watcliing her love 
 On the Keeuka. 
 
 8 
 
 Tlien all was forest here, 
 And, like the moose, 
 
 Tameless and free of fear. 
 Played the pappoose 
 Kound the Keeuka. 
 
14 KEEUKA 
 
 9. 
 
 But the red forest clans 
 
 Fled fatherland, 
 Where now the palefaced man's 
 
 Yillages stand 
 By the Keeuka. 
 
 10. 
 
 Yet the blue waters look 
 Upward as bright 
 
 As ere the Indian took 
 Westward his flight 
 From the Keeuka. 
 
 11. 
 
 So, through all ages and 
 
 Changes of time, 
 Tnith shall a mirror stand. 
 
 Calm and sublime. 
 Like the Keeuka. 
 
K E E U K A . 15 
 
 The clan that whilome dwelt upon this shore, 
 And rowed the lake, and roamed the forest gi-and, 
 On earth wield bow and tomahawk no more ; 
 For they have all gone to the Spirit Land. 
 In sooth, they were a fierce and faithful band, 
 Kind unto friend and cruel unto foe ; 
 With one, the peacepipe passed from hand to hand, 
 With other meeting, fatal blood must flow : 
 They loved, they hated, and they knew no morals moe. 
 
 YI. 
 
 Poor, simple savages ! they ne'er had learned 
 Mock virtue's many words and ways of guile ; 
 K sense of wrong within their bosom burned. 
 It shone outside not in a glozing smile, 
 But lit the eye in nature's noble style ; 
 Nor brooked they insult's buffet on the cheek. 
 To tm-n the other Christianly the while ; 
 But whoso outrage dared to do or speak. 
 Prepared for peril : arm ! and on him vengeance wreak 
 
16 KEEUKA. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Thus they dispensed with that infernal scheme 
 Of wordy mysteries in musty tomes, 
 Which mimics justice with the little gleam 
 Of right and reason in the brain of momes 
 That practice twaddle in forensic domes, 
 Where Impudence gulps nonsense to the lees. 
 And thence in gaseous fermentation foams : 
 ISTe need of such a lore of Hes had these 
 Who dwelt here by the troutbrooks underneath the trees. 
 
 YIII. 
 
 !N'or needed that stupendous fiction they. 
 Whereby an image stamped upon an ore, 
 Becomes a god, to which men homage pay 
 Devoutly, and which ardently adore ; 
 For game thi-ough wood, and in the water store 
 Of fish, were equal to their vital want ; 
 (They wanted life, and wanted little more ;) 
 Among them nor did gilded Greatness flaunt. 
 Nor pining Poverty their happy homeplace haunt. 
 
KEEUKA 
 
 IX. 
 
 17 
 
 In very deed, their language did ignore 
 Even the words of wealth ; for Commerce yet 
 Here on the water and along the shore 
 Her many-mottoed seal had never set, 
 With cant of loss and profit, tare and tret : 
 Ne hunks was hero in the savage life, 
 ISfor smockfaced Foppery mote honor get ; 
 But eloquence, and prowess in the strife 
 With tomahawk and warclub, bow and battleknife. 
 
 X. 
 
 So they, ere mother IN'ature had grown old, 
 Her dearest children, at her wholesome breast 
 Drank life, and felt her fond arms round them fold, 
 And her sweet bosom to then- hearts be pressed ; 
 Kor nursing Ai't had ever them caressed, 
 Or dandled yet on her adoptive knee. 
 Like as her fosterchildren, cursed and blessed 
 With knowledge, who had come across the sea 
 To damn the fiiture of the ignorantly free. 
 
Ig KEEUKA. 
 
 XI. 
 
 Yet what the nation of the copper clan 
 That peopled here the lakeside long ago, 
 Or how afar theii* russet race began, 
 Or whence their dusky blood mote have its flow, 
 In good sooth, me it matters not to know ; 
 Enough, that truer Mingoes^ never drew 
 An arrow to the head, or twanged a bow, 
 Or battleax in warfare featly tlu-ew. 
 Than the Keeukas, dwellers by these waters blue. 
 
 xn. 
 
 And from the mighty Mohawk sagamore,'' 
 Whene'er, as now, his fleety runners ran 
 Thi-ough the Five Nations, making every shore 
 Of all these linked lakes clamor with the ban 
 Of battle, yelliug it from clan to clan — 
 Hise! Mingoes, rise! your Agresquee" invoke, 
 And follow where the Mohawk leads the van! — 
 As the first warwhoop into echoes broke, 
 The yare Keeukas rallied at their council oak. 
 
KEEUKA. 19 
 
 XIII. 
 
 It was a grandly overtopping tree, 
 That fuU five hundred years had seen, or moe, 
 Since in its lithesome youth it danced the glee 
 Which piping winds wont through its branches blow ; 
 But now it bowed its head sublimely slow. 
 Still youthftd, though majestically old ; 
 For it alate had shaken off the snow. 
 Old age's token, and anew did hold 
 Its green magnificence up in the morning's gold. 
 
 XIY. 
 
 Upon the stilly smoothness of the lake 
 The glaring gloiy of the rising sun 
 Lay molten ; meanwhile musically brake 
 The woodbirds into matins, one with one 
 Altern or choral, yet discordant none. 
 Awakened from the sweet sleep they had slept, 
 As if in sorrow that their dreams were done, 
 The young leaves tearfully the dewdrops wept, 
 'And to the breeze that roused them, low complaining kept. 
 
20 K E E U K A 
 
 XY. 
 
 Here, after clamor, were the lakers met 
 At the fresh pi-ime in silence. All had died 
 The echoes ; and with dewy weeping wet. 
 The leaves, whose plaints the brisk brooks did deride. 
 Brightening gan whisper, as they now espied 
 The gathered council. In the center rose 
 The chief, Moneeka : he from side to side 
 Prelusive eyeglance of mute meaning throws. 
 And then in lava speech his soul volcanic flows. 
 
 XYI. 
 
 "Our kinsmen cry to us from out their blood ! 
 Their ghosts went scalpless to the Spuit Land ! 
 How many seasons more shall fall and bud. 
 Ere we avenge them with the bloody hand ? 
 The Mohawk leads the Nations Triple-Clanned ;* 
 Him follow to the death in glory's trail ! 
 Ere three more glooms have wrapped, or mornings fanned 
 The forest, smite the vile Catawbas pale ! 
 For each om' kindred slain, make ten their widows wail ! 
 
KEEUKA. 21 
 
 XYII. 
 
 Last midnight I stood yonder on the cliff, 
 While the Great Spirit's many starry eyes 
 Were gazing on me, and with every whiff 
 Of winds among the pinetops, there did rise 
 The shriek of some sonl unavenged. Disguise 
 Yom- faces with the paint ! Anoint your hak ! 
 Fill np yom- quivers ! Make the woods and sides 
 King with your warsong ! Go ye and prepare 
 The feast of blood for brothers shrieking in the ah* !" 
 
 XYIII. 
 
 So ended he : forthwith five hundred throats 
 Him hoarsely grunted guttural applause f 
 Then, clamoring in wi^ath's barbarian notes, 
 Demanded lead them whereso vengeance was. 
 In crouching ambush or in battle's jaws. 
 Again came silence, deep as slumbers bring 
 To night's mid darkness, but of briefer pause ; 
 For fiercely now the braves began to sing. 
 And full-fledged fmy rose on music's wildest wing. 
 
22 KEEUKA. 
 
 1. 
 
 By the widowB bewailing 
 The horrible slaughters, 
 
 By the bones of our brothers 
 Picked bare by the ravens, 
 By the tears unavailing 
 Of fatherless daughters 
 And sorrowing mothers, 
 Kevenge on the cravens ! 
 Revenge ! revenge ! 
 
 2. 
 
 Ere the grapes begin bunching 
 By brook and by fountain. 
 
 Ere the broods of young throstles 
 Burst into sweet laughter. 
 The wolves shall be munching 
 Our foes on the mountain. 
 And bloody scalptossels 
 Shall swing from the rafter ! 
 Revenge ! revenge ! 
 
KEEUKA. 23 
 
 3. 
 
 Now, ye souls of our brothers, 
 Unlaid and in trouble. 
 
 Cease shrieking and sighing; 
 For ere in his blanket 
 The Great Spirit smothers 
 This moon, there shall bubble 
 Hot blood from hearts dying, 
 And ye shall have drank it ! 
 Revenge! revenge! 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Now died the hideously mournful strain — 
 The mad monotonous refrain did rave 
 Itself to death, and into stillness wane ; 
 But the echoes yet its elfin spirit save. 
 And bear it oyer blue Keeuka's wave ; 
 Toss it from steep to steep along the shore. 
 And beat it crying through each rocky cave. 
 Straightway the council broke, and savage tore 
 The vail of heaven with their whooped outrageous roar. 
 
24 KEEUKA. 
 
 XX. 
 
 And next they scattered each a several way ; 
 Some to their wigwams nigh, and some to boat, 
 Where, tethered in the ripples' tiny sway, 
 The prim prows on the pebbly margin smote, 
 As though along the blue to be afloat 
 They felt a hve impatience. Then the dip 
 Of paddles beat time all the while each throat 
 Uttered a low, wild chant, unstopped by lip,^ 
 
 And so the trim canoes did o'er the waters trip. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 The voices, with the distance, tapered down 
 To silence ; and thence till the setting sun 
 The plumy thrapple of the mockbhd brown, 
 Swoln full of rich, round warble, glibly spun 
 Its tangled string of carols, never done : 
 The tunable lovetwitter round the nests. 
 The susurration of the bees, the run 
 Of quick brooks, blent their sweet sounds, till the west's 
 Vanguard of hosting stars displayed then' brilliant crests. 
 
KEEUKA. 25 
 
 XXII. 
 
 What time the twilight thickened into gloom, 
 A dome of flame shot up its flashing spu'e 
 Beside the lake, as though for Day a tomb 
 Were built there — 'dead Day's monument of fire. 
 Keeuka's face glowed sudden red with ire. 
 Uncurtained thus of darkness in her sleep ; 
 And all at once one whooping hubbub dire, 
 Like roaiing ocean, swept the forest deep, 
 Then sunk in echoing ebb, a tide of noises neap. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 The light upon the beach was for a token ; 
 The startling whoops, responses to the sign ; 
 And now, amid a silentness unbroken. 
 Into the circle of that signaled shine. 
 From out the dark of thickets' branchy twine. 
 There glided taU forms, flocking all the shore ; 
 While o'er the water, flame-wrought into wine. 
 The same canoes that had at morn tofore. 
 And toward that raddy glare was pointed every prore. 
 
26 KEEUKA. 
 
 XXIY. 
 
 Anon each slender bark its beak had strook, 
 And each swart rower leaped upon the strand ; 
 Portent of battle scowled in every look, 
 And clutched the tomahawk in every hand. 
 Ah ! then to see the banded cohort stand 
 In sullen circle round that reaching blaze, 
 It was the dread sublime, the gloomy grand : 
 Their frightful features hold a dismal gaze. 
 And not among them one one sign of life betrays. 
 
 XX Y. 
 
 For brief thus motionless and mute stood they ; 
 Then, as from impulse of one common thought, 
 Burst into brutal war's infernal bray, 
 To horrid dissonance of fiuy wrought : 
 With hungry foretaste of revenge distraught. 
 In dance they raged, in frantic song they ranted ; 
 The onslaught shammed, the mimic battle fought. 
 And gorged the feast, which late with life had panted ; 
 Nor ceased until the moon her downward journey slanted. 
 
KEEUKA.. 27 
 
 XXYI 
 
 The fire had dwindled, and the moon gone down ; 
 The stars were waiting for the king of day, 
 To bow their fealty to his golden crown, 
 And then from his dread presence shrink away ,* 
 Deep in the dreaming lake's clear bosom lay 
 A vision of the heavens : save the trill 
 Of night's lone troubadom* upon the spray, 
 Poet of birds, the mournful whippowil. 
 Where late loud orgies roared, now all was widely still. 
 
CANTO II. 
 
 I. 
 
 Forth victor Dawu his flamy banner flung 
 Over the east horizon's battlement ; 
 Yet Night's forlorn hope, Lucifer, yclung. 
 Last of her bright host, to the sky's blue tent 
 TlU round him it was all on fire ; upsent 
 The bkds their sweet applauses ; blushed the water 
 Under the ardent gaze of Orient: 
 Again were met the warriors by the water, 
 And eke their women mom-nful, mother, wife, and daughter. 
 
KEEUKA. 29 
 
 II. 
 
 Oh "War ! iconoclast of woman's love ! 
 Thou breaker of the idols of her heart ! 
 Thou pomp of murder, that dost flout above 
 All penalty ! that sitst enthroned apart 
 From vulgar crunes, and crowned with glory art! 
 While man may so heroically die 
 That his great name on tune's historic chart 
 ShaU loom through ages, woman's is the sigh — 
 The tear, which fame's cold breath may freeze, but can not diy . 
 
 III. 
 
 Again were met the warriors by the water ; 
 And, sooth, they showed romantic to the view ; 
 Wood-born BeUona, Nature's wanton daughter. 
 Contrasted gayly with the dark green hue 
 Of her plain mother's garb, begemmed with dew 
 Ejrtles of red from zone to middle thigh, 
 Their plumes of scarlet, moccasins of blue. 
 Their skins tattooed with stripes of every dye. 
 Combined as fine a scene as ever flared to eye. 
 
30 KEEUKA. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Upon their shoulders painted quivers hung, 
 Full of the arrowy death ; in each right hand 
 The nervy bow, to half-strained tension strung ; 
 And in each bead-embroidered kiiileband 
 The tomahawk and scalpknife : there they stand 
 In conflux gloomy, like a thundercloud 
 Swoln by the winds and with a rainbow spanned — • 
 Kelentless in revenge, of prowess proud. 
 And yet with love's fond passion genially endowed. 
 
 Y. 
 
 And though no tears welled up to quench the flame 
 Of war's wild ardor blazing in their eyes, 
 The hour of parting to their bosoms came 
 With a quick agony ; the tender ties 
 Of home afiections, braided, in the skies. 
 Of man's high nature, wrought upon the strings 
 Of their strong hearts — Oh ! what if this emprise 
 Should leave their bodies cold and breathless things 
 In far lands, clawed by wolves and flapped by ravens' wings!^ 
 
KEEUKA. 31 
 
 1. 
 
 The flowers may spring up in the trails 
 That wind to where the roebucks dwell — 
 
 The corn may tossel in the vales 
 
 Ere we come home : farewell ! farewell ! 
 
 2. 
 
 Young moon may wax, and old moon wane, 
 And fall may brown, and spring may bud, 
 
 Nor we yet come ; we may be slain, 
 Each sleeping on his mat of blood I 
 
 3. 
 
 But if we never come again . 
 
 To greet home's kisses, glad and warm. 
 Be sure that more than Mingo men 
 
 Were struck in battle's thunderstorm ! 
 
 Farewell ! farewell ! along the shore 
 Our boats are beating on the shoals : 
 
 Farewell ! — if we come back no more. 
 Then, meet us in the Land of Souls ! 
 
32 K E E U K A . 
 
 YI 
 
 So sung the sachem ; all the braves respond 
 To the sad chant with sorrowful conclaim ; 
 Then of his loved ones each one takes a fond, 
 Perchance a last embrace. But, hark ! a name 
 Moneeka utters in a tone of blame : 
 Lelu ! Lelu ! she of the spirit bland, 
 Imai^e of her, and only not the same 
 That death had taken to the Spirit Land — 
 IBs fair child, why not she one of that tearful band' 
 
 YII. 
 
 List ! like a choir of cuckoos comes a flow 
 Of flutestops in the gushes of the breeze ; 
 A fitful strain, now louder, now more low, 
 Now sweetly nuiftled in the thick of trees. 
 The timid squaws, transported, fall to knees 
 In adoration, while from brave to brave 
 Fly ravished whispers in the tone of bees ; 
 When, lo I from out the mouth of Spirit Cave 
 There darts a light canoe, and glides along the wave. 
 
KEEUKA 
 
 VIII 
 
 It was Lelu's I they knew it by the beak — 
 A silver arrow, flasliing o'er the blue 
 As Venus o'er the east when morn doth wreak 
 Its ardor on the meek, pale sky. It flew 
 The waters witchingly, and quickly drew 
 Whom into sight it wafted ; lo, the Sprite 
 Of Spirit Cave ! and with him, lo, Lelu ! 
 She plied the plashing paddle left and right, 
 While music's chain linked he with flying fingers light. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Eftsoons the tiny prow was laid aland ; 
 Tho music stopped ; and bounded up the bank 
 Fawnlike Lelu. Tlie pretty boldness bland 
 Of innocence, the modest meekness frank 
 Of maidenhood, did beautifully prank 
 Her large brown eyes ; flowed down her long black hair, 
 Whereunder her round bosoms rose and sank 
 Like billows ; nature's delicacy bare 
 Adorned her : ! she was bewilderingly fair. 
 
;34. KEEUKA. 
 
 Though in amazement, every warrior's heart 
 Beat big responses to her tripping feet, 
 Proud of her loveliness. Where stood apart 
 The wondering sachem, thither soon her fleet, 
 Light footsteps bore her. Him the sudden gi-eet 
 Of ardent lips roused from astonishment — 
 The thi-ill of filial kisses, fondly sweet : 
 "Sire, the Great Spii-it my Okkee^hath sent 
 To talk to you of peace ere battle's bow be bent." 
 
 XI. 
 
 She waved her hand, and up the beach came he 
 Who had so oft mysterious charmed the shore 
 With music's witchery — Lelu's Okkee : 
 Majestical ! his brow such beauty wore 
 As a white cloud by sundown tinted o'er ; 
 His hair bright brown, his eyes were lakelike blue. 
 And looked as though they held all heretofore 
 And all hereafter in their raptured view. 
 And all high knowledge and all holy passion knew. 
 
KEEUKA. 35 
 
 XII 
 
 He paused beside the old oak, and a space 
 His soul seemed brooding live thoughts beaked with fire, 
 Hatching them into words. Upon his face 
 There glowed the light of truth's divine desire, 
 Wherein his brows did heavenward aspire. 
 Like wings of eagle in the glow of morn. 
 Anon his spirit struck the full-toned lyre 
 Of Mohawk speech, and eloquence was born, 
 Swaying those hearts as winds of summer sway the corn. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 "If the Great Spirit is Allfather, then, 
 Keeukas ! to the whole world ye are kin — 
 All brothers of the brotherhood of men. 
 Of the same blood your hands would dabble in. 
 Why pant ye for the battle to begin ? 
 The wolf, the panther Live by act of prey ; 
 But ye — ^but what do ye by cai'nage win ? 
 Revenge ! What ! brother for slain brother slay i 
 Such vengeance were the seed of slaughter aye and aye. 
 
36 K E E U K A . 
 
 XIV 
 
 Murder is mother unto murder ; so, 
 Thou sachem ! every scalp thy waniors take, 
 Gets them at least one other deathful foe, 
 Whose kindred breast shall feverously ache 
 With such mad thirst as naught but blood can slake : 
 Each heart struck cold, makes hot a hostile hand ! 
 Hence, wrath's fierce billaws shall still ever break 
 Successive on the shore of Spirit Land, 
 While braves against braves be for vengeful warfare clanned. 
 
 XY. 
 
 Bury the red ax, then ! go not to battle ! 
 No rainbow follows fight's wild hurricane ; 
 But all love's bloom is blasted where the rattle 
 Of aiTOwy hail melts to the bloody rain : 
 The ties between the slayer and the slain, 
 In being severed, rend all other strings 
 Of the live heart's afiection-tangled skein. 
 Go not to battle ! but who battle brings 
 Upon your home, strike ! Justice then his deathsong sings." 
 
KEEUKA. 37 
 
 XYI 
 
 Such godlike speech from whom they deemed divine, 
 Wrought quick conversion in the heroes' breasts — 
 Made bright bliss in the women's tearful eyne ; 
 For now war's fmies drop their snaky crests, 
 And tamely crawl back to their secret nests. 
 "New truths from Spirit Land !" Moneeka cried ; 
 "Let us obey their beautiful behests !" 
 By throwing down their arms, the braves replied ; 
 And joy thrilled bosoms that had just with soitow sighed. 
 
 XYII. 
 
 "In sweet peace, then, each to his wigwam g 
 In true love, then, and lighten woman's toil ; 
 Fix him a home where nature's beauties grow, 
 And, better far than brave in battle's broil. 
 Be brave in labor, victor of the soil!" 
 While tongue thus utters, forth from his blue ee 
 Persuasion's fascinating folds uncoil. 
 They each obey; and soon at that old tree 
 Are left none save Lelu and her divine Okkee. 
 
38 KEEUKA. 
 
 XYIII. 
 
 "No:w, while Keeuka holds the blushing face 
 Of young Morn in her bosom, and the note 
 Of lovelorn turtle fills the woody place, 
 Over the waters in our cedar n boat. 
 O'er the blue waters, darling, let us float; 
 And, as the ripple from the cui-ved keel slips 
 With silver tinkle, all the day devote 
 To pleasant converse, till soft twilight clips 
 The sunbeams, leaving in the stars theii- golden tips." 
 
 XIX. 
 
 So sweetly had addressed he sweet Lelu, 
 In language learned from Anglic mother's lips; 
 For well the pretty squaw its meaning knew, 
 And from his words took love as wild bee sips 
 From strange blooms honey ; — then, the black eclip 
 Of thick hair from her forehead pushed away. 
 Passion's quick wings touched there then* trembling tips 
 O that such blisses might but bide for aye ! 
 Worth thousand common ages one such blissful day. 
 
 ps.> 
 
KEEUKA. 
 
 XX. 
 
 Ne'er harpist harping with his golden harp 
 The Orphic miracles of raging song, 
 Could half sing love — ^love's rapture keen and sharp, 
 That thrills through heart and each hot vein along, 
 A pleasure-pain, unspeakable and strong ! 
 Ye, in whose bosoms this unresting dove 
 With soft, white plumes, yet fierce beak, once hath clong, 
 Ye know how winged words far it soars above. 
 And how in place like this, love must be doubly love. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 The woods' wide amphitheater of green ; 
 The sky's high overcanopy of blue ; 
 The lake, arena for the coming scene 
 Of love's boat floating with its dual crew ; 
 The birds, which, as they sung, and singing flew, 
 And flying flashed the dewdrops, one might deem 
 Nature's winged halleluiahs ; airs that blew 
 Through leafy lips aroma : all did seem 
 The kingdom come of passion's paradisean dream. 
 
40 KEEUKA, 
 
 XXII. 
 
 Just where the green made border to the blue, 
 A while they stood in silent muse, as though, 
 Of all the glories that around them grew, 
 That arched above, that liquid lay below. 
 Into their soul they felt the essence flow ; 
 Into their soul ; they now were two souls one. 
 Their former selves love had commingled so : 
 The phases of life opposite were done — 
 As sun and moon's conjunction leaves naught but the sun. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 "Okkee ! — Eight true, thou art Okkee, and this 
 Is the soul's home. For, did I understand. 
 Thou said that love is spirit ; then, I wis 
 Enough love here to make it Spirit Land. 
 It must be so ; for fancy never planned 
 For hope a joy more blissful in that realm — 
 Is it not an a dream ? Give me thy hand : 
 'Tis real ! — ^Loose the prow now from the elm ; 
 Sit thou and talk to me, Lelu will hold the helm." 
 
KEEUKA. 41 
 
 XXIY. 
 
 The twain embarked, the proa swung from shore ; 
 Few strokes of dextrous paddle sent it clear. 
 To waft away where breeze soever bore, 
 Through the bright concave of an azure sphere^ — 
 Blue sky above, blue sky beneath the mere. 
 So sphered atween the two skies glode the bark 
 Alone and still, as though a deluge here 
 Had drowned of passion every vital spark 
 Save only love, and this were saved love's tiny ark. 
 
 XXY. 
 
 Lelu first that enraptured silence broke. 
 "Thou knowst thou promised twice twelve moons ago, 
 That when I learned the language which thou spoke, 
 I should the story of thy past time know : 
 As beautifully as the blossoms blow, 
 Thy words have oped their meanings in my mind, 
 Till well I comprehend them now, I trow ; 
 So, my Okkee ! thy thread of life unwind. 
 And braid it up with strands of golden talk entwined." 
 
CANTO III. 
 
 I 
 
 "My soul's first felt stir was by such a lake ; 
 Memory dawned on such a scene of blue ; 
 And thence have waters in my spirit's make 
 Grown passions, still or stormy, ever new : 
 The brook, young love, meandrily untrue ; 
 The lake, sweet dream of poetiy's devotion ; 
 The river, lust of fame, which greater grew 
 Forever in its nearer seaward motion : 
 Wild muse of God's infinity, the awful ocean. 
 
KEEUKA. 48 
 
 II. 
 
 O ! I have always loved the living waters ; 
 While yet a very child, I sought the brooks, 
 And wooed them as Romance's pretty daughters, 
 And tiysted with them in sequestered nooks, 
 And gloated on them with most passioned looks. 
 And wived them to my soul, and hugged them there: 
 The crystal pools were Fancy's open books. 
 Where ripply fingers of the poet Air 
 Wrote roundelays that still my heart doth fondly bear. 
 
 Ill 
 
 In noisy flocks while other children played. 
 Nurse Nature spread her lap and tended me, 
 And so before me her delightments laid 
 That I was charmed to sit upon her knee. 
 And feel my heart with her great heart agree : 
 Tliere was a spirit by the lake and river. 
 Which I have since found gi-ander by the sea. 
 That made my heartchords with a transport quiver. 
 And whispered, Be a dreamer, not a worldly liver. 
 
44 KEEUKA. 
 
 IV 
 
 That whisper to my life became a fate ; 
 And though I knew naught of its meaning then. 
 It soon was taught me by their scorn and hate, 
 Who slave, eat, sleep — swarm, sweat, and sleep again, 
 Moil, cheat, hoard, stmt through threescore years and ten ; 
 Who rise the scum atop the heated world. 
 And hide pure ore, themselves the dross of men : 
 The lips of such, contemptuous pity curled, 
 And at the worthless boy their shafts of mock were hurled. 
 
 V. 
 
 And even parents chid me for a drone — 
 As though the honey for life's hive were wi'ought 
 By buzzers only, none by musers lone ! 
 As though it better were to gain a groat 
 Than win from nature an eternal thought ! 
 As though bright truths that in the still soul spring 
 Like twilight stars in heaven, were of naught 
 Because they have not the metallic ring ! 
 As though man's intellect were not his Godward wing ! 
 
KEEUKA. 45 
 
 VI 
 
 They said that I would never come to thrift, 
 And that upon the sea of fortune soon, 
 Sailless and helmless, I would be adrift, 
 Except I left ygazing on the moon, 
 And idly dreaming underneath the noon ; 
 That who would clamber honor's toilsome hight, 
 His feet must well be shod with silver shoon, 
 And eye, like eagle's in the sunward flight. 
 Kept keen and steady on the yellow-golden light. 
 
 YII. 
 
 And so I hated such a world of gold, 
 And turned me from its dazzle to the hue 
 More mild of summer woods, of skies unrolled 
 Above them gi*andly, and of waters blue. 
 I envied every bird that round me flew, 
 Its unreproved delight, and longed for wings, 
 To seek some paradise man never knew. 
 Where I might drink aU pleasures at theii* springs — 
 Where thoughts were honeybees without the poison stings. 
 
46 K E E U K A . 
 
 YIII. 
 
 I mused on God's world, and I loved to live ; 
 I mused on man's, and I desired to die : 
 Power, beauty, majesty, all that could give 
 The soul suggestion of its nature high. 
 Were lavished here to prompt it to the sky ; 
 And yet immortal beings wallowed, ate, 
 And fattened, like the creatures of the sty — 
 Ay, scouted him with grunts of brutish hate. 
 Who dared eschew their slough, and seek a nobler fate. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Such was my early estimate of men ; 
 And black misanthropy imbued my heart : 
 And yet I sighed for whom to love. The wren, 
 The robin, whose quick wiugs would round me dart 
 Among the thick green leaves, were each a part 
 Of passion's duad ; I, I was a self! 
 With no sweet Hps to kiss away the smart 
 That poverty endures of vulgar pelf; 
 Kg mate with me to delve our nature's richest delf. 
 
KEEUKA. 47 
 
 X. 
 
 I went to school, but not to pore on books ; 
 I knew to read, nor sought such knowledge more : 
 I went, and studied love in woman's looks. 
 And learned by heart that beautifulest lore, 
 And conned the pleasant lesson o'er and o'er. 
 Life now displayed a fuller, fairer phase 
 Than ever it had shown to me before ; 
 For lonesome melancholy's gloomy haze 
 Is quick dispelled in human sympathy's bright rays. 
 
 XI. 
 
 The schooldame was a fair and gentle creature, 
 Whose soul seemed chastened by some sacred wo. 
 Which had stamped angel on her every feature, 
 And made her accents musically low. 
 As when soft winds through lyre Eolian blow ; 
 And left within her sad and holy eyes 
 The passion tears just ready forth to flow ; 
 And given to her such a spirit guise 
 As had small need of change to fit it for the skies. 
 
48 KEEUKA. 
 
 XII. 
 
 She gently forth the mind's first twinkles brought 
 As gloamin brings the stars — a mother mild 
 (The better mother, mother of its thought) 
 To the persuadable and plastic child. 
 In love's sweet suasion when she faintly smiled, 
 She took the fond heart further toward the land 
 Where life is love — where is no anger wild — 
 Than aH devices terror ever planned 
 To scare man heavenward by keeping heMre fanned. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 She was not old ; and yet there was a girl 
 Just in the first teen — woman's rosebud year — 
 That called her mother — But swift memories whirl 
 Within my brain — ^forgive me if the tear 
 Will start, Lelu — this touches me so near ! 
 That little maid who caUed the schooldame mother, 
 At once filled all my soul as sunrise here 
 Fills all yon hollow blue : it was that other. 
 That winged afiection, past the chrysalid of brother. 
 
KEEUKA. 49 
 
 XIY 
 
 And though she called me brother, yet I knew 
 It was a name with which she sought to hide 
 Love more than sisterly, that so did hue 
 Her being with its rainbows every side, 
 It never could be hidden or denied : 
 The passion panted crimson to her cheek. 
 Like summer sundown when the day has died, 
 And spoke so plainly in her cadence meek 
 That there was nothing left for formal words to speak. 
 
 XV 
 
 And so no formal, jarring words were spoken, 
 To mar the music of our spirit spheres ; 
 No promises in hope, that might be broken 
 In the reality of after years. 
 But there were thrills that cut like pain, and tears 
 That had no motive, and sad-seeming sighs 
 That were not sorrowful, and doubts and fears 
 Kerneled with secret blisses, and soft eyes 
 That held the deep infinity of bluest skies. 
 
50 KEEUKA. 
 
 XYI 
 
 Tho mother saw our burnini:: lives tlms leapiug 
 Like two quick llauies together, aiul she kuew 
 That hope of love's beatitude was steeping 
 ()ur whole existence witli its purple hue ; 
 Yet not displeased was she : the glistening dow 
 Of holy tenderness her blue eyes brimmed, 
 As looked she on us, and believed me true, 
 And in her fond anticipation linnietl 
 The picture of our oneness ere her dirge wore hymnal. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 But never she such consiunnuition saw : 
 The shaft of sorrow, which had stuck so long- 
 Deep in her heart. Death gently forth did draw, 
 And make lior hap}>y ; and he did not wrong. 
 But there were those to whom the guilt hath clong 
 Of her sad lot, and sluill forever cling ; 
 Men e'en respectable among the throng — 
 Men i Ilellkites ! such as from Abaddon bring, 
 And over earth the seeds of rank damnation rtins:. 
 
KEEUKA 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 51 
 
 These hucksters of hell fiuy, who have dens 
 In every lumnt, and bane the course of life 
 From Splendor's palaces to S(pialor's pens — • 
 Unparadise fair homes with fiendish strife, 
 And stab at heaven with assassin's knife — 
 These crossed the high career of that brave youth 
 Whom she had wed, and from the bliss of wife 
 Dejected her to worse than widow's nith : 
 ilii was a brute sot, spoded of manhood's pride and truth. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 He drank himself a devil, and then died ; 
 And at his wife and child men pointed shame — 
 Shame to be mourners of state homicide ! 
 Sliame to be victims of black crimes that claim 
 The sanction of the law, and have no blame ! 
 Great God ! the blood runs like a sluice of lire 
 Within me, as I contemplate the frame 
 Of civilization, and I wish a lyre 
 Of thunder power, to batter it, base, dome, and spire! 
 
52 KEEUKA. 
 
 XX 
 
 But she was dead ! the drunkard's widow now 
 Lay there in Heaven's refuge, past all scorn, 
 The euthanasy's beauty on her brow, 
 As though she dreamed of resurrection morn, 
 And glimpsed the glory of the second-born. — 
 Oh ! blisses must be infinite on high, 
 To number out the tears of that forlorn. 
 Motherless gii'l, and compensate each sigh : 
 No words could paint her wo ; mine may not, dare not try 
 
 XXI. 
 
 The sexton smoothed the sod above the dead, 
 And gently then they bore the child away, 
 The only mourner, though hot tears were shed 
 Even by stem-browed men that funeral day. 
 They brought the sad one in our home to stay ; 
 And when the sob had settled to the sigh, 
 And calm submission on her forehead lay. 
 With cheek to cheek, beneath the evening sky. 
 Oft would we sit, and muse of angels, she and I. 
 
KEEUKA. 53 
 
 XXII 
 
 And at such times the stars had earnest looks 
 Of sympathy, as though each held a tear ; 
 And in the silvery babble of the brooks 
 Almost a human sobbing we could hear ; 
 Such soft wind-whispers as a spirit's fear 
 Of too much revelation seemed to quell, 
 Low sibilated solace to the ear 
 Of sorrow ; and the bulbul in the deU, 
 With melody's nepenthe crowned the holy spell. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 So passed we all the lovely summer eves, 
 Our souls commingling like two waterways 
 Within some pleasant valley full of leaves : 
 And when the autumn scarlet gan to blaze 
 Among the treetops, and the mild, warm days, 
 Like watching women, softly glided round 
 His dying bed, as though they strove to raise 
 The good old Year up from his dreamy swound. 
 New brightness her blue ee, her cheek new bhishes foun 
 
54 K E E U K A . 
 
 XXIY 
 
 Then through the glory of that mellow weather, 
 We traced the streams, we stroamed adown the glyn, 
 And clomb atop the piny hills together ; 
 Nor wist we anght of danger we were in, 
 For neither one was ware of any sin ; 
 We leaned our foreheads o'er the selfsame book. 
 Along which some immortal mind had been, 
 And, mingling with om* mingled spirits, took 
 Its power in, as this lake bosoms yonder brook. 
 
 XXY. 
 
 The trees put on their ghostly robes of snow 
 At length, and we — But how that winter time 
 We passed, beside the hearthstone's cheery glow, 
 Edened in young love's always-summer clime — 
 And how, too, in the next year's bloomy prime. 
 We told with flowers what ne we dared with tongue- 
 Then summer through, and all the fall sublime. 
 How clung our hearts, and close and closer clung — 
 'angs to remember : be it to oblivion flung ! 
 
KEEUKA. 55 
 
 XXYI. 
 
 Two years had passed, and we were not the same, 
 Though same in age : she was a woman now, 
 I yet a boy. Still with a lip of flame 
 She breathed me burning words, and sealed her vow 
 Of trath on blushing cheek and beating brow. 
 But by and by an other came to woo 
 That loveliness to which my heart did bow 
 As does the Hindoo unto his Gooroo ; 
 And he was all a stranger, none knew whence or who. 
 
 XXYII. 
 
 But it was said that some illustrious hero 
 Of bygone ages mythically dim, 
 (Some Cesar great — or haply e'en some Nero !) 
 By deeds immortal had ennobled him. 
 And him enriched with cofiers full to brim. 
 Besides nobility, he had a mien 
 Of winningness, with person tall and trim, 
 And tongue possessed of power almost to wean 
 Angels from heaven unto hell's eternal threne. 
 
56 KEEUKA. 
 
 XXYIII. 
 
 Then Jessie grew so sisterly to me — 
 So friendly-calm to me so passion-tossed ! — 
 And blushed so bashful to the stranger's ee, 
 I knew in heart love's paradise was lost : 
 Between me and hope's life-tree cherubs crossed 
 Their flaming swords ; the night of cold despair 
 Came down with darkness and with deadly frost 
 Upon my spirit's blowth, and withered there 
 All that was beautiful, all that was flushly fair. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 I saw them wedded — ay, stood nigh the altar, 
 And froze my tears down 'neath an icy pride, 
 While iQ a voice that never seemed to falter, 
 She spoke herself away, an other's bride. 
 I wished her joy then, and with haughty stride — 
 So haughty it betrayed my humbled heart — 
 I hurried home, and there, alone, untied 
 My heartstrings loose to anguish. With a start 
 I rose and manned myself : forthwith I must depart. 
 
KEEUKA. 57 
 
 XXX 
 
 With tears that bluiTed and blinded, and with words 
 Of long farewell, I parted from the spot 
 Where land, lake, sky, where woods, and brooks, and birds. 
 All minded me what better were forgot. 
 1 can not think it is a mom'nful lot. 
 To leave the scene where love has died, for aye, 
 To quit the home where sympathy is not, 
 Where all bids go, and naught invites to stay : 
 It is as if relief, to wander thence away. 
 
CANTO IV. 
 I. 
 
 "Away ! away ! My swarming thoughts had stings 
 That pricked me madly onward, and my feet, 
 To give them fleetness, took on dead Love's wings : 
 Away ! away ! with heart of bursting beat — 
 Away ! away ! no matter what to meet. 
 Not till the stars of nightfall had ah-eady 
 Flocked to their places, and their magic sweet 
 Shed on me, did my brain's wild torrent eddy 
 To consciousness, and flow in reason's cun-ent steady. 
 
KEEUKA. 59 
 
 II 
 
 I stai-tlecl at the newness of the scenes ; 
 Thought of my plight struck like a stab of steel ; 
 A youth just past the midway of my teens, 
 Unschooled in life, unbacked by golden weal — 
 Nor tact nor taste to tug at fortune's wheel, 
 Nor robe of ancestiy my name to don, 
 And naught on earth save heart to virtue leal ! 
 But such concern was not for me to con : 
 What was the futm-e worth ?— I sternly strided on. 
 
 Ill 
 
 All through that night the farmhouse bandogs bayed me. 
 And ghosts that stories told to childhood raised, 
 Stole out from gloomy corners, and waylaid me ; 
 But stiU I took one star, and on it gazed. 
 And followed it, till kindling morning blazed 
 On glary domes and flashing steeples high. 
 And art's magnificence my dim eyes dazed : 
 I found myself a mighty city nigh, 
 Whose matin hymn to Mammon gan to din the sky. 
 
(JO KEEUKA 
 
 IV 
 
 As ono that stands upon a ^vl•oc'k, and feels, 
 Before ho plunovs in tlio horrid deep, 
 A mortal shudder, and with hiintness reels, 
 80 I ahove that city on the steep 
 Stood dreadin*;', as though deatli were in the swee]) 
 Of the gi'eat human billows there that rolled 
 With roar of action, and with surge and leap 
 Forever dashed upon a strand of gold : 
 But so I stood not long; — despau' had made me bold. 
 
 V. 
 
 I pressed on, and was quickly swallowed in 
 By that life-Maelstrom, and my selfhood drowned 
 In its abysmalness. The pomp, the din 
 Whirled me in wilderment, and struck me stound : 
 I wanderal through the streets, and gay.ed tu'ound 
 Upon the spectacle so strange to mo — • 
 The wonders of the new world I had found — 
 The stormy motions of a living sea. 
 Where virtue's ripples low antl sin's high surges be. 
 
KEEUKA. Qi 
 
 VI. 
 
 My spent soul swum ; the whirlpool narrowing round uie, 
 Sucked to the center in n swotm iit hist, 
 Wherein I Biink, imd deep ul)livion (h'owned me. 
 When the iniinity of thiit swoon passed, 
 1 seemed as from a booming ocean cast 
 U[)on a silent shore: I lay alone, 
 Till soon an old man's foivlicad, grandly vast. 
 Hung o'er me like a moon ; — 'that old man's tone 
 Was thunder sot to tunc and nmllled to a moan. 
 
 VII. 
 
 In accents that were I'ull of soothing pleasance — 
 Tliough every word was [)ondcrous with thought 
 And with the weight of his majestic presence — 
 lie said that Heaven had one blessing brought 
 To recompense a life with sorrows fraught. 
 In giving me to^him ; that I should stay 
 In his home thenceforth always, and that naught 
 Should sever us till Death his sytho should sway. 
 And mow the mortal bonds of sympathy away. 
 
Q2 KEEUKA 
 
 VIII. 
 
 With words, and kindnesses that have no words, 
 That old man cheered and cherished me, his son 
 By heart's adoption : solace such as girds 
 Wo's zenith with a blue horizon, mn 
 Through all his act, and on my spirit won 
 As clear sky wins upon a passing storm. 
 The passion chaos of my life was done, 
 The vague infinitudes began to swarm 
 Concrete, and orbs of thought to gather into form. 
 
 IX 
 
 My fosterfather was a great savan, 
 Vei-sed in the sciences of ancient years, 
 And in the histories of ancient man ; 
 His large mind shepherded the flocking spheres 
 Upon the plains of heaven ; rapt to tears. 
 He drank thought's written immortalities 
 From rare old words that have not charmed the eai-s 
 Of men for decades of long centuries : 
 And me he pointed where the truth of greatness is. 
 
KEEUKA. 03 
 
 I followed earnestly ; for thus I hoped 
 To distance memory and fly regret : 
 Mine eyes the stariy eyes of night outcoped 
 In steadiness of vigilance, and met 
 The gaze of Lucifer at morn, to get 
 The pearls of knowledge from the depths of toil. 
 And in my crown of life then- beauty set ; 
 Nor weariness could aught my ardor foil, 
 As toward the Central Soul I circled, coil by coil. 
 
 XI. 
 
 The languages in which old glory lives ; 
 The once-dim truths that genius has brought nigh. 
 As telescope the stars ; the power that gives 
 To lettered speech such forms as never die ; 
 I studied these, and studied too the why 
 Of man's existence, and nigh crazed my brain 
 With God's great mysteries, as toward the sky 
 My soul leaped up like wild beast in the chain, 
 And tore itself and raved in ignorance's pain. 
 
64 
 
 KEEUKA. 
 
 XII 
 
 Yeai-s passed like dreams — for we were not a part 
 Of the world's wakeful stir — divines t dreams, 
 Of poetry, philosophy, and art. 
 And liberty, and glory, and aU themes 
 Of thought ; the stars, those everlasting gleams 
 Of God in heaven ; life, this endless chase 
 Of childhood after rainbows ; death, which seems 
 The lifting of the vail from Mystery's face ; 
 And immortality in some more happy place. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 So passed the years ; and I, now grown a man, 
 Grew Ml of manhood's righteous hate of wrong. 
 I saw my country's freedom under ban ; 
 I saw the weak down trodden by the strong ; 
 I saw Toil's slavery, which had so long 
 Been sanctioned by the horror of starvation ; 
 And from my fiery heart I hurled a song 
 That stmck against the great heart of the nation. 
 And won the people's praise, the rulers' execration. 
 
KEEUKA. 66 
 
 xiy 
 
 The trained hounds of the law were let the sUp, 
 And put on track. One morning, as I woke, 
 The old man, with his finger on his lip, 
 Stole to me in my closet ; ere he spoke, 
 A saber felled him with a mortal stroke 
 Dealt from behind, and over me outpoured 
 His warm blood — Christ ! how then my fury broke 
 From reason's leash ! I snatched the smoking sword, 
 And with one horrid plunge the murderer's bosom gored. 
 
 xy. 
 
 God! 'twas the spoiler of my boyhood's love! 
 The spouse of Jessie ! slayer of my sire ! 
 He had twice murdered me ! — I stood above 
 His body, and, with thews like steely wire. 
 Brandished the bloody blade, and dared the ire 
 Of twenty soldiers that had followed there. 
 They pressed upon me, and their curses dire 
 And clang of metal made the people ware ; 
 Who then came bursting in, with eyes of desperate glare. 
 
^^ K E E U E A 
 
 XVI 
 
 Th(7 saw the old man they had lovod so long, 
 Prostrate., his gi-ay hair mopping in his goro ; 
 They saw me wlio had dared to sing the song 
 Of liberty, encompassed by a score 
 Of swordmen; and they i)aused to sec no more, 
 But rushed right on. Oh! then thick horrors rose 
 And scuffled there with bloody death I — the roar, 
 Tlie shock, the clash, the stab, the deadly close, 
 AU sounds, all sights that light's infernal fury knows! 
 
 XYII. 
 
 I did my part for freedom in that fray ; 
 I fought for life as nuxnliood prompted me — 
 Nay, fought for what the brave throw life away, 
 The right to speak, to think, to act, to be — 
 To bo ! for what is being, if not frt)^ ? 
 The frightful stnigglo thickened, and the ring 
 Of combat narrowed round, till in that sea 
 Of bloodshed, underneath the two-hand swing 
 ( )f some huge weapon 1 went down, a senseless thing. 
 
KEEUKA. . (J7 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 How long I lay, I know not ; when I woke, 
 A Bcabrcczc, blal)bing of the biJlows, swayed 
 My hair back like a fond hand's gentle stroke. 
 And, smacking kisses on my temples, played 
 Tlie dallying lover. Then a simple maid 
 With smooth brown hair and bashful hazel eyes. 
 Stooped o'er my bed, and on my forehead laid 
 Her soft hand. How her sympathizing sighs 
 Changed as she looked upon me — changed to joyful cries 
 
 XIX. 
 
 My reason had returned ! There crowded round, 
 With gratulation, men to tears elated, 
 Men on whose fronts King Toil had full embrowned 
 Tlie stamp of true nobility, narrated 
 ^ever in lieraldry, ])ut elcivated 
 Above the majc^sties of all the earth : 
 ITie Labor Lords, the rank by (xod created! 
 The Labor Lords, emblazoned by their worth ! 
 L pride me that from this old line I took my l>irth. 
 
03 EEEUEA. 
 
 XX 
 
 1 should have thought that I had been in slumber, 
 And di-camed those horrors, but my arm I raised, 
 And found it shrunk with days of wcaiy number, 
 Spent in such fever as had racked and crazed. 
 But health came slowly back, and glad eyes gazed 
 Solicitous, as tliough a noise or motion 
 Imperiled me ; and low, vague hints were plirasod 
 Of danger of the law, of stern devotion 
 To me to th' death, and of a flight beyond the ocean. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 I knew the state sought mo as miu-deror ; 
 And so, before its vengeance tracked me there. 
 And with me them involved, who would incm* 
 Tlie risk of blood in my defense, and share 
 The gibbet with me, I resolved to dare 
 The world alone. One morning at the light, 
 Ere my preservers were awake or ware, 
 I stole from them, and where the sea's wings wliito 
 Flockal the near hai'bor, thitherward I took my llight 
 
KEEUKA. 69 
 
 XXII 
 
 Down in the fog, bcsido the gloomy river, 
 Tliroe men stood round a corpse — some mortal who 
 Had spurned the gii't of life back to the Giver- 
 Had rent the vail between the worlds in two, 
 And with bold sacrilege burst madly through. 
 It was a woman's Ibrm, a lovely bust 
 And round limbs that the wet robe Boomed to woo 
 Embracingly, as conscious of the trust 
 Of loveliness it folded I— Oh ! was Heaven just I 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 Was there a God that ruled the right and wrong! 
 Tliat Hiiiclde was JesHie! How my soul 
 Staggered with agony! There was the strong, 
 Tlie wild despair of love, as on a scroll. 
 Writ on her foreliead ; years and years of dole 
 That has no word, showed in her thin, palo chock ;- 
 We raised her, and from nc^xt her heart out stolo 
 His likeness, who had (jnished that heart so meek: 
 IIow eloquent of woman's fondness did it speak! 
 
70 
 
 KEKUKA 
 
 XXIV 
 
 And Warn) wero lottora in Iut boHoni hid, 
 DcatliwiiminlK in hin writing I I wuh glud 
 Tliul, luy (luick vongoanco stabbod liini m it did. 
 I put poor ,]vmiv. In tho gravo, aud had 
 Uiiv nunio in marblo and a willow Had 
 l*lac(.)d over Ikt, and lol't her to her rest. 
 With civilization now my brain waw mad; 
 Witli thin hint luuror, hell burned in my broaBt: 
 I bleHHi'd tile prow that pointed toward the bavago west. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 I took the deck, and an tiie ruHhing keel 
 Kiirrowed the iield of waters, and tho sail 
 Strained bellying toward America, my zoal 
 Kor Ireedom greatened with the westward galo. 
 So shall it be in tinu^ hence, when the stale 
 And doted polities of olden time 
 Shall obsoloBco in man's Regard, and fail 
 Of his devotion: liberty sublime 
 "^indl strengthen with the wind wliich wafts it to this clime. 
 
K E E U K A . 71 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 O Liberty ! thy flymbol is tho sea , 
 Tho great hcji in thy rtyiiibol, jukI tlie wavcH 
 Which roll belbro tlio oast wind, emblem tiiee; 
 Tliou hunt a motion like them: westward raveB 
 Tlie wild Htorrn of oppreHsioii, till the caveH 
 01" awful trutli be stirred ; and grandly then 
 Thou hIijiH rJHC! u[>, and heave tliem to thoii" graves, 
 Who brave thy tempest — tyrants over men, 
 Ingulfed in Kevolution, ne'er to rise again 1 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 But what thoughts tho sublimity of ocean 
 Stirrcid in mo, I have told thee long ago. 
 Or tried to tell thee — for there is emotion 
 lIl)on the wide sea, that no words can show 
 The shadow of; — and told thee what a glow 
 I felt to make this Ihx; land ; and luifore. 
 Thou knowst that I had told tliee of iny slow 
 Long wanderings till I reached Kc^euka's shore, 
 And how at hist I ibund thee, darling evermore!" 
 
CANTO V. 
 I. 
 
 Still sat she in the trance of listening, 
 And he stooped o'er to kiss her from her dream. 
 The sun aslope had now begun to fling 
 The trees' cool shadows on the lake, and stream 
 Down through the leaves in many a wavering gleam 
 Upon the water, as in sweet embrace, 
 And the low speech of passion that did beam 
 So holily upon each earnest face, 
 They glode on toward love's home — life's heavenliest place I 
 
KEEUKA. 73 
 
 II. 
 
 Then through the long, dark archway wafted they, 
 Till far within, a golden stream of light, 
 Which down through cleft of granite flowed from day, 
 Showed them their grottoed home : of lofty hight 
 The spacious chamber, and the walls bedight 
 With graceful tapestry of painted pelt ; 
 And there were seat;8, and couch, and books in sight — 
 Dear books, wherein Lelu had often spelt 
 Her way to glorious thoughts . How happy here they dwelt I 
 
 III. 
 
 Here wellnigh three years had they passed the days- 
 Here and along the lake's most hidden nooks — 
 Learning each other's language, how to phrase 
 In fittest words love's eloquence of looks ; 
 And she had got the magic of his books 
 Shut in her soul, and he of her sweet lips 
 The music, sweeter than the flow of brooks : 
 So passed the days in fond companionships. 
 But parted always at the gloamin's first eclipse. 
 
74 K E E U K A 
 
 IV 
 
 So passed the days of love's eternity ; 
 So ebbed and flowed beneath the passion-moon ; 
 So went, and left themselves a memor}' 
 Like gratitude for some most precious boon : 
 The di'eamful night, glad morn, delightsome noon. 
 Chased in swift circle, staggering with bliss — 
 Blest circle, save that night came round too soon, 
 And brought the sweet pain of the parting kiss, 
 And morn, that brought the kiss of greeting, too remiss. 
 
 They parted now, to meet again at morn ; 
 One long kiss, and her bark went darting out 
 Into the lake, and he again was lorn. 
 His supper finished of the golden trout. 
 He hears the echoes of the well-known shout 
 That welcomes home Lelu's boat every eve. 
 He sleeps ; he wakes ; red dawn begins to flout 
 The stars ; the quick sti-okes of her paddle cleave 
 The water: once more tears and smiles love's rainbow weave. 
 
KEEUKA. 75 
 
 VI 
 
 Thus early to the grot had come Lelu, 
 With terror in her voice and in her eye, 
 Relating that the Mohawks were in view 
 Upon the mountain, and their battlecry 
 Was, Death to the Keeukas ! they must die ! 
 For they are traitors to the Mingo name ! 
 "To boat ! to boat ! Okkee, and let us fly 
 To council, and enkindle valor's flame 
 In hearts whose blood today must wash away this shame!" 
 
 YII. 
 
 He seized his gun, and charged it with the death — 
 A long, white mantle on liis shoulder flung. 
 And took the boat ; the passing of a breath. 
 And out upon the lake the vessel swung ; 
 Then, every nerve with strong exertion strung, 
 To the other shore it flew like frightened bird : 
 A moment more, and stood Okkee among 
 The throng of braves, and gave his hot thought word, 
 Which lit their souls like flame by breath of fierce wind stirred. 
 
76 KEEUKA 
 
 VIII 
 
 "Who fights for his dear home and for his life, 
 Him the Great Spirit's truth shall justify ; 
 Who falls defending from vile wrong his wife 
 And children, shall be blest in yonder sky. 
 Keeukas ! your sworn deadly foes are nigh ; 
 They come down like the thunder-tempest sweep : 
 It is your duty, meet them though ye die 
 At the first onslaught ! let your keen points leap 
 Eight to the death ! The brave sink not alone to sleep." 
 
 IX. 
 
 No plaudit foUowed ; desperation's hush 
 Held back their breath ; but as a thundercloud 
 Takes shifting shapes of horror ere the rush 
 And roar of rain, so shaped that little crowd 
 Its phalanx for the storm of battle loud. 
 Moneeka stood the center of the van, 
 And on his forehead sat death glory-browed : 
 His eye along his banded warriors ran ; 
 The thriU of that stern glance went through them, man by man. 
 
KEEUKA. 77 
 
 X 
 
 Down swept the fierce Five Nations like a torrent, 
 Firm stood the clan Keeuka like a rock — 
 Down swept with bows and flinted arrows horrent, 
 Firm stood with warknives, stirless as a stock, 
 Stirless as death, yet ready for the shock. 
 The hurricane of arrows strikes them ; still, 
 Stirless as death, they wait to interlock 
 The grapple of the fight that is to kill : 
 Each hot heart there had froze to that one icy will. 
 
 XI 
 
 The mad assailants thrust aback their bows, 
 And with a yell that stunned the echoes dead, 
 And with raised tomahawks, rushed to the close : 
 A quick, sharp roar burst forth unwont and dread- 
 The Mohawk chieftain bit the dust and bled ! 
 Out strode Okkee, clad in his cloak of white. 
 And the Five I^ations cast their arms and fled 
 In disarrayed and wild disordered flight ; 
 While the Keeukas gazed in superstitious fright. 
 
78 KEEUKA. 
 
 XII, 
 
 Out from their covert flocked the women glad. 
 But glad not long; Moneeka fainting fell: 
 Two arrowheads sunk in his vitals, had, 
 From the first onset, drained his lifeblood well. 
 All press around him — ^bear him to the dell 
 Where wells a cool spring ; there to his last sleep 
 Lelu's love rocks him on the sobbing swell 
 Of her soft bosom, while with anguish deep — 
 Okkee his forehead bathing — ^loud his people weep. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 "Okkee ! I feel thy hand like flesh and blood! 
 Thou art not spirit ! Thou wilt be my son ! 
 The spouse of my Lelu ! Ere next spring bud 
 Upon my grave, let wedlock make ye one ! — 
 My people, lo, your sachem ! — I have ran 
 My race — and I — would — rest now" — Sunk his head. 
 And gasped his breath : Moneeka's life was done. — 
 Him and the Mohawk laid they in one bed, 
 While hot tears over them sincerest sorrow shed. 
 
KEEUKA. 79 
 
 XIV 
 
 *'The champion of the right, and of the wrong — 
 The hero of revenge, and of defense — 
 Lie side by side here in the slumber long, 
 Till the Great Spirit's voice shall call them hence, 
 And all their truth and error recompense : 
 So death has bid then* causeless quarrel cease, 
 And brought them friends before Omnipotence. 
 What prompture this to living love's increase ! 
 Why should life be a war, since death is such a peace 1 
 
 XY. 
 
 Keeukas ! if I be your chosen chief. 
 Revenge must all be buried in this grave ; 
 Let peace put forth to blossom, and in leaf 
 Let love's flush beauty o'er ye always wave ! 
 Live here, and till the soil yom* fathers gave ! 
 Cling to your homes here in the gloom of green ! 
 Lelu and I dwell still in Spirit Cave, 
 And meet to mingle with ye morn and e'en — 
 They in the home of souls less blest than we, I ween !" 
 
80 KEEUKA. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Okkee had said ; and all in circle ringing, 
 Round him they danced, round him and his Lelu, 
 Round them they danced, in chorus gladly singing ; 
 Till toward his bloody doom the spent sun drew. 
 And lengthening on the lake the shadows grew. — 
 She half with love and half with sorrow sighed. 
 As round her zone his arm he gently threw, 
 And lifting her to boat, the paddle plied — 
 And o'er Keeuka glode the Chieftain and his Bride. 
 
NOTES TO KEEUKA 
 
 CANTO I. 
 
 Enough, that truer Mingoes never drew 
 An arrow to the head, or twanged a bow. 
 
 Stanza XI, Line 6. 
 
 The Five Nations consisted originally, or when first known to Europeans, 
 of the Mohawks, the Oneidas, the Cayugas, the Onondagas, and the Sen- 
 ecas. Among the French they had the appellation of Iroquois ; among the 
 Dutch, that of Maquas ; but by the Indians of Virginia they were gener- 
 ally called Massawomekes ; and by themselves, Mingoes. MoIntosh. 
 
 2. 
 
 And from the mighty Mohawk sagamore. 
 
 Stanza XII, Line 1. 
 
 The Mohawks were the head of the Five Jfations ; and the whole con- 
 federacy was frequently known by that name. The grand sachem, or saga- 
 more, belonged to the ancient and original stock, from which the rest were 
 said to be descended. To him all the inferior chiefs of the subordinate 
 tribes were subject. MoIntosh. 
 
82 NOTES TO KEEUKA. 
 
 3. 
 
 Rise! Mingoes, rise I your Agresquee invoke. 
 
 Stanza. Xri, Line 6. 
 
 II parait que dans ces cliansons (de guerre) on iuvoquc le Dieu de la 
 Guerre, que les Hurons appellojit Areskoui, et les Iroquois, Agreskoui. 
 
 CUARLBVODC. 
 
 The Mohawk leads the Nations Triplc-Clanned. 
 
 Stanza. XVI, Line 5. 
 
 Each of these Nations is divided into throe tribes, or families, who dis- 
 tinguish tliemselves by three different names, or ensigns — the Tortoise, the 
 r, and the Wolf. Lord Cadwallader Golden. 
 
 nim hoarsely grunted guttural applause. 
 
 Stanza XVIII, Link 2. 
 
 Inst^^ad of acclamation, the Indians manifest their approbation by a 
 hoarse, guttural grunt. 
 
 6. 
 
 uttered a low, wild chant, unstopped by lip. 
 
 Stanza XX, Link 8. 
 
 The Mohawk language, which is the language of the Five Nations, is 
 wholly destitute of labials, or lias no words which require the lips to be 
 closed in pronouncing them. MoIntosh. 
 
 CANTO n. 
 1. 
 
 Should leave their bodies cold and breathless things 
 
 In far lands, clawed by wolves, and flapped by ravens' wings ! 
 
 Stanza V, Lines 8, 9. 
 
 What shall he be ere night ? Perchance a thing 
 O'er which the raven flaps her funeral wing. 
 
 Bybon's Corsair. 
 
NOTES TO KEEUKA. 83 
 
 Sire, the Great Spirit my Okkee hath sent. 
 
 Stanza X, Line 8. 
 
 The religion of the Indijins is erniiveutly polytheistic, recognizing one 
 supreme god, whom they call the Great Spirit, one next inferior deity, who 
 is accounted evil, and an infinite number of lower divinities, who, they 
 suppose, pervade and animate all nature. These latter they distribute into 
 two classes ; the good and the evil. The good are guardian spirits ; and 
 by one of them every individual, from birtli to death, is believed to be con- 
 stantly attended. Of these tutelar deities each has a peculiar form: 
 som(jtiiues it is that of a bird ; sometimes of a fish ; a beast of prey ; a 
 human being. According to Charlevoix, the Algonquins style these spirits 
 ManitouH ; the Hurons, Okkis, or, in English orthography, Okkees. 
 
POEMS 
 
RAIN ON THE EOOF 
 
 When tlio humid shadows hover 
 
 Over all the starry spheres, 
 And the melancholy darkness 
 
 Gently weeps in rainy tears, 
 'Tis a joy to press the pillow 
 
 Of a cottage-chamber bed. 
 And to listen to the patter 
 
 Of the soft rain overhead. 
 
 Every tinkle on the shingles 
 Has an echo in the heart ; 
 
 And a thousand dreamy fancies 
 Into busy being start, 
 
88 RAIN ON THE ROOF. 
 
 And a thousand recollections 
 Weave their bright hues into woof, 
 
 As 1 listen to the patter 
 Of the rain upon the roof. 
 
 Now in fancy comes my mother, 
 
 As she used to, years agone, 
 To survey her darling dreamers, 
 
 Ere she left them till the dawn ; 
 O ! I see her bending o'er me. 
 
 As I list to this refrain 
 Which is played upon the shingles 
 
 By the patter of the rain. 
 
 Then my little seraph sister. 
 
 With her wings and waving hair. 
 And her bright-eyed cherub brother — 
 
 A serene, angelic pair ! — 
 Glide around my wakeful pillow. 
 
 With their praise or mild reproof. 
 As I listen to the murmur 
 
 Of the soft rain on the roof. 
 
RAIX ON THE ROOF. 
 
 And an other comes to thrill me 
 
 With her eye's delicious blue ; 
 And forget I, gazrag on her, 
 
 That her heart was all untrue : 
 I remember but to love her 
 
 With a rapture kin to pain, 
 And my heart's quick pulses vibrate 
 
 To the patter of the rain. 
 
 There is naught in Art's bravuras, 
 That can work with such a spell 
 
 In the spirit's pure, deep fountains. 
 Whence the holy passions well, 
 
 As that melody of Nature, 
 That subdued, subduing strain 
 
 Which is played upon the shingles 
 
 By the patter of the rain. 
 8 
 
THE HEROES OF THE PEN. 
 
 Sine caede, sine sanguine .... viciatis. — Ciobro. 
 
 In the old tiuie gone, ere came the Dawn 
 
 To the ages dark and dim, 
 Who wielded the sword with mightiest brawn, 
 
 Tlie world bowed down to him : 
 The hand most red with the slaughtered dead, 
 
 Most potent waved command, 
 And Mars from the sky of glory shed 
 
 His light like a blazing brand. 
 But fiery Mars among the stars 
 
 Grew pale and paler when, 
 At the Morn, came Venus ushering in 
 
 The Heroes of the Pen. 
 
rilK HEROES OF THE I'EN. \)[ 
 
 Not witli Hword and llamo thoso IIorooB came 
 
 '[\) r<i\iu^c Jiiul to sltiy, 
 But tlio riiiva;^i! Houl with thought to taiiui, 
 
 Aud with iovo and reason Bway ; 
 Nor good steel wrought that battles Ibuglit 
 
 ill tlie centuries ot* yore, 
 Was over so bright as thoy bumisiiod thouglit, 
 
 To cut into error's core ; 
 And in tlie light for truth and right, 
 
 Not a hundred thousand men 
 Of the heroes old were matcii for one 
 
 Of the Horocs of tho rcn. 
 
 For tho weapon thoy wield, nor armor nor shield 
 
 Endures for a single dint, 
 Nor glave withstands, nor bayonet steeled, 
 
 Nor powder, and ball, and flint : 
 It touchea the thing called Shive or King, 
 
 And the Man doth reappear. 
 As did from the toad tho Seraph spring 
 
 At the touch of Ithuriel's spear; 
 
92 THE HEROES OF THE PEN. 
 
 And wherever down it strikes a crown, 
 Says sovereign to serf, Amen ! 
 
 Amen! and hurra, the people cry, 
 For the Heroes of the Pen I 
 
 Upon old tomes, those catacombs 
 
 Of the dead and buried time. 
 They lay the base of glory's domes, 
 
 And build with truth sublime ; 
 And from their hight directing the fight 
 
 Of the right against the wrong, 
 They fill the world with the lettered might 
 
 Of eloquence and song. 
 Nor buried they lie with those who die 
 
 At threescore years and ten. 
 But atop the piles they have builded, sleep 
 
 The Heroes of the Pen. 
 
 Hurra for the true ! of old or new, 
 "Who heroes lived or feU — 
 
THE HEROES OF THE PEJS^. 93 
 
 Thermopylae's immortal few ! 
 
 Hun-a for the Switzer Tell ! 
 Upvoioe to sky the brave Gracchi ! 
 
 Hurra for the Pole and the Hun ! 
 For the men who made the Great July I 
 
 Hurra for WAsmNGxoN ! 
 Yet old Time Past would triumph at last — 
 
 But hurra, and hmTa again, 
 For the Heroes who triumph over Time ! 
 
 The Heroes of the Pen. 
 
THKENODY FOE FLORA 
 
 WRITTEN FOR HER PARENTS. 
 
 Out of the cluster of our love, 
 A star has vanished up the sky ; 
 
 Out of our nest, a spirit dove 
 Has flown angelically high. 
 
 A gap is in our fireside ring 
 The wideness of a little tomb ; 
 
 A prattle such as robins sing. 
 Has faded out of every room. 
 
THRENODY FOR FLORA. 95 
 
 Our hearts long for her pretty charms 
 
 Of babish questions manifold, 
 And for the little hugging arms 
 
 Now locked across her bosom cold. 
 
 Her bright hair, and her eyes that beamed 
 So bonnily, oh, how we miss ! 
 
 And, oh, her loving lips ! that seemed 
 Fashioned so purposely to kiss. 
 
 As fond hearts that in exile be. 
 Grow homesick for the ones they love, 
 
 So we grow heavensick to see 
 Our pet seraphical above. 
 
 Pet of the angels ! in that home. 
 Faith sees her face serenely fair : 
 
 For, as she entered heaven's dome, 
 She left a window open there. 
 
ON! EIGHT ONI 
 
 On I right on I Art thou immortal, 
 Born to act, and deeds to do. 
 
 And yet sittest in the portal 
 Of thy destiny? Pass through! 
 
 On I right on ! strike — stave to slivers 
 EiTor- s gates that bat' thy way ; 
 
 Enter, and live with the livers ! 
 Live and act, while yet 'tis day. 
 
 On I right on ! for night is coming — • 
 Night of life, which comes to all — • 
 
 When Death's fingers, chill and numbin< 
 Seal the lids and spread the pall. 
 
ONI RIGHT ONt 97 
 
 On ! right on ! Life is a battle, 
 
 Wliere who wins must be a brave ; 
 For erelong the clods shall rattle 
 
 On the coffin in the grave. 
 
 On ! right on ! His name is Legion, 
 That has resolution's arm ; 
 
 Victor he o'er many a region 
 Ere dull plodders take alarm. 
 
 On ! right on ! with high ambition. 
 Make that viper, Slander, feel 
 
 Writliiugs of submiss contrition, 
 With his head beneath thy heel. 
 
 On ! right on ! Think not life ending 
 When thou licst down to die : 
 
 On ! right on ! brave soul, ascending. 
 Soar forever in the skv ! 
 
THE EDEN OF WISHES. 
 
 It is at the foot of a mountain 
 
 Whose high brow is bared before God, 
 There gushes a crystalline fountain, 
 
 And makes a bright brook in the sod. 
 
 And the sod spreads away o'er a vaUey 
 That opens where blue waters be ; 
 
 And the brook with meandering daUy 
 Goes babbling along to the sea. 
 
 There snowy sails pass, like the lazy 
 White clouds of a summery sky — 
 
 Appear and evanish where hazy 
 Infinity fences the eye. 
 
THE EDEN OF WISHES. 99 
 
 Here falls over Pan's mossy pillows 
 
 The green gloom of tropical groves, 
 And Poesy hears the low billows 
 
 In airs that come up from the coves. 
 
 And here, while the sands of light sunny 
 Sift down through the leaves from above, 
 
 The wild bee gads hunting for honey, 
 With wings wove of whispers of love. 
 
 Here the ripples make music more mellow. 
 More sweet than the stops of a flute ; 
 
 Here the dark sky of leaves is starred yellow 
 With thick constellations of fruit. 
 
 This valley so pleasantly lonely, 
 
 Wherethrough doth the waterbrook run, 
 
 Holds one little cottage, one only, 
 And one little maid, only one. 
 
 rier blue eyes are clear pools of passion, 
 Her lips have the tremor of leaves, 
 
XOO THE EDEX OF WISHES. 
 
 And the speech that her lovely thoughts fashion, 
 Is sweeter than poetiy weaves. 
 
 Flirtation, gross, flippant, and cruel, 
 Ne'er handled the hues on the wings 
 
 Of her love ; in her heart is a jewel 
 No cunning of flattery strings. 
 
 For dwells all alone here the maiden, 
 And waits for a true lover's kiss : 
 
 Who would sigh for angelical Aiden, 
 With her in an Eden like this ? 
 
 'Tis the Eden of Wishes, unreal, 
 This valley by sea bordered blue, 
 
 And the maiden is all an ideal — 
 I was but romancing to you. 
 
CAKOLINE. 
 
 Her eyes were blue and softly bright, 
 As morningglories wet with dew ; 
 
 Her hair was like a cloud of night, 
 That streams of moonlight struggle through. 
 
 Her cheeks were of the hue of shells 
 That ope their bosoms in the sea ; 
 
 Her voice, the chime of silver bells, 
 Forever ringing out a glee. 
 
 Her mien was modest as the droop 
 Of meadow lilies o'er a stream: 
 
 Her light step, graceful as their stoop 
 
 When soft winds wake them from a dream. 
 
102 CAROLINE. 
 
 A truth was in her earnest glance, 
 On which the heart would aye rely , 
 
 Her every sigh inspired a trance, 
 As 'twere a whisper from the sky. 
 
 She was the dove of spirit birds — 
 Tlic queen that wore the coronet 
 
 Of young love's reign — in sober words. 
 She was a beautiful coquette. 
 
MABELLE. 
 
 Wio wiilkcil where the i^rass wiis checkered 
 Willi the lij^dit throuii;h the leaves of May, 
 
 While the night, in her white shroud of moonshine, 
 Seemed the beautiful ghost of day. 
 
 The presence that made it a rapture 
 
 To walli in that bowery shade, 
 Was a fond being, meek in her beauty, 
 
 Half seraph and half loving maid. 
 
 Her voice had the sorrowful cadence 
 
 Of winds in a thicket of pine, 
 While her eyes, like the leaf-liltered moonlight. 
 
 Streamed through their long lashes to mine. 
 
104 MABELLE. 
 
 Wo had como to the end of the rainbow, 
 
 That had ever eluded till then, 
 And our hearts, which had always prayed double, 
 
 Now were beating the blessed amen. 
 
 Laved our souls in love's river Lethean 
 Till the moon in the west grew white, 
 
 And along the dim shore of morning 
 Broke the first purple billows of light. 
 
 When that red sea of dawn had swoln over 
 
 The beaconing morning star, 
 Of our vessels of life one was shipwreck 
 
 On the coast of God's heaven afar. 
 
 The vail between her and the angels 
 Was rent by our parting that dawn ; 
 
 And returning some summer moons after. 
 How I mourned for my beautiful gone I 
 
 Oh ! the love that first rendeth the heartstrings, 
 
 Is the love that continueth well ; 
 And though I lived mortal through ages. 
 
 All my life were a sigh for Mabelle. 
 
IMMOKTAL GLORY. 
 
 How MANY of the bright names now that gleam 
 In glory's heaven, skyed magnific spheres, 
 Shall cast their brilliant shadows in the stream 
 Of memory ten hundred thousand years ? 
 
 Who knows but we are in the night, and yet 
 There is a universal sun to rise, 
 When all these twinkling stars of fame shall set. 
 Or fade into the nothing of the skies? 
 
 Manldnd may climb the pyramid of soul, 
 Up by the stairfiight of the centuries. 
 So high that he can hear the anthems roU 
 Of seraphim, and see where heaven is. 
 
106 
 
 IMMOKTAL GLORY 
 
 And then the loud hiizziis of those low tinacs, 
 That send up great names, may not strike their ears, 
 Euraptured with the lugues of upper climes, 
 And with the rolling music of the spheres. 
 
 The highest peaks of glory now that rise 
 May yet be whelmed rocks in that spirit sea 
 On whose calm tide, uplloatiug toward the skies, 
 The iu*k of raised humanity shall be. 
 
 Hope not to live immortal in a sound 
 
 That Admiration tongues and pens today : 
 
 Ere roll the million future ages round. 
 
 Where will the sound be? letters — where will they? 
 
 Nay, sounds must die, and letters that enshrine 
 Their corses, too, may utterly decay ; 
 Kut thoughts, which are their quick ghosts, have divine 
 Existence, and shall never pass away. 
 
 No drop of thought once mingled with the sea 
 Of so\d, shall perish, tliough it disappear: 
 The viewless vapor it shall form, may be 
 Ptu't of a rainbow in some distant year. 
 
IMMORTAL GLORY. 107 
 
 Or, rising in its darkness, it may swell 
 Some thundercloud of passion yet to loom ; 
 For thought, of heaven born, or born of hell, 
 Doubles itself for aye in gleam or gloom. 
 
 Then, seek not glory ; it is utter naught — 
 More unsubstantial than a fairy's kiss ; 
 To be immortal, thou must think a thought ! 
 Earth has no immortality but this. 
 
EMMA STUART. 
 
 Oh 1 the voices of the crickets, 
 
 Chirj^ing sad along the lea, 
 Are the very tears of music 
 
 Unto melancholy me ; 
 And the katydids' responses 
 
 Up among the locust leaves, 
 Make my spuit very lonesome 
 
 On these pensive autumn eves. 
 
 For they mind me, Enmia Stuart, 
 
 Of the bygone, blessed times. 
 When our heartbeats paired together 
 
 Like sweet syllables in rhymes ; 
 Ere the fiiith of love was broken, 
 
 And our locked hands fell apart. 
 And the vanity of promise 
 
 Left a void in either heart. 
 
EMMA STUART. 109 
 
 Art thou happy, Emma Stuart? 
 
 I again may happy be 
 Nevermore : the autumn insects, 
 
 In the grass, and on the tree, 
 Crying as for vciy sorrow 
 
 At the coming of the frost, 
 Arc to me love's fallen angels, 
 
 Wailing*- for their heaven lost. 
 
 Often, often, Emma Stuart, 
 
 On such solemn nights as this, 
 Have we sat and mused together 
 
 Of the perfectness of bliss — 
 Of the hope that lit the darkness 
 
 Of the future with its ray, 
 Which was like a star in heaven, 
 
 Beautiful, but far away I 
 
 By the gateway, where the locust 
 Of the moonlight made eclipse, 
 
 And the river ripple sounded 
 Like the murmur of sweet lips. 
 
1X0 EMMA KTUAUT. 
 
 Tlioro a litilo nuiidcn wiiitod, 
 Telling Jill the moinoiitB o'er — 
 
 Emma Stuart ! P^mnia Stuart I 
 Waits tho maiden there no more? 
 
 No! ah, no I Along the pathway 
 
 Grows the high, untrampled grass, 
 Where the cricket stops to listen 
 
 For thy wonted feet to pass ; 
 But thy footBtcpR, Ennna Stuart, 
 
 Press no more tho doorway stone, 
 Trip no more along tho pathway — 
 
 And the cricket sings alone. 
 
 It is very mournful nnming. 
 
 On such solemn nights as this, 
 How evanislied all the promise 
 
 Of the perfectncsB of bliss: 
 Love's green grave between us, Emma, 
 
 Keeps us parted aye and aye — 
 Even not to know each other 
 
 In the Love Ijand far awayl 
 
TO MY WIFE. 
 
 Our lives wcro two dark cloiidfl of nif^ht, 
 Tiiat shadowed liope's clear starti above, 
 
 And fast were sinking out of sight; 
 
 When, nuH'tiiig in the morning light, 
 They mingled thvA\) in blushing love. 
 
 Since thtin our life has hex^.n a day 
 
 Of suiuiiK'r birds and Buirnncr blooms: 
 Forenoon has wellnigh passed away, 
 But love's bright sun has lost no ray, 
 Undimmed by passion's thundering glooms. 
 
112 TO MY WIFE. 
 
 Yet, bo it storm or be it Bhinc, 
 
 Nor shine nor storm ourself can sever ; 
 
 For I am resolutely thine, 
 
 Thou art affectionately mine, 
 
 And thou and I arc wc forever. C-?\£ . 
 
 And when tlie Mystery is passed — 
 llereat'ter linlced to Heretofore — 
 I saved through thee, we one at last 
 Sliall be one spirit in the vast 
 Kinij^dom of Love forovermore. 
 
THE END OF THE llAINBOW. 
 
 I WIS oi' a, region 
 
 Whose heavenly scope 
 Holds many a legion 
 
 or angels of hope — 
 
 At the end ot* the rainbow. 
 
 Endure the dull present, 
 
 Its toil, moil, and sorrow! 
 We shall all find that pleasant 
 
 Elysium tomorrow — 
 
 At the end of the rainbow. 
 iO 
 
114 r 1 1 K 10 N I) F T 1 1 K R A 1 N 15 W 
 
 Tlioiv the sky never varies 
 From glory to gloom ; 
 
 Tlier'e infiiiite prairies 
 Eternally bloom — 
 
 At the end of the rainbow. 
 
 I'lie bees liive no honey 
 In tliat happy land ; 
 
 For the days arc all sunny, 
 The air always bland — 
 At the end of the rainbow. 
 
 There Love, by the mountains, 
 Clhnbs into the sky. 
 
 And Peace drinks at fountiiins 
 That never go dry — 
 
 At the end of tlie rainbow. 
 
 There pleasure's enjoyment, 
 
 In ardent career, 
 Never ends in the cloyment 
 
 That follows it here — 
 
 At the end of the rainbow. 
 
TJiE END OF TIJE RAINBOW. jlo 
 
 His bright pinion sunk 
 
 At the goal of his mission, 
 There Hope shimbors, drunk 
 
 Witli the wine of fniition — 
 At the end of tlie rainbow. 
 
 No shadow Cimmerian 
 
 Of ignorance tliere; 
 But fountains I*ierian 
 
 Jet into the air — 
 At the end of the rainbow. 
 
 There glitter the riclies 
 
 That age never rusts ; 
 Thcrc> glory's proud niches 
 
 Are filled with our busts — . 
 At the end of the rainbow. 
 
 Endure the dull present, 
 
 It& toil, moil, and sorrow! 
 We shall all find the pleasant 
 
 Elysium tomorrow — 
 
 At the end of the rainbow. 
 
MISGIYIITG. 
 
 Oh ! can it be that this is all of life, 
 Betwixt a cradle and a coffin? Death! 
 Canst thou put out this spark of God, the soul, 
 Amid the humid ashes of the grave ? 
 This marvelous existency! this dream, 
 Bounded each side by night, is there no morn 
 To be, that we may then remember it. 
 And know it a reality? — ^The grave 
 An I nothing ! Doubt, the horrid goblin, haunts 
 The gloomy chambers of my brain, and wails : 
 
 "The grave and nothing ! Love while yet the heart 
 Throbs warm ; and when the eye whose thrilling glance 
 Beams in among the shadows of thy spirit, 
 
MISGIVIN-G. 
 
 Like sunshine in the forest, shall grow dull 
 
 And vacant, and the lip's red bloom grow pale. 
 
 Gaze then thy last, and kiss thy last ; for love 
 
 Ends here forever ! Rainbows hope may arch 
 
 In spans of beauty, that shall link thy years 
 
 One to an other gloriously, and tint 
 
 The clouds of sorrow ; yet the last bright arch 
 
 Is broke by darkness ; ay, it can not span 
 
 The gloomy valley of the shadow, death ! 
 
 Take on the wings of thought, and soar away — 
 
 Away most infinitely nothingward! — 
 
 Away ! till Earth gleam smaller than the eye 
 
 Of whom thou lovest — on ! away ! till thought 
 
 Grow crazy with infinity, alone 
 
 With the magnificent creation — on ! 
 
 Where Fancy flaps her pennons full against 
 
 The battlement of Paradise, and soul 
 
 Deems to have traveled far enough to reach 
 
 The home of God : and yet eternity 
 
 Of matter, world, world, world, outstretches stiU 
 
 Beyond. No spuit greets thee in thy course; 
 
 Thou hearst no rustle of the wings of angels ; 
 
 No whisper of intelligences here ; 
 
 Naught here but matter, matter without end : 
 
1X8 MISGIVING. 
 
 Thou art alone amid the silent wheels 
 Of the interminable mechanism." 
 
 Great God Almighty ! — for Thou abt ; else who 
 Did frame this endless, awful universe ? — 
 Shall man, who loves, and hopes, and thinks, and feels, 
 And weeps, and shrieks for everlastingness. 
 Shall he end utterly here in the grave? 
 Hope no ! in God's large mercy, no ! While all 
 Unconscious, careless things, incapable 
 Of being nothing, must forever be. 
 Shall mind, the only thing that knows to be. 
 Be nothing? Seems not like a God, to cause 
 It BO. We know not ; all is mystery : 
 Life's awful problem — the solution, death I 
 
EYES. 
 
 When from the night where no dreams are, 
 
 Life's dawning rays begin, 
 Then woman's eye, the raorning star, 
 
 Is there to tremble in. 
 
 The wings of Memory are set 
 
 With eyes of every hue 
 That eyes may be, from merry jet 
 
 To melancholy blue. 
 
 The first bright pair that clung my heart, 
 
 As magnet clings the steel. 
 Had eacli a flashing, wicked dart 
 
 Their black could not conceal. 
 
120 EYP]S. 
 
 The next, which hiy upon my sonl, 
 Like moonlight gh^bes of dew, 
 
 Death's iingel iill their heaven stole, 
 To make the sky more blue. 
 
 The next were luizel : they were lit 
 
 At i)iission'8 hottest Ihime ; 
 Whomever once their glory smit, 
 
 Forgot his very name. 
 
 The next wore like the griiy of sky, 
 Ere breaks the beamy light ; 
 
 The tlame of love, like dawn was nigh, 
 Though bosomed out of sight. 
 
 The next — song can not paint thoir hue; 
 
 Their orbs, which toward me roll — 
 Nor brown, nor gray, nor black, nor blue — 
 
 Are of the luie of soul ! 
 
 When into niglit wliore mysteries are. 
 Life's lingering smibeams fade, 
 
 Then woman's eye, the evening stai*, 
 llhnnes the solemn shade. 
 
MlNNElLAirA. 
 
 Ere the Muses transatlantic, 
 
 Pale of lace, and 1)1 no of eye, 
 Found the wilderness romantic 
 
 'Neath the occidental sky, 
 Think not then was here no worship 
 
 Of the beautiful and grand ; 
 Think not Nature had no wooers 
 
 In the wild Hesperian land. 
 
 Poesy, agrestic nuiiden, 
 
 Wihl-eyed, black-haired, haunted here, 
 Singing of the Indian Aiden, 
 
 Southwest of this mortal sphere; 
 
 Singing of the good Great Spirit, 
 
 Who is in and over all ; 
 11 
 
122 MINNEHAHA. 
 
 Singing sweetly every river, 
 Mountain, wood, and waterfall. 
 
 And this dark Parnassian maiden. 
 
 Sang sublimely war's wild art ; 
 Sang of love and lips love-laden 
 
 With the honey of the heart. 
 But the warsong's frantic music, 
 
 And the deathsong's roundelay, 
 And the lovesong's rude cantata, 
 
 Westward, westward die away. 
 
 These will with the red tribes perish ; 
 For their language leaves nor scroll 
 
 Nor tradition writ, to cherish 
 Such immortalness of soul. 
 
 So, the names that they have given 
 To the chai'ms of Nature here — 
 
 Stream, cascade, lake, hill, and valley- 
 Let us fervently revei'e. 
 
 For, though civil life effaces 
 All else they have gloried in, 
 
 Yet this poetry of places 
 Will remind us they have been : 
 
MINNEHAHA. 12^ 
 
 Therefore, white man, pioneering 
 Far and farther in the west. 
 
 Let the Indian names be sacred, 
 Tlioiif»;h thou ravao:e all the rest. 
 
 Call not cataracted rapid 
 
 That has leaped its way and riven, 
 By his own name, curt and vapid. 
 
 That some Saxon boor has given ! 
 But let Nature keep her titles ! 
 
 Let her name the quick cascade 
 Minnehaha — Laughing Water — 
 
 In the language she has made ! 
 
 Minnehaha ! how it gushes 
 
 Like a flow of laughter out ! 
 Minnehaha ! how it rushes 
 
 Downward with a gleeful shout ! 
 Minnehaha ! to the echoes — 
 
 Minnehaha ! back the same — 
 Minnehaha! Minnehaha! 
 
 Live forever that sweet name ! 
 
A SONG FOE THE CKATS. 
 
 Theke is hope on the banks of the Danube, 
 
 There is hope in the grand tintamar 
 Of cannon, and music, and clangor, 
 
 Where Sultan encounters with Czar ; 
 There is hope where the sway of the Tartar 
 
 Is swept down the bloody Hoang ; 
 There is hope for the Isles of the Morning 
 
 In Liberty's bugle twang : 
 Down, down with the Autocrat ! 
 Hurra for the Democrat ! 
 
 Is Liberty's bugle twang. 
 
A SONG FOR THE ORATS. 125 
 
 Tbe blood that has flowed from old heroes, 
 
 And settled in Lord, Prince, or Don, 
 Shall find the true level of manhood. 
 
 As the current of Freedom rolls on ; 
 For the world is aweary of nobles. 
 
 Who groan when the people rejoice, 
 Rejoice at the groans of the people, 
 
 And shudder at Liberty's voice : 
 Down, down with th' Aristocrat! 
 Hurra for the Democrat ! 
 
 Is Liberty's righteous voice. 
 
 Yet it were but a change of oppressors, 
 
 To fly from the Blood to the Burse — 
 From th' Aristocrat's power of birthright. 
 
 To the Aurocrat's power of purse ; 
 But all, they must all be down stricken I 
 
 The thunder is in the sky ; 
 It waits but for Truth's invocation, 
 
 It waits but for Liberty's cry: 
 Down, down with the Aurocrat! 
 Hurra for the Democrat ! 
 
 And this shall be Liberty's cry. 
 
126 A SONG FOR THE CRATS, 
 
 The Autocmt ruslics to rain, 
 
 Til' Aristocrat waxes old ; 
 And thought, in Democracy's balance, 
 
 Shall weigh down the Aurocrat's gold. 
 From the turmoil of thick revolutions, 
 
 Mobocracy's cliaos of wrong, 
 A fau' world of order is forming, 
 
 Tliat shall unto Freedom belong: 
 Down, down with the Mobocrat! 
 llm-ra for the Democrat ! 
 
 And the world shall to Freedom belong. 
 
 May, 1852. 
 
LEGEND OF THE ALABAMA 
 
 Let me tell thee, Love, a legend 
 Of a stream whose waters roll 
 
 Toward the Aiden of the Indian, 
 Southwest Countiy of the Soul. 
 
 It is said that in the language 
 Which the Manitou loved best, 
 
 Was the meaning of the sweet word 
 Alabama, here we rest. 
 
 Well, abng the Shenandoah, 
 
 Where the ripples run like rhyme, 
 
 Lived a tribe that spoke this language, 
 In the dimly distant time. 
 
128 LEGEND OF THE ALABAMA. 
 
 It was moons and moons unnumbered 
 Ere the Spanish Christian men 
 
 Had come sailing from the sun^-ise ; 
 And Wahleeyah reigned here then. 
 
 And Wahleeyah was a sachem 
 With a forehead like the dawn ; 
 
 Keen his dark eye as the eagle's, 
 Yet as mild as of the fawn. 
 
 He had never scalped a foeman, 
 Never widowed loving squaw ; 
 
 But his great soul was a glory, 
 And his gentle word was law. 
 
 He had talked with the Great Spirit, 
 On the far blue hills above, 
 
 Teaching thence his tribe, that better 
 Than to slay, it is to love. 
 
 So they smoked the sacred peacepipe, 
 Smoked with all the tribes around : 
 
 Long the tomahawk was buried. 
 In their happy hunting-ground. 
 
LEGEND OF THE. ALABAMA. 129 
 
 Peaceful lived they as the spirits 
 
 Of the hunters in the sky ; 
 Till one midnight, from the north land, 
 
 Came a clan with hideous cry. 
 
 Yells went up along the hillside, 
 
 Yells went clamoring through the vale ; 
 
 All the wilderness was horror 
 With the wild whoop and the wail. 
 
 Piling up between the fierce foe 
 
 And his kindred, heaps of dead, 
 Eeeked the right hand of Wahleeyah 
 
 First that night with slaughter red. 
 
 Brave he fought for love and freedom, 
 
 Till, at rise of morning star. 
 On the free hills were his loved ones, 
 
 From their fathers' graves afar. 
 
 Where the golden threads of sunlight 
 
 Were inwoven through the leaves, 
 Of the harvest hot of battle 
 
 Lay the reaped, ungathered sheaves. 
 
130 LEGEND OF THE ALABAMA. 
 
 But Wahleeyah, on that mornirig, 
 With the rescued of his band, 
 
 Sought the sweet Southwest, aspiring 
 There to find the Spirit Land. 
 
 For his soul was sick of bloodshed, 
 And he hoped to find a rest 
 
 From the warwhoop and the deathyell, 
 In the green groves of the blest. 
 
 Many a time they fixed their wigwams. 
 Fondly deeming they had found 
 
 That hoped happy land of spirits, 
 The celestial hunting-ground. 
 
 But some clan would come, and drive them 
 From their pleasant place away ; 
 
 When again they journeyed onward, 
 Wellnigh weary of the day. 
 
 When the last, consumptive blushes 
 Glowed upon the summer's cheek, 
 
 Came they where the grand magnolia 
 Skyward reared its snowy poak. 
 
LEGEND OF THE ALABAMA. IQ± 
 
 Spicy airs among the cypress 
 
 Whispered soft, mysterious words, 
 And as ghosts of earthly son'ows 
 
 Seemed the beautiful, bright birds. 
 
 All along the hazy valley 
 
 Lay the formless sprite of dreams, 
 And the golden ghost of sunlight 
 
 Flashed upon the spirit streams. 
 
 They had found it! they had found it! 
 
 Found the Country of the Soul ! 
 Eeached the river whose clear waters 
 
 Through that forest heaven roll ! 
 
 Rushed they to this limpid river, 
 
 Fancied river of the blest, 
 And the chieftain cried, in transport, 
 
 Alabama ! — here we kest. 
 
 So this nver, from the language 
 
 Which the Manitou loved best. 
 Took the name of Alabama — 
 
 Alabama, here we rest. 
 
WKESTLING. 
 
 In sooth, it is not worth to live, 
 This petty i-ound of mine I 
 
 My soul is frantically drunk > 
 With strong Ambition's wine, 
 
 Yet ever and forever sunk 
 In Need's low, snaky twine. 
 
 Anon it \^Tenches off the coils 
 
 Witli a most maniac might, 
 And leaps up toward the stars that sliine 
 
 In life''s mysterious night — 
 To fiill back in a tiglrtor twine, 
 
 And in a fiercer fight I 
 
WRESTLING. 
 
 Give way I give way ! I must go up 1 
 
 'Tis death to linger hero I 
 My straugliug spirit must have air! 
 
 Air of an other sphere ! — 
 Ah I Hope is dead, young Hope the fair, 
 
 And I chained to her bier. 
 
 I am as in a gloomy vale ; 
 
 I see the summits dim 
 Of Glory's mountains, like the dreams 
 
 That Mab's fine fingers limn ; 
 But I am islanded by streams 
 
 Too cold and wide to swim! 
 
EEMINISCENCES. 
 
 I FEEL the clear brook of boyhood 
 
 Flow into my soul tonight, 
 And Memory Hashes her pinions, 
 
 Like a bird, in tlie waters bright. 
 
 1 stand by the lake Keeuka, 
 
 Where we ran from school to swim ;- 
 Hah ! there is the blind old fisher ! 
 
 Kight well I remember hun. 
 
 All day, with his skifi" at anchor 
 Far out on the limpid blue. 
 
 He trolled for the beautiful salmon, 
 Till he felt the tail of the dew. 
 
RP]MIN1SCENCES. 135 
 
 Then the lake-blue eyes of Minnie 
 Would watch till he rowed ashore: 
 
 Oh ! the wonderful eyes of his Minnie 
 The fisher might see no more. 
 
 In the green witch-hazel bushes 
 
 We lurked till the school let out, 
 Then joined with the whooping children, 
 
 And boldly ran home with a shout. 
 
 How we pillaged the nest of the blackbird. 
 
 Where the flaggy forest grew ! 
 And pilfered the eggs of the robin. 
 
 So round and so temptingly blue ! 
 
 In the balmy eves of the summer. 
 When the au* floated full of the moon, 
 
 We played on the green of the common, 
 Till the night rounded up to the noon. 
 
 And nights when the white snow of winter 
 
 Like a frozen moonlight lay, 
 Down the slippery steep of the hillside 
 
 We skimmed on the dizzy sleigh. 
 
186 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 The brother who mated my spirit 
 In the rush of its morning flow, 
 
 Grew up with me into manhood — 
 But now he lies under the snow ! 
 
 Oh ! the winds of night are crying, 
 Like women when they weep ! 
 
 Let me fly away from my sorrow, 
 And be a glad boy in my sleep I 
 
THE LAND KEDEEMED. 
 
 Not always shall this sacred earth 
 
 Be at the nabob's nod ; 
 The land shall be redeemed at last, 
 
 And rendered back to God : 
 Then each shall of the acres hold 
 
 Enough to make him free ; 
 
 None shall usurp more than his need, 
 
 And none shall landless be. 
 12 
 
135 THE LAND REDEEMED. 
 
 The system of old feudal wrong, 
 
 That makes the people pay 
 For room to live upon the earth, 
 
 Fades even now away : 
 Erelong the landlord shall become 
 
 A laughter and a scoff, 
 As swells the tide of human rights 
 
 To sweep his landmarks off. 
 
 For man perceives the truth at last — 
 
 Long faded in the dim — 
 That record, scroll, nor parchment writ 
 
 Can take the earth from him ; 
 That Nature makes a title deed 
 
 To each one for his time 
 In his own want, and who takes more. 
 
 He perpetrates a crime. 
 
 This simple truth shall turn the cheek 
 
 Of pale Starvation red, 
 As over old ancestral parks 
 
 The pauper's sheaves are spread ; 
 
THE LAND REDEEMED. 139 
 
 This truth shall put the gewgaws all 
 
 Of kingcraft under ban, 
 And man shall meet his fellow on 
 
 The common platform, man. 
 
 Then prince and peasant, side by side, 
 
 Shall gladsome toilers be. 
 And grades go down the flood of right. 
 
 As dead wood to the sea ; 
 For when each has his human right 
 
 Of home upon the soil. 
 All shall be Princes of the Soul, 
 
 Ennobled by their toil. 
 
 Philosophy shall then sublime 
 
 Each heart to pure desire, 
 Beginning with the little child 
 
 Beside the winter fire ; 
 Religion true shall hover round 
 
 On starry summer eves. 
 And Song transport the happy homes, 
 
 Rural among the leaves. 
 
140 THE LAND REDEEMED. 
 
 Glad time of eartli's beatitude! 
 
 When none shall hoard or steal, 
 But all mankind together work 
 
 For universal weal — 
 The warlike and the evil yield 
 
 To peaceful and to good, 
 And nations all take hold of hands 
 
 In loving sisterhood. 
 
LITTLE FANNY. 
 
 Of home's boyish blisses 
 Heart-echoed for^ye, 
 
 Were prattles and kisses 
 That Death stole away. 
 
 Oh ! Death has no pity I 
 He took, while he smiled, 
 
 Took Fanny, the pretty. 
 The fond little child. 
 
 From mother-love duty, 
 From father-love pride, 
 
 He lured the young beauty. 
 To make her his bride. 
 
142 LITTLE FANNY 
 
 Her hair was a cluster 
 Of glooms and of gleams, 
 
 And her eyes had the luster 
 That stars have in dreams. 
 
 The busiest rover 
 That buzzes and sips, 
 
 Never found honeyed clover 
 Like Fanny's red lips. 
 
 Her cheeks were ripe peaches, 
 Her voice was a bird's. 
 
 Making sweet little speeches 
 Without any words. 
 
 And she was love's very 
 
 Ideal of love ; 
 Not moody, not merry, 
 
 But mild, like a dove. 
 
 So near the sweet lisper 
 
 To heaven did keep. 
 That angels could whisper 
 
 To her in her sleep. 
 
LITTLE FAKJS'Y. ^ 143 
 
 Too near 1 for her smiling 
 
 In dreams as she lay, 
 Showed they were beguiling 
 
 Her spirit away. 
 
 And once, as the peaches 
 
 Grew flush with the sun, 
 The heavenward reaches 
 
 Of her life were done. 
 
 Above the stars' glister, 
 
 Above the sky blue, 
 With our little sister 
 
 The death-angel flew. 
 
 Oh ! then tears of sadness 
 
 From fond ones were wrung ! 
 O ! then songs of gladness 
 
 By seraphs were sung! 
 
 Oh ! then home was lonely ! 
 
 For at the hearth, where 
 She had chirruped, now only 
 
 The cricket chirped there. 
 
144 littlp: fanny. 
 
 All litb's othor blisses 
 Caa novor repay 
 
 Those prattles and kisses 
 Which Death stole away. 
 
TO ELIZA LOGAN. 
 
 Thou art the Vestal of the sacred fire 
 
 Which, flaming on the altar of the soul, 
 
 While truth and virtue live, shall ne'er expire; 
 
 And ever in the sacerdotal stole 
 
 Of awful purity, thou movest through 
 
 The inner temple of emotions pure, 
 
 And, like a Sibyl, so expressest true 
 
 The spirit's mysteries, that we are sure 
 
 Thou hast drank inspu-ation at the fount 
 
 Castalian of the genius-Helicon. 
 
 Nymph histrionic of Parnassus mount ! 
 
 Apollo twined a wreath of thought upon 
 13 
 
146 '^0 ELIZA loga:n\ 
 
 Thy sad, imploring brow, and sent thee down 
 
 To live his glory forth ; and, like a song 
 
 Of love, sung with the gush of tears, to drown 
 
 The soul in passion's sea, thy pathos strong 
 
 Along the heartchords sweeps, and wakes a tone 
 
 Whose echoes haunt us in the after days, 
 
 Like memories of that love whose spell has thrown, 
 
 In youth, around the life its mellow rays. 
 
 Who sees, must love thee ; for thine earnest eyes 
 
 Two gushing sighs expressed to vision, seem ; 
 
 Thy brows, Aonian eagles in the skies ; — 
 
 Bright Incarnation of our raptest dream 
 
 Of Poesy and Passion ! all that hear 
 
 Thy sweet-tongued inspiration — Sapphic tones 
 
 Which voice the heartthrobs — give to thee the tear. 
 
 As night gives dew when breeze-stirred blossom moans. 
 
 Thou art a living poem, learned by heart 
 
 For worth of sentiment and wealth of rhyme ; 
 
 And — ^like it, though forgotten be its art — 
 
 Thou hast swept chords to vibrate for all time. 
 
THE SPIKIT'S EESPONSE 
 
 Beight Spirit supernal, 
 Oh ! say, canst thou know, 
 
 In thy home eternal,' 
 The sad mortal's wo? 
 
 Canst visit, fraternal, 
 Thy brother below? 
 
 Not a thought, not an emotion, 
 
 Not a tear, and not a sigh 
 Stirs the boundless sea of spirit, 
 
 But it ripples to the sky ; 
 And the gurgling of those ripples 
 
 On the empyrean strand, 
 Is a telephonic language. 
 
 Which we angels understand. 
 
148 THE SPIRIT'S RESPONSE. 
 
 Fleeter than the wings of fancy, 
 
 Silent as the steps of night, 
 We, the viewless souls of heaven, 
 
 Fly the maze of planets bright ; 
 Visit Earth and flashing Yenus, 
 
 Visit Jupiter and Mars, 
 Visit aU the grand creations. 
 
 All the universe of stars. 
 
 Most we visit mortal kindred — 
 
 Those who think of us with death, 
 With the flutter of the pulses, 
 
 And the rattle of the breath — 
 And impalpable to senses 
 
 Of the dwellers on the spheres. 
 With their souls we hold communion, 
 
 Sitting by the fount of tears. 
 
 In the rain of weeping sorrow 
 We with mortals love to stay ; 
 
 For we know that every teardrop 
 Washes some dark sin away ; 
 
THE SPIRIT'S RESPONSE. 149 
 
 And we know, too, that hope's rainbow 
 
 Comes and sits upon the cloud, 
 And that heaven looks the brighter 
 
 After grief-storm wild and loud. 
 
 Brother, never thou awakest 
 
 From a dream of me to weep, 
 Never, shutting eyelids tearful, 
 
 Sinkest to a sighing sleep, 
 But our little seraph sister. 
 
 With her wings and waving hair, 
 And her bright-eyed cherub brother, 
 
 And myself, are with thee there. 
 
 Thou art sadder, but art better. 
 
 Since death parted thee and me ; 
 For, in stead of two to watch thee, 
 
 Now, my brother, thou hast three : 
 Every thought of us, that raises 
 
 In thy heart the tearful leaven, 
 Charms a triad of blest angels — 
 
 Thou art so much nearer heaven ! 
 
LOYE. 
 
 Feom the cradled lull by the hearthstone, 
 To the coffined lull in the clod, 
 
 O ! is it for man to be happy 
 Hither side of the City of God? 
 
 Though gold has the glittering promise, 
 
 And we seek it far and near. 
 Not gold from the streets of Heaven 
 
 Could pave a paradise here. 
 
LOVE. 151 
 
 And fame, that to young ambition 
 
 Has a voice of thundering roll, 
 Sends a bolt with its flash of glory — 
 
 Where it strikes, it blasts the soul. 
 
 All the joys of this dark existence 
 
 Keep fading, one by one, 
 Before the approaching death-dawn, 
 
 As the stars before the sun. 
 
 O ! is there for man no pleasure 
 
 That will bloom forever here. 
 And, transplanted to Eden, flourish 
 
 In that celestial sphere? 
 
 Yes, love ! that gives to the spirit 
 
 Wings fluttering to aspire ; 
 Love, that makes our human heartstrings 
 
 The chords of an angel's lyre. 
 
 Yes, love ! that skies the summer bluer, 
 And paints the leaves more green ; 
 
 That knows what the wild bees whisper, 
 And feels what the bird-songs mean. 
 
152 LOVE. 
 
 Yes, love ! that weaves wings of the blossoms, 
 
 To winnow the fragrant au* ; 
 That wraps in a white-cloud mantle. 
 
 And climbs the cerulean staii'. 
 
 Love is always, always climbing ; 
 
 It belongs in heaven above : 
 O ! our souls are linked to the angels 
 
 In every kiss of love! 
 
SCOTTISH SONG. 
 
 TO TOM STANTOlf. 
 
 Here's a han' wi' you, my crony; 
 
 Here's a heart wi' you for aye ; 
 O' guid friends the best of ony 
 
 Hae ye been for mony a day. 
 
 When misfortune's frost sae chilly 
 Withered youthfu' hopes in bloom, 
 
 Of a' men, ye was the billy 
 Gied the luckless bardie room. 
 
154 SCOTTISH SONG. 
 
 Ye it was that spak' me kindl}^, 
 Ye that flung the han' to me, 
 
 When the warl folk leered half blindly, 
 Squinting wi' wealth's dazzled e'e. 
 
 Mony a time syne then thegither 
 Hae we spent in social glee, 
 
 Till our hearts hae grown to ither, 
 An' na moe can severed be. 
 
 When the moon hae blinked at gloamin. 
 An' the sheen stars glinted bright, 
 
 Arm in arm linked, tentless roamin'. 
 Oft in crack we've whiled the night. 
 
 All along back memory's vista 
 
 Through life's wilderness, the trees 
 
 Stir their leaves an' blossoms, kist a' 
 By thy friendship's genial breeze. 
 
 Here's a han' wi' you, my crony, 
 Here's a heart wi' you for aye ; 
 
 O' guid friends the best of ony 
 Hae ye been for mony a day. 
 
TO OTWAY CUKRY. 
 
 Srrs in the dell the sad Muse sobbing — 
 Fond sweetheart of those ardent days 
 
 When thy young bosom thrilled athrobbing 
 With her divinely whispered lays. 
 
 Lovelorn she sits and brokenhearted ; 
 
 For thou, who whileome wooed her, now 
 Hast left her pining passion-thwarted 
 
 Beneath the mournful willow bough. 
 
 There hangs thy harp, whereon she gazes, 
 As listening to thy luscious chimes : 
 
 Its cunning chords the weird wind grazes, 
 And faints away in rapturous rhymes. 
 
156 TO OTWAY CURRY. 
 
 Yet these flow not with thy flush spirit — 
 She dreams them thine, not long, not long 
 
 The wind plays on — she does not hear it — 
 Her heart aches for thy zeal of song. 
 
 Her pining heart aches — ^false one ! ask her 
 Forgiveness for that heart betrayed ; 
 
 O ! be no more this moody masker 
 Of soul amid life's cold parade. 
 
 The Muse's heart aches for thy passion, 
 The flame with which thy youth did woo ; 
 
 Turn to the pensive Maid Parnassian, 
 And love her as thou wont to do. 
 
 Wed her, and sing us the spousals, 
 Sing us the songs of thy soul ! 
 
 Poesy's maudlin carousals 
 Quell by thy sober control ! 
 
 Once while the year is semental, 
 Cuckoos come fluting their lay : 
 
 Cuckoo of Song Occidental, 
 Charm us even often as they ! 
 
ON AN INDIAN'S GKAVE. 
 
 The sunset blushes of the Occident 
 
 Glow faint and fainter, and as Twilight waves 
 Her wizard wand athwart the firmament, 
 
 The quick stars spring from their cerulean graves 
 
 In pale shrouds, doubled in yon brook that laves, 
 With prattling lapse, the foot of this old mound. 
 
 Where sleeps perchance, a thousand Indian braves— 
 Their monuments these ancient trees around. 
 Whose leafy meshes sift the moonbeams on the ground. 
 
158 ON AN INDIAN'S GRAVE. 
 
 This grave, from which the white man has exhumed 
 
 Some bones of mortal buried long ago, 
 Mayhap was scooped here ere had Science plumed 
 
 His starry wings to pass old ocean's flow. 
 
 But whose the skeleton, no one may know 
 Again on earth ; for now remains there naught 
 
 Of deed recorded or of name to show 
 That such a one e'er in life's battle fought, 
 Or groveled infamous, or deathless honors sought. 
 
 Conjecture, threading through the darkling path 
 Of dead years, may behold him walk the chief 
 
 Of savage warriors, in his wild-eyed wrath 
 Wielding the tomahawk with vengeance brief. 
 Or eking out his tortured prisoner's grief. 
 
 While round the death-fire dance his frenzied rout 
 Of tattooed clansmen, shivering every leaf 
 
 Of these old trees with their demoniac shout 
 
 Of horrid glee to see the victim's life go out. 
 
ON AN INDIAN'S GRAVE. 159 
 
 A hissing flame-tongue from the nether hell 
 Is this revenge, which, licking up the tears 
 
 Of pity at the fount from which they well, 
 
 All love's flush from the spring of passion sears, 
 And through the tender heartstrings shriveling veers 
 
 The direst fury in the human breast. 
 
 It flourishes through aU the savage years, 
 
 Fatting on ignorance ; yet oft is dressed. 
 
 Among the civilized, in Glory's martial vest. 
 
 But Fancy Hmns him not in scenes alone 
 
 Of barbarous vengeance ; — round the council fire 
 
 The sagamores are gathered ; in the tone 
 Which Nature's savage passions aye inspire, 
 Stern, iron words he utters, which acquire 
 
 Strange force of meaning from his gestures strong, 
 As thunders from the leap of lightnings dire : 
 
 Beneath yon tree, whence that cicada's song 
 
 Comes hoarsely, haply he harangued the gloomy throng. 
 
160 ON AN INDIAN'S GRAVE. 
 
 Strange are the changes, chieftain, (if such thou,) 
 
 That time has wrought here since then ; strange the scene 
 Would meet thy vision, were it quickened now : 
 
 Where yonder cornfields wave their streamers green, 
 
 Which rustle softly in the breath of e'en, 
 Tall forest trees locked arms above thee ; where 
 
 That closure limits, crooked as the mean 
 System that made it, earth spread free as air. 
 And thou and thy red hunters chased the wild deer there. 
 
 Then, too, rude wigwams squatted here and there 
 In leafy twilight, and the forest maid, 
 
 Of black bewildering eye and streaming hair. 
 Poured her wild lovesong in the viny shade, 
 While at her feet the checkered moonshine played : 
 
 Now yonder cluster thick the village homes 
 Of men enlightened, and there in the glade 
 
 Stand villas, whence the blue-eyed maiden comes. 
 
 And with her pale-faced lover here at evening roams. 
 
ON AN INDIAN'S GRAV.E. U\l 
 
 Like as the red cloud-glories of the dawn, 
 That flaunt the orient before the sun, 
 
 In his uprising are consumed and gone. 
 So faded these wild races, one by one. 
 In civilization's morn, till now are none 
 
 Even to guard the graves left here ; the hand 
 Of Christian white man ruthlessly has done 
 
 Away their sacredness ; and now we stand. 
 
 And muse of human bones uncovered in the sand. 
 
 O what a wonder is this human life ! 
 
 O what a wonder man ! He lives his time. 
 His little hour, in passion's, glory's strife ; — 
 
 The grave ingulfs him ; — from some other clime 
 
 Bards come and spin the melancholy rhyme 
 Over his noteless bones. Such is the lot, 
 
 Alas ! of aU : however loud the chime 
 
 Of funeral bells when we He down to rot. 
 
 Our graves are leveled soon, and we on earth forgot. 
 14