Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant. Bryant William Cullen

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      There is a tale about these reverend rocks,

      A sad tradition of unhappy love,

      And sorrows borne and ended, long ago,

      When over these fair vales the savage sought

      His game in the thick woods. There was a maid,

      The fairest of the Indian maids, bright-eyed,

      With wealth of raven tresses, a light form,

      And a gay heart. About her cabin-door

      The wide old woods resounded with her song

      And fairy laughter all the summer day.

      She loved her cousin; such a love was deemed,

      By the morality of those stern tribes,

      Incestuous, and she struggled hard and long

      Against her love, and reasoned with her heart,

      As simple Indian maiden might. In vain.

      Then her eye lost its lustre, and her step

      Its lightness, and the gray-haired men that passed

      Her dwelling, wondered that they heard no more

      The accustomed song and laugh of her, whose looks

      Were like the cheerful smile of Spring, they said,

      Upon the Winter of their age. She went

      To weep where no eye saw, and was not found

      Where all the merry girls were met to dance,

      And all the hunters of the tribe were out;

      Nor when they gathered from the rustling husk

      The shining ear; nor when, by the river's side,

      They pulled the grape and startled the wild shades

      With sounds of mirth. The keen-eyed Indian dames

      Would whisper to each other, as they saw

      Her wasting form, and say, The girl will die.

      One day into the bosom of a friend,

      A playmate of her young and innocent years,

      She poured her griefs. "Thou know'st, and thou alone,"

      She said, "for I have told thee, all my love,

      And guilt, and sorrow. I am sick of life.

      All night I weep in darkness, and the morn

      Glares on me, as upon a thing accursed,

      That has no business on the earth. I hate

      The pastimes and the pleasant toils that once

      I loved; the cheerful voices of my friends

      Sound in my ear like mockings, and, at night,

      In dreams, my mother, from the land of souls,

      Calls me and chides me. All that look on me

      Do seem to know my shame; I cannot bear

      Their eyes; I cannot from my heart root out

      The love that wrings it so, and I must die."

      It was a summer morning, and they went

      To this old precipice. About the cliffs

      Lay garlands, ears of maize, and shaggy skins

      Of wolf and bear, the offerings of the tribe

      Here made to the Great Spirit, for they deemed,

      Like worshippers of the elder time, that God

      Doth walk on the high places and affect

      The earth-o'erlooking mountains. She had on

      The ornaments with which her father loved

      To deck the beauty of his bright-eyed girl,

      And bade her wear when stranger warriors came

      To be his guests. Here the friends sat them down,

      And sang, all day, old songs of love and death,

      And decked the poor wan victim's hair with flowers,

      And prayed that safe and swift might be her way

      To the calm world of sunshine, where no grief

      Makes the heart heavy and the eyelids red.

      Beautiful lay the region of her tribe

      Below her – waters resting in the embrace

      Of the wide forest, and maize-planted glades

      Opening amid the leafy wilderness.

      She gazed upon it long, and at the sight

      Of her own village peeping through the trees,

      And her own dwelling, and the cabin roof

      Of him she loved with an unlawful love,

      And came to die for, a warm gush of tears

      Ran from her eyes. But when the sun grew low

      And the hill shadows long, she threw herself

      From the steep rock and perished. There was scooped,

      Upon the mountain's southern slope, a grave;

      And there they laid her, in the very garb

      With which the maiden decked herself for death,

      With the same withering wild-flowers in her hair.

      And o'er the mould that covered her, the tribe

      Built up a simple monument, a cone

      Of small loose stones. Thenceforward all who passed,

      Hunter, and dame, and virgin, laid a stone

      In silence on the pile. It stands there yet.

      And Indians from the distant West, who come

      To visit where their fathers' bones are laid,

      Yet tell the sorrowful tale, and to this day

      The mountain where the hapless maiden died

      Is called the Mountain of the Monument.