The old man stroked the fair head that rested onhis knee;"Your words, dear child," he answered, "are God'srebuke to me.
"Creed and rite perchance may differ, yet our faith and hope be one. Let me be your father's father, let him be to me a son."
When the horn, on Sabbath morning, through the still and frosty air, From Spurwink, Pool, and Black Point, called to sermon and to prayer,
To the goodly house of worship, where, in orderdue and fit,As by public vote directed, classed and ranked thepeople sit;
Mistress first and goodwife after, clerkly squirebefore the clown,"From the brave coat, lace-embroidered, to the grayfrock, shading down;"
From the pulpit read the preacher, "GoodmanGarvin and his wifeFain would thank the Lord, whose kindness hasfollowed them through life,
"For the great and crowning mercy, that their daughter, from the wild, Where she rests (they hope in God's peace), has sent to them her child;
"And the prayers of all God's people they ask, that they may prove Not unworthy, through their weakness, of such special proof of love."
As the preacher prayed, uprising, the aged couplestood,And the fair Canadian also, in her modest maiden-hood.
Thought the elders, grave and doubting, "She isPapist born and bred;"Thought the young men, "'T is an angel in MaryGarvin's stead!"
Originally published as Martha Mason; a Song of the OldFrench War.
ROBERT RAWLIN!—Frosts were fallingWhen the ranger's horn was callingThrough the woods to Canada.
Gone the winter's sleet and snowing,Gone the spring-time's bud and blowing,Gone the summer's harvest mowing,And again the fields are gray.Yet away, he's away!Faint and fainter hope is growingIn the hearts that mourn his stay.
Where the lion, crouching high onAbraham's rock with teeth of iron,Glares o'er wood and wave away,Faintly thence, as pines far sighing,Or as thunder spent and dying,Come the challenge and replying,Come the sounds of flight and fray.Well-a-day! Hope and pray!Some are living, some are lyingIn their red graves far away.
Straggling rangers, worn with dangers,Homeward faring, weary strangersPass the farm-gate on their way;Tidings of the dead and living,Forest march and ambush, giving,Till the maidens leave their weaving,And the lads forget their play."Still away, still away!"Sighs a sad one, sick with grieving,"Why does Robert still delay!"
Nowhere fairer, sweeter, rarer,Does the golden-locked fruit bearerThrough his painted woodlands stray,Than where hillside oaks and beechesOverlook the long, blue reaches,Silver coves and pebbled beaches,And green isles of Casco Bay;Nowhere day, for delay,With a tenderer look beseeches,"Let me with my charmed earth stay."
On the grain-lands of the mainlandsStands the serried corn like train-bands,Plume and pennon rustling gay;Out at sea, the islands wooded,Silver birches, golden-hooded,Set with maples, crimson-blooded,White sea-foam and sand-hills gray,Stretch away, far away.Dim and dreamy, over-broodedBy the hazy autumn day.
Gayly chattering to the clatteringOf the brown nuts downward pattering,Leap the squirrels, red and gray.On the grass-land, on the fallow,Drop the apples, red and yellow;Drop the russet pears and mellow,Drop the red leaves all the day.And away, swift away,Sun and cloud, o'er hill and hollowChasing, weave their web of play.
"Martha Mason, Martha Mason,Prithee tell us of the reasonWhy you mope at home to-daySurely smiling is not sinning;Leave, your quilling, leave your spinning;What is all your store of linen,If your heart is never gay?Come away, come away!Never yet did sad beginningMake the task of life a play."
Overbending, till she's blendingWith the flaxen skein she's tendingPale brown tresses smoothed awayFrom her face of patient sorrow,Sits she, seeking but to borrow,From the trembling hope of morrow,Solace for the weary day."Go your way, laugh and play;Unto Him who heeds the sparrowAnd the lily, let me pray."
"With our rally, rings the valley,—Join us!" cried the blue-eyed Nelly;"Join us!" cried the laughing May,"To the beach we all are going,And, to save the task of rowing,West by north the wind is blowing,Blowing briskly down the bayCome away, come away!Time and tide are swiftly flowing,Let us take them while we may!
"Never tell us that you'll fail us,Where the purple beach-plum mellowsOn the bluffs so wild and gray.Hasten, for the oars are falling;Hark, our merry mates are calling;Time it is that we were all in,Singing tideward down the bay!""Nay, nay, let me stay;Sore and sad for Robert RawlinIs my heart," she said, "to-day."
"Vain your calling for Rob RawlinSome red squaw his moose-meat's broiling,Or some French lass, singing gay;Just forget as he's forgetting;What avails a life of fretting?If some stars must needs be setting,Others rise as good as they.""Cease, I pray; go your way!"Martha cries, her eyelids wetting;"Foul and false the words you say!"
"Martha Mason, hear to reason!—Prithee, put a kinder face on!""Cease to vex me," did she say;"Better at his side be lying,With the mournful pine-trees sighing,And the wild birds o'er us crying,Than to doubt like mine a prey;While away, far away,Turns my heart, forever tryingSome new hope for each new day.
"When the shadows veil the meadows,And the sunset's golden laddersSink from twilight's walls of gray,—From the window of my dreaming,I can see his sickle gleaming,Cheery-voiced, can hear him teamingDown the locust-shaded way;But away, swift away,Fades the fond, delusive seeming,And I kneel again to pray.
"When the growing dawn is showing,And the barn-yard cock is crowing,And the horned moon pales awayFrom a dream of him awaking,Every sound my heart is makingSeems a footstep of his taking;Then I hush the thought, and say,'Nay, nay, he's away!'Ah! my heart, my heart is breakingFor the dear one far away."
Look up, Martha! worn and swarthy,Glows a face of manhood worthy"Robert!" "Martha!" all they say.O'er went wheel and reel together,Little cared the owner whither;Heart of lead is heart of feather,Noon of night is noon of day!Come away, come away!When such lovers meet each other,Why should prying idlers stay?
Quench the timber's fallen embers,Quench the recd leaves in December'sHoary rime and chilly spray.
But the hearth shall kindle clearer,Household welcomes sound sincerer,Heart to loving heart draw nearer,When the bridal bells shall say:"Hope and pray, trust alway;Life is sweeter, love is dearer,For the trial and delay!"1856.
FROM the hills of home forth looking, far beneaththe tent-like spanOf the sky, I see the white gleam of the headlandof Cape Ann.Well I know its coves and beaches to the ebb-tideglimmering down,And the white-walled hamlet children of its ancientfishing town.
Long has passed the summer morning, and its memory waxes old, When along yon breezy headlands with a pleasant friend I strolled. Ah! the autumn sun is shining, and the ocean wind blows cool, And the golden-rod and aster bloom around thy grave, Rantoul!
With the memory of that morning by the summersea I blendA wild and wondrous story, by the younger Matherpenned,In that quaint Magnalia Christi, with all strangeand marvellous things,Heaped up huge and undigested, like the chaosOvid sings.
Dear to me these far, faint glimpses of the duallife of old,Inward, grand with awe and reverence; outward,mean and coarse and cold;Gleams of mystic beauty playing over dull andvulgar clay,Golden-threaded fancies weaving in a web ofhodden gray.
The great eventful Present hides the Past; butthrough the dinOf its loud life hints and echoes from the lifebehind steal in;And the lore of homeland fireside, and the legendaryrhyme,Make the task of duty lighter which the true manowes his time.
So, with something of the feeling which the Covenanterknew,When with pious chisel wandering Scotland'smoorland graveyards through,From the graves of old traditions I part the black-berry-vines,Wipe the moss from off the headstones, and retouchthe faded lines.
Where the sea-waves back and forward, hoarse with rolling pebbles, ran, The garrison-house stood watching on the gray rocks of Cape Ann; On its windy site uplifting gabled roof and palisade, And rough walls of unhewn timber with the moonlight overlaid.
On his slow round walked the sentry, south and eastward looking forth O'er a rude and broken coast-line, white with breakers stretching north,— Wood and rock and gleaming sand-drift, jagged capes, with bush and tree, Leaning inland from the smiting of the wild and gusty sea.
Before the deep-mouthed chimney, dimly lit bydying brands,Twenty soldiers sat and waited, with their musketsin their hands;On the rough-hewn oaken table the venison haunchwas shared,And the pewter tankard circled slowly round frombeard to beard.
Long they sat and talked together,—talked ofwizards Satan-sold;Of all ghostly sights and noises,—signs and wondersmanifold;Of the spectre-ship of Salem, with the dead menin her shrouds,Sailing sheer above the water, in the loom of morningclouds;
Of the marvellous valley hidden in the depths ofGloucester woods,Full of plants that love the summer,—blooms ofwarmer latitudes;Where the Arctic birch is braided by the tropic'sflowery vines,And the white magnolia-blossoms star the twilightof the pines!
But their voices sank yet lower, sank to huskytones of fear,As they spake of present tokens of the powers ofevil near;Of a spectral host, defying stroke of steel and aimof gun;Never yet was ball to slay them in the mould ofmortals run.
Thrice, with plumes and flowing scalp-locks, from the midnight wood they came,— Thrice around the block-house marching, met, unharmed, its volleyed flame; Then, with mocking laugh and gesture, sunk in earth or lost in air, All the ghostly wonder vanished, and the moonlit sands lay bare.
Midnight came; from out the forest moved a dusky mass that soon Grew to warriors, plumed and painted, grimly marching in the moon. "Ghosts or witches," said the captain, "thus I foil the Evil One!" And he rammed a silver button, from his doublet, down his gun.
Once again the spectral horror moved the guardedwall about;Once again the levelled muskets through the palisadesflashed out,With that deadly aim the squirrel on his tree-topmight not shun,Nor the beach-bird seaward flying with his slantwing to the sun.
Like the idle rain of summer sped the harmlessshower of lead.With a laugh of fierce derision, once again thephantoms fled;Once again, without a shadow on the sands themoonlight lay,And the white smoke curling through it driftedslowly down the bay!
"God preserve us!" said the captain; "nevermortal foes were there;They have vanished with their leader, Prince andPower of the air!Lay aside your useless weapons; skill and prowessnaught avail;They who do the Devil's service wear their master'scoat of mail!"
So the night grew near to cock-crow, when againa warning callRoused the score of weary soldiers watching roundthe dusky hallAnd they looked to flint and priming, and theylonged for break of day;But the captain closed his Bible: "Let us ceasefrom man, and pray!"
To the men who went before us, all the unseen powers seemed near, And their steadfast strength of courage struck its roots in holy fear. Every hand forsook the musket, every head was bowed and bare, Every stout knee pressed the flag-stones, as the captain led in prayer.
Ceased thereat the mystic marching of the spectresround the wall,But a sound abhorred, unearthly, smote the earsand hearts of all,—Howls of rage and shrieks of anguish! Neverafter mortal manSaw the ghostly leaguers marching round theblock-house of Cape Ann.
So to us who walk in summer through the cool andsea-blown town,From the childhood of its people comes the solemnlegend down.Not in vain the ancient fiction, in whose morallives the youthAnd the fitness and the freshness of an undecayingtruth.
Soon or late to all our dwellings come the spectresof the mind,Doubts and fears and dread forebodings, in thedarkness undefined;Round us throng the grim projections of the heartand of the brain,And our pride of strength is weakness, and thecunning hand is vain.
In the dark we cry like children; and no answer from on high Breaks the crystal spheres of silence, and no white wings downward fly; But the heavenly help we pray for comes to faith, and not to sight, And our prayers themselves drive backward all the spirits of the night! 1857.
TRITEMIUS of Herbipolis, one day,While kneeling at the altar's foot to pray,Alone with God, as was his pious choice,Heard from without a miserable voice,A sound which seemed of all sad things to tell,As of a lost soul crying out of hell.
Thereat the Abbot paused; the chain wherebyHis thoughts went upward broken by that cry;And, looking from the casement, saw belowA wretched woman, with gray hair a-flow,And withered hands held up to him, who criedFor alms as one who might not be denied.
She cried, "For the dear love of Him who gaveHis life for ours, my child from bondage save,—My beautiful, brave first-born, chained with slavesIn the Moor's galley, where the sun-smit wavesLap the white walls of Tunis!"—"What I canI give," Tritemius said, "my prayers."—"O manOf God!" she cried, for grief had made her bold,"Mock me not thus; I ask not prayers, but gold.Words will not serve me, alms alone suffice;Even while I speak perchance my first-born dies."
"Woman!" Tritemius answered, "from our doorNone go unfed, hence are we always poor;A single soldo is our only store.Thou hast our prayers;—what can we give theemore?"
"Give me," she said, "the silver candlesticksOn either side of the great crucifix.God well may spare them on His errands sped,Or He can give you golden ones instead."
Then spake Tritemius, "Even as thy word,Woman, so be it! (Our most gracious Lord,Who loveth mercy more than sacrifice,Pardon me if a human soul I prizeAbove the gifts upon his altar piled!Take what thou askest, and redeem thy child."
But his hand trembled as the holy almsHe placed within the beggar's eager palms;And as she vanished down the linden shade,He bowed his head and for forgiveness prayed.So the day passed, and when the twilight cameHe woke to find the chapel all aflame,And, dumb with grateful wonder, to beholdUpon the altar candlesticks of gold!1857.
In the valuable and carefully prepared History of Marblehead, published in 1879 by Samuel Roads, Jr., it is stated that the crew of Captain Ireson, rather than himself, were responsible for the abandonment of the disabled vessel. To screen themselves they charged their captain with the crime. In view of this the writer of the ballad addressed the following letter to the historian:—
OAK KNOLL, DANVERS, 5 mo. 18, 1880. MY DEAR FRIEND: I heartily thank thee for a copy of thy History of Marblehead. I have read it with great interest and think good use has been made of the abundant material. No town in Essex County has a record more honorable than Marblehead; no one has done more to develop the industrial interests of our New England seaboard, and certainly none have given such evidence of self-sacrificing patriotism. I am glad the story of it has been at last told, and told so well. I have now no doubt that thy version of Skipper Ireson's ride is the correct one. My verse was founded solely on a fragment of rhyme which I heard from one of my early schoolmates, a native of Marblehead. I supposed the story to which it referred dated back at least a century. I knew nothing of the participators, and the narrative of the ballad was pure fancy. I am glad for the sake of truth and justice that the real facts are given in thy book. I certainly would not knowingly do injustice to any one, dead or living.
I am very truly thy friend,JOHN G. WHITTIER.
OF all the rides since, the birth of time,Told in story or sung in rhyme,—On Apuleius's Golden Ass,Or one-eyed Calendar's horse of brass;Witch astride of a human back,Islam's prophet on Al-Borak,—The strangest ride that ever was spedWas Ireson's, out from Marblehead!Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart,Tarred and feathered and carried in a cartBy the women of Marblehead!Body of turkey, head of owl,Wings a-droop like a rained-on fowl,Feathered and ruffled in every part,Skipper Ireson stood in the cart.Scores of women, old and young,Strong of muscle, and glib of tongue,Pushed and pulled up the rocky lane,Shouting and singing the shrill refrain"Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt,Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrtBy the women o' Morble'ead!"
Wrinkled scolds with hands on hips,Girls in bloom of cheek and lips,Wild-eyed, free-limbed, such as chaseBacchus round some antique vase,Brief of skirt, with ankles bare,Loose of kerchief and loose of hair,With conch-shells blowing and fish-horns' twang,Over and over the Manads sang"Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt,Torr'd an' futherr'd an dorr'd in a corrtBy the women o' Morble'ead!"
Small pity for him!—He sailed awayFrom a leaking ship, in Chaleur Bay,—Sailed away from a sinking wreck,With his own town's-people on her deck!"Lay by! lay by!" they called to him.Back he answered, "Sink or swim!Brag of your catch of fish again!"And off he sailed through the fog and rain!Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart,Tarred and feathered and carried in a cartBy the women of Marblehead!
Fathoms deep in dark ChaleurThat wreck shall lie forevermore.Mother and sister, wife and maid,Looked from the rocks of MarbleheadOver the moaning and rainy sea,—Looked for the coming that might not be!What did the winds and the sea-birds sayOf the cruel captain who sailed away?—Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart,Tarred and feathered and carried in a cartBy the women of Marblehead!
Through the street, on either side,Up flew windows, doors swung wide;Sharp-tongued spinsters, old wives gray,Treble lent the fish-horn's bray.Sea-worn grandsires, cripple-bound,Hulks of old sailors run aground,Shook head, and fist, and hat, and cane,And cracked with curses the hoarse refrain"Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt,Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrtBy the women o''Morble'ead!"
Sweetly along the Salem roadBloom of orchard and lilac showed.Little the wicked skipper knewOf the fields so green and the sky so blue.Riding there in his sorry trim,Like to Indian idol glum and grim,Scarcely he seemed the sound to hearOf voices shouting, far and near"Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt,Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrtBy the women o' Morble'ead!"
"Hear me, neighbors!" at last he cried,—"What to me is this noisy ride?What is the shame that clothes the skinTo the nameless horror that lives within?Waking or sleeping, I see a wreck,And hear a cry from a reeling deck!Hate me and curse me,—I only dreadThe hand of God and the face of the dead!"Said old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart,Tarred and feathered and carried in a cartBy the women of Marblehead!
Then the wife of the skipper lost at seaSaid, "God has touched him! why should we?"Said an old wife mourning her only son,"Cut the rogue's tether and let him run!"So with soft relentings and rude excuse,Half scorn, half pity, they cut him loose,And gave him a cloak to hide him in,And left him alone with his shame and sin.Poor Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart,Tarred and feathered and carried in a cartBy the women of Marblehead!1857.
Hugh Tallant was the first Irish resident of Haverhill, Mass. He planted the button-wood trees on the bank of the river below the village in the early part of the seventeenth century. Unfortunately this noble avenue is now nearly destroyed.
IN the outskirts of the village,On the river's winding shores,Stand the Occidental plane-trees,Stand the ancient sycamores.
One long century hath been numbered,And another half-way told,Since the rustic Irish gleemanBroke for them the virgin mould.
Deftly set to Celtic music,At his violin's sound they grew,Through the moonlit eves of summer,Making Amphion's fable true.
Rise again, then poor Hugh TallantPass in jerkin green along,With thy eyes brimful of laughter,And thy mouth as full of song.
Pioneer of Erin's outcasts,With his fiddle and his pack;Little dreamed the village SaxonsOf the myriads at his back.
How he wrought with spade and fiddle,Delved by day and sang by night,With a hand that never wearied,And a heart forever light,—
Still the gay tradition minglesWith a record grave and drear,Like the rollic air of Cluny,With the solemn march of Mear.
When the box-tree, white with blossoms,Made the sweet May woodlands glad,And the Aronia by the riverLighted up the swarming shad,
And the bulging nets swept shoreward,With their silver-sided haul,Midst the shouts of dripping fishers,He was merriest of them all.
When, among the jovial huskers,Love stole in at Labor's side,With the lusty airs of England,Soft his Celtic measures vied.
Songs of love and wailing lyke—wake,And the merry fair's carouse;Of the wild Red Fox of ErinAnd the Woman of Three Cows,
By the blazing hearths of winter,Pleasant seemed his simple tales,Midst the grimmer Yorkshire legendsAnd the mountain myths of Wales.
How the souls in PurgatoryScrambled up from fate forlorn,On St. Eleven's sackcloth ladder,Slyly hitched to Satan's horn.
Of the fiddler who at TaraPlayed all night to ghosts of kings;Of the brown dwarfs, and the fairiesDancing in their moorland rings.
Jolliest of our birds of singing,Best he loved the Bob-o-link."Hush!" he 'd say, "the tipsy fairiesHear the little folks in drink!"
Merry-faced, with spade and fiddle,Singing through the ancient town,Only this, of poor Hugh Tallant,Hath Tradition handed down.
Not a stone his grave discloses;But if yet his spirit walks,'T is beneath the trees he planted,And when Bob-o-Lincoln talks;
Green memorials of the gleeman ILinking still the river-shores,With their shadows cast by sunset,Stand Hugh Tallant's sycamores!
When the Father of his CountryThrough the north-land riding came,And the roofs were starred with banners,And the steeples rang acclaim,—
When each war-scarred Continental,Leaving smithy, mill, and farm,Waved his rusted sword in welcome,And shot off his old king's arm,—
Slowly passed that August PresenceDown the thronged and shouting street;Village girls as white as angels,Scattering flowers around his feet.
Midway, where the plane-tree's shadowDeepest fell, his rein he drewOn his stately head, uncovered,Cool and soft the west-wind blew.
And he stood up in his stirrups,Looking up and looking downOn the hills of Gold and SilverRimming round the little town,—
On the river, full of sunshine,To the lap of greenest valesWinding down from wooded headlands,Willow-skirted, white with sails.
And he said, the landscape sweepingSlowly with his ungloved hand,"I have seen no prospect fairerIn this goodly Eastern land."
Then the bugles of his escortStirred to life the cavalcadeAnd that head, so bare and stately,Vanished down the depths of shade.
Ever since, in town and farm-house,Life has had its ebb and flow;Thrice hath passed the human harvestTo its garner green and low.
But the trees the gleeman planted,Through the changes, changeless stand;As the marble calm of TadmorMocks the desert's shifting sand.
Still the level moon at risingSilvers o'er each stately shaft;Still beneath them, half in shadow,Singing, glides the pleasure craft;
Still beneath them, arm-enfolded,Love and Youth together stray;While, as heart to heart beats faster,More and more their feet delay.
Where the ancient cobbler, Keezar,On the open hillside wrought,Singing, as he drew his stitches,Songs his German masters taught,
Singing, with his gray hair floatingRound his rosy ample face,—Now a thousand Saxon craftsmenStitch and hammer in his place.
All the pastoral lanes so grassyNow are Traffic's dusty streets;From the village, grown a city,Fast the rural grace retreats.
But, still green, and tall, and stately,On the river's winding shores,Stand the Occidental plane-trees,Stand, Hugh Taliant's sycamores.1857.
An incident of the Sepoy mutiny.
PIPES of the misty moorlands,Voice of the glens and hills;The droning of the torrents,The treble of the rills!Not the braes of broom and heather,Nor the mountains dark with rain,Nor maiden bower, nor border tower,Have heard your sweetest strain!
Dear to the Lowland reaper,And plaided mountaineer,—To the cottage and the castleThe Scottish pipes are dear;—Sweet sounds the ancient pibrochO'er mountain, loch, and glade;But the sweetest of all musicThe pipes at Lucknow played.
Day by day the Indian tigerLouder yelled, and nearer crept;Round and round the jungle-serpentNear and nearer circles swept."Pray for rescue, wives and mothers,—Pray to-day!" the soldier said;"To-morrow, death's between usAnd the wrong and shame we dread."
Oh, they listened, looked, and waited,Till their hope became despair;And the sobs of low bewailingFilled the pauses of their prayer.Then up spake a Scottish maiden,With her ear unto the ground"Dinna ye hear it?—dinna ye hear it?The pipes o' Havelock sound!"
Hushed the wounded man his groaning;Hushed the wife her little ones;Alone they heard the drum-rollAnd the roar of Sepoy guns.But to sounds of home and childhoodThe Highland ear was true;—As her mother's cradle-crooningThe mountain pipes she knew.
Like the march of soundless musicThrough the vision of the seer,More of feeling than of hearing,Of the heart than of the ear,She knew the droning pibroch,She knew the Campbell's call"Hark! hear ye no' MacGregor's,The grandest o' them all!"
Oh, they listened, dumb and breathless,And they caught the sound at last;Faint and far beyond the GoomteeRose and fell the piper's blastThen a burst of wild thanksgivingMingled woman's voice and man's;"God be praised!—the march of Havelock!The piping of the clans!"
Louder, nearer, fierce as vengeance,Sharp and shrill as swords at strife,Came the wild MacGregor's clan-call,Stinging all the air to life.But when the far-off dust-cloudTo plaided legions grew,Full tenderly and blithesomelyThe pipes of rescue blew!
Round the silver domes of Lucknow,Moslem mosque and Pagan shrine,Breathed the air to Britons dearest,The air of Auld Lang Syne.O'er the cruel roll of war-drumsRose that sweet and homelike strain;And the tartan clove the turban,As the Goomtee cleaves the plain.
Dear to the corn-land reaperAnd plaided mountaineer,—To the cottage and the castleThe piper's song is dear.Sweet sounds the Gaelic pibrochO'er mountain, glen, and glade;But the sweetest of all musicThe Pipes at Lucknow played!1858.
A remarkable custom, brought from the Old Country, formerly prevailed in the rural districts of New England. On the death of a member of the family, the bees were at once informed of the event, and their hives dressed in mourning. This ceremonial was supposed to be necessary to prevent the swarms from leaving their hives and seeking a new home.
HERE is the place; right over the hillRuns the path I took;You can see the gap in the old wall still,And the stepping-stones in the shallow brook.
There is the house, with the gate red-barred,And the poplars tall;And the barn's brown length, and the cattle-yard,And the white horns tossing above the wall.
There are the beehives ranged in the sun;And down by the brinkOf the brook are her poor flowers, weed-o'errun,Pansy and daffodil, rose and pink.
A year has gone, as the tortoise goes,Heavy and slow;And the same rose blooms, and the same sun glows,And the same brook sings of a year ago.
There's the same sweet clover-smell in the breeze;And the June sun warmTangles his wings of fire in the trees,Setting, as then, over Fernside farm.
I mind me how with a lover's careFrom my Sunday coatI brushed off the burrs, and smoothed my hair,And cooled at the brookside my brow andthroat.
Since we parted, a month had passed,—To love, a year;Down through the beeches I looked at lastOn the little red gate and the well-sweep near.
I can see it all now,—the slantwise rainOf light through the leaves,The sundown's blaze on her window-pane,The bloom of her roses under the eaves.
Just the same as a month before,—The house and the trees,The barn's brown gable, the vine by the door,—Nothing changed but the hives of bees.
Before them, under the garden wall,Forward and back,Went drearily singing the chore-girl small,Draping each hive with a shred of black.
Trembling, I listened: the summer sunHad the chill of snow;For I knew she was telling the bees of oneGone on the journey we all must go.
Then I said to myself, "My Mary weepsFor the dead to-day;Haply her blind old grandsire sleepsThe fret and the pain of his age away."
But her dog whined low; on the doorway sill,With his cane to his chin,The old man sat; and the chore-girl stillSung to the bees stealing out and in.
And the song she was singing ever sinceIn my ear sounds on:—"Stay at home, pretty bees, fly not hence!Mistress Mary is dead and gone!"1858.
In Young's Chronicles of Massachusetts Bay front 1623 to 1636 may be found Anthony Thacher's Narrative of his Shipwreck. Thacher was Avery's companion and survived to tell the tale. Mather's Magnalia, III. 2, gives further Particulars of Parson Avery's End, and suggests the title of the poem.
WHEN the reaper's task was ended, and the summer wearing late, Parson Avery sailed from Newbury, with his wife and children eight, Dropping down the river-harbor in the shallop "Watch and Wait."
Pleasantly lay the clearings in the mellow summer- morn, With the newly planted orchards dropping their fruits first-born, And the home-roofs like brown islands amid a sea of corn.
Broad meadows reached out 'seaward the tidedcreeks between,And hills rolled wave-like inland, with oaks andwalnuts green;—A fairer home, a—goodlier land, his eyes had neverseen.
Yet away sailed Parson Avery, away where duty led,And the voice of God seemed calling, to break theliving breadTo the souls of fishers starving on the rocks ofMarblehead.
All day they sailed: at nightfall the pleasant land-breeze died,The blackening sky, at midnight, its starry lightsdenied,And far and low the thunder of tempest prophesied.
Blotted out were all the coast-lines, gone were rock, and wood, and sand; Grimly anxious stood the skipper with the rudder in his hand, And questioned of the darkness what was sea and what was land.
And the preacher heard his dear ones, nestled round him, weeping sore, "Never heed, my little children! Christ is walking on before; To the pleasant land of heaven, where the sea shall be no more."
All at once the great cloud parted, like a curtaindrawn aside,To let down the torch of lightning on the terrorfar and wide;And the thunder and the whirlwind together smotethe tide.
There was wailing in the shallop, woman's wail and man's despair, A crash of breaking timbers on the rocks so sharp and bare, And, through it all, the murmur of Father Avery's prayer.
From his struggle in the darkness with the wild waves and the blast, On a rock, where every billow broke above him as it passed, Alone, of all his household, the man of God was cast.
There a comrade heard him praying, in the pauseof wave and wind"All my own have gone before me, and I lingerjust behind;Not for life I ask, but only for the rest Thyransomed find!
"In this night of death I challenge the promise ofThy word!—Let me see the great salvation of which mine earshave heard!—Let me pass from hence forgiven, through thegrace of Christ, our Lord!
"In the baptism of these waters wash white myevery sin,And let me follow up to Thee my household andmy kin!Open the sea-gate of Thy heaven, and let me enterin!"
When the Christian sings his death-song, all the listening heavens draw near, And the angels, leaning over the walls of crystal, hear How the notes so faint and broken swell to music in God's ear.
The ear of God was open to His servant's last request; As the strong wave swept him downward the sweet hymn upward pressed, And the soul of Father Avery went, singing, to its rest.
There was wailing on the mainland, from the rocksof Marblehead;In the stricken church of Newbury the notes ofprayer were read;And long, by board and hearthstone, the livingmourned the dead.
And still the fishers outbound, or scudding fromthe squall,With grave and reverent faces, the ancient talerecall,When they see the white waves breaking on theRock of Avery's Fall!1808.
"Concerning ye Amphisbaena, as soon as I received your commands, I made diligent inquiry: . . . he assures me yt it had really two heads, one at each end; two mouths, two stings or tongues."—REV. CHRISTOPHER TOPPAN to COTTON MATHER.
FAR away in the twilight timeOf every people, in every clime,Dragons and griffins and monsters dire,Born of water, and air, and fire,Or nursed, like the Python, in the mudAnd ooze of the old Deucalion flood,Crawl and wriggle and foam with rage,Through dusk tradition and ballad age.So from the childhood of Newbury townAnd its time of fable the tale comes downOf a terror which haunted bush and brake,The Amphisbaena, the Double Snake!
Thou who makest the tale thy mirth,Consider that strip of Christian earthOn the desolate shore of a sailless sea,Full of terror and mystery,Half redeemed from the evil holdOf the wood so dreary, and dark, and old,Which drank with its lips of leaves the dewWhen Time was young, and the world was new,And wove its shadows with sun and moon,Ere the stones of Cheops were squared and hewn.Think of the sea's dread monotone,Of the mournful wail from the pine-wood blown,Of the strange, vast splendors that lit the North,Of the troubled throes of the quaking earth,And the dismal tales the Indian told,Till the settler's heart at his hearth grew cold,And he shrank from the tawny wizard boasts,And the hovering shadows seemed full of ghosts,And above, below, and on every side,The fear of his creed seemed verified;—And think, if his lot were now thine own,To grope with terrors nor named nor known,How laxer muscle and weaker nerveAnd a feebler faith thy need might serve;And own to thyself the wonder moreThat the snake had two heads, and not a score!
Whether he lurked in the Oldtown fenOr the gray earth-flax of the Devil's Den,Or swam in the wooded Artichoke,Or coiled by the Northman's Written Rock,Nothing on record is left to show;Only the fact that be lived, we know,And left the cast of a double headIn the scaly mask which he yearly shed.For he carried a head where his tail should be,And the two, of course, could never agree,But wriggled about with main and might,Now to the left and now to the right;Pulling and twisting this way and that,Neither knew what the other was at.
A snake with two beads, lurking so near!Judge of the wonder, guess at the fear!Think what ancient gossips might say,Shaking their heads in their dreary way,Between the meetings on Sabbath-day!How urchins, searching at day's declineThe Common Pasture for sheep or kine,The terrible double-ganger heardIn leafy rustle or whir of bird!Think what a zest it gave to the sport,In berry-time, of the younger sort,As over pastures blackberry-twined,Reuben and Dorothy lagged behind,And closer and closer, for fear of harm,The maiden clung to her lover's arm;And how the spark, who was forced to stay,By his sweetheart's fears, till the break of day,Thanked the snake for the fond delay.
Far and wide the tale was told,Like a snowball growing while it rolled.The nurse hushed with it the baby's cry;And it served, in the worthy minister's eye,To paint the primitive serpent by.Cotton Mather came galloping downAll the way to Newbury town,With his eyes agog and his ears set wide,And his marvellous inkhorn at his side;Stirring the while in the shallow poolOf his brains for the lore he learned at school,To garnish the story, with here a streakOf Latin, and there another of GreekAnd the tales he heard and the notes he took,Behold! are they not in his Wonder-Book?
Stories, like dragons, are hard to kill.If the snake does not, the tale runs stillIn Byfield Meadows, on Pipestave Hill.And still, whenever husband and wifePublish the shame of their daily strife,And, with mad cross-purpose, tug and strainAt either end of the marriage-chain,The gossips say, with a knowing shakeOf their gray heads, "Look at the Double SnakeOne in body and two in will,The Amphisbaena is living still!"1859.