THE BRIDAL OF PENNACOOK.

Winnepurkit, otherwise called George, Sachem of Saugus, married a daughter of Passaconaway, the great Pennacook chieftain, in 1662. The wedding took place at Pennacook (now Concord, N. H.), and the ceremonies closed with a great feast. According to the usages of the chiefs, Passaconaway ordered a select number of his men to accompany the newly-married couple to the dwelling of the husband, where in turn there was another great feast. Some time after, the wife of Winnepurkit expressing a desire to visit her father's house was permitted to go, accompanied by a brave escort of her husband's chief men. But when she wished to return, her father sent a messenger to Saugus, informing her husband, and asking him to come and take her away. He returned for answer that he had escorted his wife to her father's house in a style that became a chief, and that now if she wished to return, her father must send her back, in the same way. This Passaconaway refused to do, and it is said that here terminated the connection of his daughter with the Saugus chief.—Vide MORTON'S New Canaan.

WE had been wandering for many days Through the rough northern country. We had seen The sunset, with its bars of purple cloud, Like a new heaven, shine upward from the lake Of Winnepiseogee; and had felt The sunrise breezes, midst the leafy isles Which stoop their summer beauty to the lips Of the bright waters. We had checked our steeds, Silent with wonder, where the mountain wall Is piled to heaven; and, through the narrow rift Of the vast rocks, against whose rugged feet Beats the mad torrent with perpetual roar, Where noonday is as twilight, and the wind Comes burdened with the everlasting moan Of forests and of far-off waterfalls, We had looked upward where the summer sky, Tasselled with clouds light-woven by the sun, Sprung its blue arch above the abutting crags O'er-roofing the vast portal of the land Beyond the wall of mountains. We had passed The high source of the Saco; and bewildered In the dwarf spruce-belts of the Crystal Hills, Had heard above us, like a voice in the cloud, The horn of Fabyan sounding; and atop Of old Agioochook had seen the mountains'

Piled to the northward, shagged with wood, and thick As meadow mole-hills,—the far sea of Casco, A white gleam on the horizon of the east; Fair lakes, embosomed in the woods and hills; Moosehillock's mountain range, and Kearsarge Lifting his granite forehead to the sun!

And we had rested underneath the oaks Shadowing the bank, whose grassy spires are shaken By the perpetual beating of the falls Of the wild Ammonoosuc. We had tracked The winding Pemigewasset, overhung By beechen shadows, whitening down its rocks, Or lazily gliding through its intervals, From waving rye-fields sending up the gleam Of sunlit waters. We had seen the moon Rising behind Umbagog's eastern pines, Like a great Indian camp-fire; and its beams At midnight spanning with a bridge of silver The Merrimac by Uncanoonuc's falls.

There were five souls of us whom travel's chance Had thrown together in these wild north hills A city lawyer, for a month escaping From his dull office, where the weary eye Saw only hot brick walls and close thronged streets; Briefless as yet, but with an eye to see Life's sunniest side, and with a heart to take Its chances all as godsends; and his brother, Pale from long pulpit studies, yet retaining The warmth and freshness of a genial heart, Whose mirror of the beautiful and true, In Man and Nature, was as yet undimmed By dust of theologic strife, or breath Of sect, or cobwebs of scholastic lore; Like a clear crystal calm of water, taking The hue and image of o'erleaning flowers, Sweet human faces, white clouds of the noon, Slant starlight glimpses through the dewy leaves, And tenderest moonrise. 'T was, in truth, a study, To mark his spirit, alternating between A decent and professional gravity And an irreverent mirthfulness, which often Laughed in the face of his divinity, Plucked off the sacred ephod, quite unshrined The oracle, and for the pattern priest

Left us the man. A shrewd, sagacious merchant, To whom the soiled sheet found in Crawford's inn, Giving the latest news of city stocks And sales of cotton, had a deeper meaning Than the great presence of the awful mountains Glorified by the sunset; and his daughter, A delicate flower on whom had blown too long Those evil winds, which, sweeping from the ice And winnowing the fogs of Labrador, Shed their cold blight round Massachusetts Bay, With the same breath which stirs Spring's opening leaves And lifts her half-formed flower-bell on its stem, Poisoning our seaside atmosphere.

It chanced that as we turned upon our homeward way, A drear northeastern storm came howling up The valley of the Saco; and that girl Who had stood with us upon Mount Washington, Her brown locks ruffled by the wind which whirled In gusts around its sharp, cold pinnacle, Who had joined our gay trout-fishing in the streams Which lave that giant's feet; whose laugh was heard Like a bird's carol on the sunrise breeze Which swelled our sail amidst the lake's green islands, Shrank from its harsh, chill breath, and visibly drooped Like a flower in the frost. So, in that quiet inn Which looks from Conway on the mountains piled Heavily against the horizon of the north, Like summer thunder-clouds, we made our home And while the mist hung over dripping hills, And the cold wind-driven rain-drops all day long Beat their sad music upon roof and pane, We strove to cheer our gentle invalid.

The lawyer in the pauses of the storm Went angling down the Saco, and, returning, Recounted his adventures and mishaps; Gave us the history of his scaly clients, Mingling with ludicrous yet apt citations Of barbarous law Latin, passages From Izaak Walton's Angler, sweet and fresh As the flower-skirted streams of Staffordshire, Where, under aged trees, the southwest wind Of soft June mornings fanned the thin, white hair Of the sage fisher. And, if truth be told, Our youthful candidate forsook his sermons, His commentaries, articles and creeds, For the fair page of human loveliness, The missal of young hearts, whose sacred text Is music, its illumining, sweet smiles. He sang the songs she loved; and in his low, Deep, earnest voice, recited many a page Of poetry, the holiest, tenderest lines Of the sad bard of Olney, the sweet songs, Simple and beautiful as Truth and Nature, Of him whose whitened locks on Rydal Mount Are lifted yet by morning breezes blowing From the green hills, immortal in his lays. And for myself, obedient to her wish, I searched our landlord's proffered library,—

A well-thumbed Bunyan, with its nice wood pictures Of scaly fiends and angels not unlike them; Watts' unmelodious psalms; Astrology's Last home, a musty pile of almanacs, And an old chronicle of border wars And Indian history. And, as I read A story of the marriage of the Chief Of Saugus to the dusky Weetamoo, Daughter of Passaconaway, who dwelt In the old time upon the Merrimac, Our fair one, in the playful exercise Of her prerogative,—the right divine Of youth and beauty,—bade us versify The legend, and with ready pencil sketched Its plan and outlines, laughingly assigning To each his part, and barring our excuses With absolute will. So, like the cavaliers Whose voices still are heard in the Romance Of silver-tongued Boccaccio, on the banks Of Arno, with soft tales of love beguiling The ear of languid beauty, plague-exiled From stately Florence, we rehearsed our rhymes To their fair auditor, and shared by turns Her kind approval and her playful censure.

It may be that these fragments owe alone To the fair setting of their circumstances,— The associations of time, scene, and audience,— Their place amid the pictures which fill up The chambers of my memory. Yet I trust That some, who sigh, while wandering in thought, Pilgrims of Romance o'er the olden world, That our broad land,—our sea-like lakes and mountains Piled to the clouds, our rivers overhung By forests which have known no other change For ages than the budding and the fall Of leaves, our valleys lovelier than those Which the old poets sang of,—should but figure On the apocryphal chart of speculation As pastures, wood-lots, mill-sites, with the privileges, Rights, and appurtenances, which make up A Yankee Paradise, unsung, unknown, To beautiful tradition; even their names, Whose melody yet lingers like the last Vibration of the red man's requiem, Exchanged for syllables significant, Of cotton-mill and rail-car, will look kindly Upon this effort to call up the ghost Of our dim Past, and listen with pleased ear To the responses of the questioned Shade.

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.

Nightly down the river going, Swifter was the hunter's rowing, When he saw that lodge-fire, glowing O'er the waters still and red; And the squaw's dark eye burned brighter, And she drew her blanket tighter, As, with quicker step and lighter, From that door she fled.

For that chief had magic skill, And a Panisee's dark will, Over powers of good and ill, Powers which bless and powers which ban; Wizard lord of Pennacook, Chiefs upon their war-path shook, When they met the steady look Of that wise dark man.

Tales of him the gray squaw told, When the winter night-wind cold Pierced her blanket's thickest fold, And her fire burned low and small, Till the very child abed, Drew its bear-skin over bead, Shrinking from the pale lights shed On the trembling wall.

All the subtle spirits hiding Under earth or wave, abiding In the caverned rock, or riding Misty clouds or morning breeze; Every dark intelligence, Secret soul, and influence Of all things which outward sense Feels, or bears, or sees,—

These the wizard's skill confessed, At his bidding banned or blessed, Stormful woke or lulled to rest Wind and cloud, and fire and flood; Burned for him the drifted snow, Bade through ice fresh lilies blow, And the leaves of summer grow Over winter's wood!

Not untrue that tale of old! Now, as then, the wise and bold All the powers of Nature hold Subject to their kingly will; From the wondering crowds ashore, Treading life's wild waters o'er, As upon a marble floor, Moves the strong man still.

Still, to such, life's elements With their sterner laws dispense, And the chain of consequence Broken in their pathway lies; Time and change their vassals making, Flowers from icy pillows waking, Tresses of the sunrise shaking Over midnight skies. Still, to th' earnest soul, the sun Rests on towered Gibeon, And the moon of Ajalon Lights the battle-grounds of life; To his aid the strong reverses Hidden powers and giant forces, And the high stars, in their courses, Mingle in his strife!

III. THE DAUGHTER. The soot-black brows of men, the yell Of women thronging round the bed, The tinkling charm of ring and shell, The Powah whispering o'er the dead!

All these the Sachem's home had known, When, on her journey long and wild To the dim World of Souls, alone, In her young beauty passed the mother of his child.

Three bow-shots from the Sachem's dwelling They laid her in the walnut shade, Where a green hillock gently swelling Her fitting mound of burial made. There trailed the vine in summer hours, The tree-perched squirrel dropped his shell,— On velvet moss and pale-hued flowers, Woven with leaf and spray, the softened sunshine fell!

The Indian's heart is hard and cold, It closes darkly o'er its care, And formed in Nature's sternest mould, Is slow to feel, and strong to bear. The war-paint on the Sachem's face, Unwet with tears, shone fierce and red, And still, in battle or in chase, Dry leaf and snow-rime crisped beneath his foremost tread.

Yet when her name was heard no more, And when the robe her mother gave, And small, light moccasin she wore, Had slowly wasted on her grave, Unmarked of him the dark maids sped Their sunset dance and moonlit play; No other shared his lonely bed, No other fair young head upon his bosom lay.

A lone, stern man. Yet, as sometimes The tempest-smitten tree receives From one small root the sap which climbs Its topmost spray and crowning leaves, So from his child the Sachem drew A life of Love and Hope, and felt His cold and rugged nature through The softness and the warmth of her young being melt.

A laugh which in the woodland rang Bemocking April's gladdest bird,— A light and graceful form which sprang To meet him when his step was heard,— Eyes by his lodge-fire flashing dark, Small fingers stringing bead and shell Or weaving mats of bright-hued bark,— With these the household-god [3] had graced his wigwam well.

Child of the forest! strong and free, Slight-robed, with loosely flowing hair, She swam the lake or climbed the tree, Or struck the flying bird in air. O'er the heaped drifts of winter's moon Her snow-shoes tracked the hunter's way; And dazzling in the summer noon The blade of her light oar threw off its shower of spray!

Unknown to her the rigid rule, The dull restraint, the chiding frown, The weary torture of the school, The taming of wild nature down. Her only lore, the legends told Around the hunter's fire at night; Stars rose and set, and seasons rolled, Flowers bloomed and snow-flakes fell, unquestioned in her sight.

Unknown to her the subtle skill With which the artist-eye can trace In rock and tree and lake and hill The outlines of divinest grace; Unknown the fine soul's keen unrest, Which sees, admires, yet yearns alway; Too closely on her mother's breast To note her smiles of love the child of Nature lay!

It is enough for such to be Of common, natural things a part, To feel, with bird and stream and tree, The pulses of the same great heart; But we, from Nature long exiled, In our cold homes of Art and Thought Grieve like the stranger-tended child, Which seeks its mother's arms, and sees but feels them not.

The garden rose may richly bloom In cultured soil and genial air, To cloud the light of Fashion's room Or droop in Beauty's midnight hair; In lonelier grace, to sun and dew The sweetbrier on the hillside shows Its single leaf and fainter hue, Untrained and wildly free, yet still a sister rose!

Thus o'er the heart of Weetamoo Their mingling shades of joy and ill The instincts of her nature threw; The savage was a woman still. Midst outlines dim of maiden schemes, Heart-colored prophecies of life, Rose on the ground of her young dreams The light of a new home, the lover and the wife.

IV. THE WEDDING. Cool and dark fell the autumn night, But the Bashaba's wigwam glowed with light, For down from its roof, by green withes hung, Flaring and smoking the pine-knots swung.

And along the river great wood-fires Shot into the night their long, red spires, Showing behind the tall, dark wood, Flashing before on the sweeping flood.

In the changeful wind, with shimmer and shade, Now high, now low, that firelight played, On tree-leaves wet with evening dews, On gliding water and still canoes.

The trapper that night on Turee's brook, And the weary fisher on Contoocook, Saw over the marshes, and through the pine, And down on the river, the dance-lights shine. For the Saugus Sachem had come to woo The Bashaba's daughter Weetamoo, And laid at her father's feet that night His softest furs and wampum white.

From the Crystal Hills to the far southeast The river Sagamores came to the feast; And chiefs whose homes the sea-winds shook Sat down on the mats of Pennacook.

They came from Sunapee's shore of rock, From the snowy sources of Snooganock, And from rough Coos whose thick woods shake Their pine-cones in Umbagog Lake.

From Ammonoosuc's mountain pass, Wild as his home, came Chepewass; And the Keenomps of the bills which throw Their shade on the Smile of Manito.

With pipes of peace and bows unstrung, Glowing with paint came old and young, In wampum and furs and feathers arrayed, To the dance and feast the Bashaba made.

Bird of the air and beast of the field, All which the woods and the waters yield, On dishes of birch and hemlock piled, Garnished and graced that banquet wild.

Steaks of the brown bear fat and large From the rocky slopes of the Kearsarge; Delicate trout from Babboosuck brook, And salmon speared in the Contoocook;

Squirrels which fed where nuts fell thick in the gravelly bed of the Otternic; And small wild-hens in reed-snares caught from the banks of Sondagardee brought;