MARY GARVIN.
FROM the heart of Waumbek Methna, from the
lake that never fails,
Falls the Saco in the green lap of Conway's
intervales;
There, in wild and virgin freshness, its waters
foam and flow,
As when Darby Field first saw them, two hundred
years ago.
But, vexed in all its seaward course with bridges,
dams, and mills,
How changed is Saco's stream, how lost its freedom
of the hills,
Since travelled Jocelyn, factor Vines, and stately
Champernoon
Heard on its banks the gray wolf's howl, the trumpet
of the loon!
With smoking axle hot with speed, with steeds of
fire and steam,
Wide-waked To-day leaves Yesterday behind him
like a dream.
Still, from the hurrying train of Life, fly backward
far and fast
The milestones of the fathers, the landmarks of
the past.
But human hearts remain unchanged: the sorrow
and the sin,
The loves and hopes and fears of old, are to our
own akin;
And if, in tales our fathers told, the songs our
mothers sung,
Tradition wears a snowy beard, Romance is always
young.
O sharp-lined man of traffic, on Saco's banks today!
O mill-girl watching late and long the shuttle's
restless play!
Let, for the once, a listening ear the working hand
beguile,
And lend my old Provincial tale, as suits, a tear or
smile!
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
The evening gun had sounded from gray Fort
Mary's walls;
Through the forest, like a wild beast, roared and
plunged the Saco's' falls.
And westward on the sea-wind, that damp and
gusty grew,
Over cedars darkening inland the smokes of Spurwink
blew.
On the hearth of Farmer Garvin, blazed the crackling
walnut log;
Right and left sat dame and goodman, and between
them lay the dog,
Head on paws, and tail slow wagging, and beside
him on her mat,
Sitting drowsy in the firelight, winked and purred
the mottled cat.
"Twenty years!" said Goodman Garvin, speaking
sadly, under breath,
And his gray head slowly shaking, as one who
speaks of death.
The goodwife dropped her needles: "It is twenty
years to-day,
Since the Indians fell on Saco, and stole our child
away."
Then they sank into the silence, for each knew
the other's thought,
Of a great and common sorrow, and words were,
needed not.
"Who knocks?" cried Goodman Garvin. The
door was open thrown;
On two strangers, man and maiden, cloaked and
furred, the fire-light shone.
One with courteous gesture lifted the bear-skin
from his head;
"Lives here Elkanah Garvin?" "I am he," the
goodman said.
"Sit ye down, and dry and warm ye, for the night
is chill with rain."
And the goodwife drew the settle, and stirred the
fire amain.
The maid unclasped her cloak-hood, the firelight
glistened fair
In her large, moist eyes, and over soft folds of
dark brown hair.
Dame Garvin looked upon her: "It is Mary's self
I see!"
"Dear heart!" she cried, "now tell me, has my
child come back to me?"
"My name indeed is Mary," said the stranger sobbing
wild;
"Will you be to me a mother? I am Mary Garvin's child!"
"She sleeps by wooded Simcoe, but on her dying
day
She bade my father take me to her kinsfolk far
away.
"And when the priest besought her to do me no
such wrong,
She said, 'May God forgive me! I have closed
my heart too long.'
"'When I hid me from my father, and shut out
my mother's call,
I sinned against those dear ones, and the Father
of us all.
"'Christ's love rebukes no home-love, breaks no
tie of kin apart;
Better heresy in doctrine, than heresy of heart.
"'Tell me not the Church must censure: she who
wept the Cross beside
Never made her own flesh strangers, nor the claims
of blood denied;
"'And if she who wronged her parents, with her
child atones to them,
Earthly daughter, Heavenly Mother! thou at least
wilt not condemn!'
"So, upon her death-bed lying, my blessed mother
spake;
As we come to do her bidding, So receive us for her
sake."
"God be praised!" said Goodwife Garvin, "He taketh,
and He gives;
He woundeth, but He healeth; in her child our
daughter lives!"
"Amen!" the old man answered, as he brushed a
tear away,
And, kneeling by his hearthstone, said, with reverence,
"Let us pray."
All its Oriental symbols, and its Hebrew pararphrase,
Warm with earnest life and feeling, rose his prayer
of love and praise.
But he started at beholding, as he rose from off
his knee,
The stranger cross his forehead with the sign of
Papistrie.
"What is this?" cried Farmer Garvin. "Is an English
Christian's home
A chapel or a mass-house, that you make the sign
of Rome?"
Then the young girl knelt beside him, kissed his
trembling hand, and cried:
Oh, forbear to chide my father; in that faith my
mother died!
"On her wooden cross at Simcoe the dews and
sunshine fall,
As they fall on Spurwink's graveyard; and the
dear God watches all!"
The old man stroked the fair head that rested on
his knee;
"Your words, dear child," he answered, "are God's
rebuke 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 order
due and fit,
As by public vote directed, classed and ranked the
people sit;
Mistress first and goodwife after, clerkly squire
before the clown,
"From the brave coat, lace-embroidered, to the gray
frock, shading down;"
From the pulpit read the preacher, "Goodman
Garvin and his wife
Fain would thank the Lord, whose kindness has
followed 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 couple
stood,
And the fair Canadian also, in her modest maiden-
hood.
Thought the elders, grave and doubting, "She is
Papist born and bred;"
Thought the young men, "'T is an angel in Mary
Garvin's stead!"
THE RANGER.
Originally published as Martha Mason; a Song of the Old French War.
ROBERT RAWLIN!—Frosts were falling
When the ranger's horn was calling
Through 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 growing
In the hearts that mourn his stay.
Where the lion, crouching high on
Abraham'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 lying
In their red graves far away.
Straggling rangers, worn with dangers,
Homeward faring, weary strangers
Pass 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 bearer
Through his painted woodlands stray,
Than where hillside oaks and beeches
Overlook 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 mainlands
Stands 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-brooded
By the hazy autumn day.
Gayly chattering to the clattering
Of 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 hollow
Chasing, weave their web of play.
"Martha Mason, Martha Mason,
Prithee tell us of the reason
Why you mope at home to-day
Surely 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 beginning
Make the task of life a play."
Overbending, till she's blending
With the flaxen skein she's tending
Pale brown tresses smoothed away
From 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 sparrow
And 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 bay
Come 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 mellows
On 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 Rawlin
Is my heart," she said, "to-day."
"Vain your calling for Rob Rawlin
Some 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 trying
Some new hope for each new day.
"When the shadows veil the meadows,
And the sunset's golden ladders
Sink from twilight's walls of gray,—
From the window of my dreaming,
I can see his sickle gleaming,
Cheery-voiced, can hear him teaming
Down 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 away
From a dream of him awaking,
Every sound my heart is making
Seems a footstep of his taking;
Then I hush the thought, and say,
'Nay, nay, he's away!'
Ah! my heart, my heart is breaking
For 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 red leaves in December's
Hoary 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.
THE GARRISON OF CAPE ANN.
FROM the hills of home forth looking, far beneath
the tent-like span
Of the sky, I see the white gleam of the headland
of Cape Ann.
Well I know its coves and beaches to the ebb-tide
glimmering down,
And the white-walled hamlet children of its ancient
fishing 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 summer
sea I blend
A wild and wondrous story, by the younger Mather
penned,
In that quaint Magnalia Christi, with all strange
and marvellous things,
Heaped up huge and undigested, like the chaos
Ovid sings.
Dear to me these far, faint glimpses of the dual
life of old,
Inward, grand with awe and reverence; outward,
mean and coarse and cold;
Gleams of mystic beauty playing over dull and
vulgar clay,
Golden-threaded fancies weaving in a web of
hodden gray.
The great eventful Present hides the Past; but
through the din
Of its loud life hints and echoes from the life
behind steal in;
And the lore of homeland fireside, and the legendary
rhyme,
Make the task of duty lighter which the true man
owes his time.
So, with something of the feeling which the Covenanter
knew,
When with pious chisel wandering Scotland's
moorland graveyards through,
From the graves of old traditions I part the black-
berry-vines,
Wipe the moss from off the headstones, and retouch
the 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 by
dying brands,
Twenty soldiers sat and waited, with their muskets
in their hands;
On the rough-hewn oaken table the venison haunch
was shared,
And the pewter tankard circled slowly round from
beard to beard.
Long they sat and talked together,—talked of
wizards Satan-sold;
Of all ghostly sights and noises,—signs and wonders
manifold;
Of the spectre-ship of Salem, with the dead men
in her shrouds,
Sailing sheer above the water, in the loom of morning
clouds;
Of the marvellous valley hidden in the depths of
Gloucester woods,
Full of plants that love the summer,—blooms of
warmer latitudes;
Where the Arctic birch is braided by the tropic's
flowery vines,
And the white magnolia-blossoms star the twilight
of the pines!
But their voices sank yet lower, sank to husky
tones of fear,
As they spake of present tokens of the powers of
evil near;
Of a spectral host, defying stroke of steel and aim
of gun;
Never yet was ball to slay them in the mould of
mortals 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 guarded
wall about;
Once again the levelled muskets through the palisades
flashed out,
With that deadly aim the squirrel on his tree-top
might not shun,
Nor the beach-bird seaward flying with his slant
wing to the sun.
Like the idle rain of summer sped the harmless
shower of lead.
With a laugh of fierce derision, once again the
phantoms fled;
Once again, without a shadow on the sands the
moonlight lay,
And the white smoke curling through it drifted
slowly down the bay!
"God preserve us!" said the captain; "never
mortal foes were there;
They have vanished with their leader, Prince and
Power of the air!
Lay aside your useless weapons; skill and prowess
naught avail;
They who do the Devil's service wear their master's
coat of mail!"
So the night grew near to cock-crow, when again
a warning call
Roused the score of weary soldiers watching round
the dusky hall
And they looked to flint and priming, and they
longed for break of day;
But the captain closed his Bible: "Let us cease
from 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 spectres
round the wall,
But a sound abhorred, unearthly, smote the ears
and hearts of all,—
Howls of rage and shrieks of anguish! Never
after mortal man
Saw the ghostly leaguers marching round the
block-house of Cape Ann.
So to us who walk in summer through the cool and
sea-blown town,
From the childhood of its people comes the solemn
legend down.
Not in vain the ancient fiction, in whose moral
lives the youth
And the fitness and the freshness of an undecaying
truth.
Soon or late to all our dwellings come the spectres
of the mind,
Doubts and fears and dread forebodings, in the
darkness undefined;
Round us throng the grim projections of the heart
and of the brain,
And our pride of strength is weakness, and the
cunning 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.