THE CHAMOIS HUNTER’S LOVE.
“For all his wildness and proud fantasies,
I love him.” Croly.
Thy heart is in the upper world, where fleet the chamois bounds,
Thy heart is where the mountain-fir shakes to the torrent-sounds;
And where the snow-peaks gleam like stars, through the stillness of the air,
And where the Lauwine’s[369] peal is heard—hunter! thy heart is there!
I know thou lov’st me well, dear friend! but better, better far,
Thou lovest that high and haughty life, with rocks and storms at war;
In the green, sunny vales with me, thy spirit would but pine—
And yet I will be thine, my love! and yet I will be thine!
And I will not seek to woo thee down from those thy native heights,
With the sweet song, our land’s own song, of pastoral delights;
For thou must live as eagles live, thy path is not as mine—
And yet I will be thine, my love! and yet I will be thine.
And I will leave my blessed home, my father’s joyous hearth,
With all the voices meeting there in tenderness and mirth,
With all the kind and laughing eyes, that in its firelight shine,
To sit forsaken in thy hut, yet know that thou art mine!
It is my youth, it is my bloom, it is my glad free heart,
That I cast away for thee—for thee, all reckless as thou art!
With tremblings and with vigils lone I bind myself to dwell—
Yet, yet I would not change that lot; oh no! I love too well!
A mournful thing is love which grows to one so wild as thou,
With that bright restlessness of eye, that tameless fire of brow!
Mournful!—but dearer far I call its mingled fear and pride,
And the trouble of its happiness, than aught on earth beside.
To listen for thy step in vain, to start at every breath,
To watch through long, long nights of storm, to sleep and dream of death,
To wake in doubt and loneliness—this doom I know is mine;
And yet I will be thine, my love! and yet I will be thine!
That I may greet thee from thine Alps, when thence thou com’st at last,
That I may hear thy thrilling voice tell o’er each danger past,
That I may kneel and pray for thee, and win thee aid divine—
For this I will be thine, my love! for this I will be thine!
[369] Lauwine, the avalanche.
THE INDIAN WITH HIS DEAD CHILD.[370]
In the silence of the midnight
I journey with my dead;
In the darkness of the forest boughs
A lonely path I tread.
But my heart is high and fearless,
As by mighty wings upborne;
The mountain eagle hath not plumes
So strong as love and scorn.
I have raised thee from the grave-sod,
By the white man’s path defiled;
On to th’ ancestral wilderness,
I bear thy dust, my child!
I have ask’d the ancient deserts
To give my dead a place,
Where the stately footsteps of the free
Alone should leave a trace.
And the tossing pines made answer—
“Go, bring us back thine own!”
And the streams from all the hunters’ hills,
Rush’d with an echoing tone.
Thou shalt rest by sounding waters
That yet untamed may roll;
The voices of that chainless host
With joy shall fill thy soul.
In the silence of the midnight
I journey with the dead,
Where the arrows of my father’s bow
Their falcon-flight have sped.
I have left the spoilers’ dwellings
For evermore behind;
Unmingled with their household sounds,
For me shall sweep the wind.
Alone, amidst their hearth-fires,
I watch’d my child’s decay,
Uncheer’d I saw the spirit-light
From his young eyes fade away.
When his head sank on my bosom,
When the death-sleep o’er him fell,
Was there one to say, “A friend is near?”
There was none!—pale race, farewell!
To the forests, to the cedars,
To the warrior and his bow,
Back, back!—I bore thee laughing thence,
I bear thee slumbering now!
I bear thee unto burial
With the mighty hunters gone;
I shall hear thee in the forest breeze,
Thou wilt speak of joy, my son!
In the silence of the midnight
I journey with the dead;
But my heart is strong, my step is fleet,
My fathers’ path I tread.
[370] An Indian, who had established himself in a township of Maine, feeling indignantly the want of sympathy evinced towards him by the white inhabitants, particularly on the death of his only child, gave up his farm soon afterwards, dug up the body of his child, and carried it with him two hundred miles through the forests to join the Canadian Indians.—See Tudor’s Letters on the Eastern States of America.