Indian Legends and Other Poems

NEW YORK: J. C. DERBY, 119 NASSAU STREET. BOSTON: PHILLIPS, SAMPSON, & CO. CINCINNATI: H. W. DERBY. 1855.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1855, by MARY GARDINER HORSFORD, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.
HOLMAN & GRAY, Printers and Stereotypers.




There is an artless tradition among the Indians, related by Irving, of a warrior who saw the thunderbolt lying upon the ground, with a beautifully wrought moccasin on each side of it. Thinking he had found a prize, he put on the moccasins, but they bore him away to the land of spirits, whence he never returned.
Loud pealed the thunder From arsenal high, Bright flashed the lightning Athwart the broad sky; Fast o'er the prairie, Through torrent and shade, Sought the red hunter His hut in the glade.
Deep roared the cannon Whose forge is the sun, And red was the chain The thunderbolt spun; O'er the thick wild wood There quivered a line, Low 'mid the green leaves Lay hunter and pine.
Clear was the sunshine, The hurricane past, And fair flowers smiled in The path of the blast; While in the forest Lay rent the huge tree, Up rose the red man, All unharmed and free.
Bright glittered each leaf With sunlight and spray, And close at his feet The thunder-bolt lay, And moccasins, wrought With the beads that shine, Where the rainbow hangeth A wampum divine.