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I. THE MERRIMAC.
O child of that white-crested mountain whose
springs
Gush forth in the shade of the cliff-eagle’s
wings,
Down whose slopes to the lowlands thy wild waters
shine,
Leaping gray walls of rock, flashing through the
dwarf pine;
From that cloud-curtained cradle so cold and so
lone,
From the arms of that wintry-locked mother of
stone,
By hills hung with forests, through vales wide and
free,
Thy mountain-born brightness glanced down to the
sea.

No bridge arched thy waters save that where the
trees
Stretched their long arms above thee and kissed in
the breeze:
No sound save the lapse of the waves on thy
shores,
The plunging of otters, the light dip of oars.

Green-tufted, oak-shaded, by Amoskeag’s fall
Thy twin Uncanoonucs rose stately and tall,
Thy Nashua meadows lay green and unshorn,
And the hills of Pentucket were tasselled with
corn.
But thy Pennacook valley was fairer than these,
And greener its grasses and taller its trees,
Ere the sound of an axe in the forest had rung,
Or the mower his scythe in the meadows had
swung.

In their sheltered repose looking out from the
wood
The bark-builded wigwams of Pennacook stood;
There glided the corn-dance, the council-fire shone,
And against the red war-post the hatchet was
thrown.

There the old smoked in silence their pipes, and
the young
To the pike and the white-perch their baited lines
flung;
There the boy shaped his arrows, and there the
shy maid
Wove her many-hued baskets and bright wampum
braid.

O Stream of the Mountains! if answer of thine
Could rise from thy waters to question of mine,
Methinks through the din of thy thronged banks
a moan
Of sorrow would swell for the days which have
gone.

Not for thee the dull jar of the loom and the wheel,
The gliding of shuttles, the ringing of steel;
But that old voice of waters, of bird and of breeze,
The dip of the wild-fowl, the rustling of trees.

II. THE BASHABA.
Lift we the twilight curtains of the Past,
And, turning from familiar sight and sound,
Sadly and full of reverence let us cast
A glance upon Tradition’s shadowy ground,
Led by the few pale lights which, glimmering round
That dim, strange land of Eld, seem dying fast;
And that which history gives not to the eye,
The faded coloring of Time’s tapestry,
Let Fancy, with her dream-dipped brush, supply.

Roof of bark and walls of pine,
Through whose chinks the sunbeams shine,
Tracing many a golden line
On the ample floor within;
Where, upon that earth-floor stark,
Lay the gaudy mats of bark,
With the bear’s hide, rough and dark,
And the red-deer’s skin.

Window-tracery, small and slight,
Woven of the willow white,
Lent a dimly checkered light;
And the night-stars glimmered down,
Where the lodge-fire’s heavy smoke,
Slowly through an opening broke,
In the low roof, ribbed with oak,
Sheathed with hemlock brown.

Gloomed behind the changeless shade
By the solemn pine-wood made;
Through the rugged palisade,
In the open foreground planted,
Glimpses came of rowers rowing,
Stir of leaves and wild-flowers blowing,
Steel-like gleams of water flowing,
In the sunlight slanted.

Here the mighty Bashaba
Held his long-unquestioned sway,
From the White Hills, far away,
To the great sea’s sounding shore;
Chief of chiefs, his regal word
All the river Sachems heard,
At his call the war-dance stirred,
Or was still once more.

There his spoils of chase and war,
Jaw of wolf and black bear’s paw,
Panther’s skin and eagle’s claw,
Lay beside his axe and bow;
And, adown the roof-pole hung,
Loosely on a snake-skin strung,
In the smoke his scalp-locks swung
Grimly to and fro.