MONUMENT MOUNTAIN.
And guilt, and sorrow. I am sick of life. All night I weep in darkness, and the morn Glares on me, as upon a thing accursed, That has no business on the earth. I hate The pastimes and the pleasant toils that once I loved; the cheerful voices of my friends Have an unnatural horror in mine ear.
In dreams my mother, from the land of souls, Calls me and chides me. All that look on me Do seem to know my shame; I cannot bear Their eyes; I cannot from my heart root out The love that wrings it so, and I must die.
It was a Summer morning, and they went To this old precipice. About the cliffs Lay garlands, ears of maize, and shaggy skins Of wolf and bear, the offerings of the tribe Here made to the Great Spirit, for they deemed, Like worshippers of the elder time, that God Doth walk on the high places and affect The earth-o'erlooking mountains.
The ornaments with which her father loved
To deck the beauty of his bright-eyed girl, And bade her wear when stranger warriors came To be his guests. Here the friends sat them down, And sang, all day, old songs of love and death, And decked the poor wan victim's hair with flowers, And prayed that safe and swift might be her way To the calm world of sunshine, where no grief Makes the heart heavy and the eyelids red.
Beautiful lay the region of her tribe
Below her-waters resting in the embrace Of the wide forest, and maize-planted glades Opening amid the leafy wilderness.
She gazed upon it long, and at the sight Of her own village peeping through the trees, And her own dwelling, and the cabin roof Of him she loved with an unlawful love, And came to die for, a warm gush of tears Ran from her eyes. But when the sun grew low
And the hill shadows long, she threw herself
From the steep rock and perished. There was scooped, Upon the mountain's southern slope, a grave; And there they laid her, in the very garb
With which the maiden decked herself for death, With the same withering wild flowers in her hair. And o'er the mould that covered her, the tribe Built up a simple monument, a cone
Of small loose stones. Thenceforward, all who passed, Hunter, and dame, and virgin, laid a stone In silence on the pile. It stands there yet. And Indians from the distant West, who come To visit where their fathers' bones are laid, Yet tell the sorrowful tale, and to this day The mountain where the hapless maiden died Is called the Mountain of the Monument.
WHEN spring, to woods and wastes around,
Brought bloom and joy again,
The murdered traveller's bones were found, Far down a narrow glen.
The fragrant birch, above him, hung
Her tassels in the sky;
And many a vernal blossom sprung,
And nodded careless by.
The red-bird warbled, as he wrought His hanging nest o'erhead, And fearless, near the fatal spot, Her young the partridge led.
But there was weeping far away, And gentle eyes, for him,
With watching many an anxious day,
Were sorrowful and dim.
They little knew, who loved him so, The fearful death he met,
When shouting o'er the desert snow, Unarmed, and hard beset ;-
Nor how, when round the frosty pole
The northern dawn was red,
The mountain wolf and wild-cat stole To banquet on the dead ;-
Nor how, when strangers found his bones, They dressed the hasty bier,
And marked his grave with nameless stones, Unmoistened by a tear.
But long they looked, and feared, and wept, Within his distant home;
And dreamed, and started as they slept, For joy that he was come.
So long they looked--but never spied His welcome step again,
Nor knew the fearful death he died
Far down that narrow glen.
SONG OF THE GREEK AMAZON.
I BUCKLE to my slender side The pistol and the cimater,
And in my maiden flower and pride Am come to share the tasks of war. And yonder stands my fiery steed,
That paws the ground and neighs to go, My charger of the Arab breed,—
I took him from the routed foe.
My mirror is the mountain spring,
At which I dress my ruffled hair; My dimmed and dusty arms I bring, And wash away the blood-stain there. Why should I guard, from wind and sun, This cheek, whose virgin rose is fled?
It was for one-oh, only one- I kept its bloom, and he is dead.
But they who slew him-unaware
Of coward murderers lurking nigh—
And left him to the fowls of air,
Are yet alive-and they must die.
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