The famous chief, Squando, was the principal negotiator on the part of the savages.

He had taken up the hatchet to revenge the brutal treatment of his child by drunken white sailors, which caused its death.
It not unfrequently happened during the Border wars that young white children were adopted by their Indian captors, and so kindly treated that they were unwilling to leave the free, wild life of the woods; and in some instances they utterly refused to go back with their parents to their old homes and civilization.
RAZE these long blocks of brick and stone, These huge mill-monsters overgrown; Blot out the humbler piles as well, Where, moved like living shuttles, dwell The weaving genii of the bell; Tear from the wild Cocheco's track The dams that hold its torrents back; And let the loud-rejoicing fall Plunge, roaring, down its rocky wall; And let the Indian's paddle play On the unbridged Piscataqua! Wide over hill and valley spread Once more the forest, dusk and dread, With here and there a clearing cut From the walled shadows round it shut; Each with its farm-house builded rude, By English yeoman squared and hewed, And the grim, flankered block-house bound With bristling palisades around.
So, haply shall before thine eyes The dusty veil of centuries rise, The old, strange scenery overlay The tamer pictures of to-day, While, like the actors in a play, Pass in their ancient guise along The figures of my border song What time beside Cocheco's flood The white man and the red man stood, With words of peace and brotherhood; When passed the sacred calumet From lip to lip with fire-draught wet, And, puffed in scorn, the peace-pipe's smoke Through the gray beard of Waldron broke, And Squando's voice, in suppliant plea For mercy, struck the haughty key Of one who held, in any fate, His native pride inviolate! "Let your ears be opened wide! He who speaks has never lied.
Waldron of Piscataqua, Hear what Squando has to say! "Squando shuts his eyes and sees, Far off, Saco's hemlock-trees.
In his wigwam, still as stone, Sits a woman all alone, "Wampum beads and birchen strands Dropping from her careless hands, Listening ever for the fleet Patter of a dead child's feet! "When the moon a year ago Told the flowers the time to blow, In that lonely wigwam smiled Menewee, our little child.
"Ere that moon grew thin and old, He was lying still and cold; Sent before us, weak and small, When the Master did not call! "On his little grave I lay; Three times went and came the day, Thrice above me blazed the noon, Thrice upon me wept the moon.
"In the third night-watch I heard, Far and low, a spirit-bird; Very mournful, very wild, Sang the totem of my child.
"'Menewee, poor Menewee, Walks a path he cannot see Let the white man's wigwam light With its blaze his steps aright.
"'All-uncalled, he dares not show Empty hands to Manito Better gifts he cannot bear Than the scalps his slayers wear.' "All the while the totem sang, Lightning blazed and thunder rang; And a black cloud, reaching high, Pulled the white moon from the sky.
"I, the medicine-man, whose ear All that spirits bear can hear,-- I, whose eyes are wide to see All the things that are to be,-- "Well I knew the dreadful signs In the whispers of the pines, In the river roaring loud, In the mutter of the cloud.
"At the breaking of the day, From the grave I passed away; Flowers bloomed round me, birds sang glad, But my heart was hot and mad.
"There is rust on Squando's knife, From the warm, red springs of life; On the funeral hemlock-trees Many a scalp the totem sees.
"Blood for blood! But evermore Squando's heart is sad and sore; And his poor squaw waits at home For the feet that never come! "Waldron of Cocheco, hear! Squando speaks, who laughs at fear; Take the captives he has ta'en; Let the land have peace again!" As the words died on his tongue, Wide apart his warriors swung; Parted, at the sign he gave, Right and left, like Egypt's wave.
And, like Israel passing free Through the prophet-charmed sea, Captive mother, wife, and child Through the dusky terror filed.
One alone, a little maid, Middleway her steps delayed, Glancing, with quick, troubled sight, Round about from red to white.
Then his hand the Indian laid On the little maiden's head, Lightly from her forehead fair Smoothing back her yellow hair.
"Gift or favor ask I none; What I have is all my own Never yet the birds have sung, Squando hath a beggar's tongue.' "Yet for her who waits at home, For the dead who cannot come, Let the little Gold-hair be In the place of Menewee! "Mishanock, my little star! Come to Saco's pines afar; Where the sad one waits at home, Wequashim, my moonlight, come!" "What!" quoth Waldron, "leave a child Christian-born to heathens wild?
As God lives, from Satan's hand I will pluck her as a brand!" "Hear me, white man!" Squando cried; "Let the little one decide.
Wequashim, my moonlight, say, Wilt thou go with me, or stay ?" Slowly, sadly, half afraid, Half regretfully, the maid Owned the ties of blood and race,-- Turned from Squando's pleading face.
Not a word the Indian spoke, But his wampum chain he broke, And the beaded wonder hung On that neck so fair and young.
Silence-shod, as phantoms seem In the marches of a dream, Single-filed, the grim array Through the pine-trees wound away.
Doubting, trembling, sore amazed, Through her tears the young child gazed.
"God preserve her!" Waldron said; "Satan hath bewitched the maid!" Years went and came.

At close of day Singing came a child from play, Tossing from her loose-locked head Gold in sunshine, brown in shade.
Pride was in the mother's look, But her head she gravely shook, And with lips that fondly smiled Feigned to chide her truant child.
Unabashed, the maid began "Up and down the brook I ran, Where, beneath the bank so steep, Lie the spotted trout asleep.
"'Chip!' went squirrel on the wall, After me I heard him call, And the cat-bird on the tree Tried his best to mimic me.
"Where the hemlocks grew so dark That I stopped to look and hark, On a log, with feather-hat, By the path, an Indian sat.
"Then I cried, and ran away; But he called, and bade me stay; And his voice was good and mild As my mother's to her child.
"And he took my wampum chain, Looked and looked it o'er again; Gave me berries, and, beside, On my neck a plaything tied." Straight the mother stooped to see What the Indian's gift might be.
On the braid of wampum hung, Lo! a cross of silver swung.
Well she knew its graven sign, Squando's bird and totem pine; And, a mirage of the brain, Flowed her childhood back again.
Flashed the roof the sunshine through, Into space the walls outgrew; On the Indian's wigwam-mat, Blossom-crowned, again she sat.
Cool she felt the west-wind blow, In her ear the pines sang low, And, like links from out a chain, Dropped the years of care and pain.
From the outward toil and din, From the griefs that gnaw within, To the freedom of the woods Called the birds, and winds, and floods.
Well, O painful minister! Watch thy flock, but blame not her, If her ear grew sharp to hear All their voices whispering near.
Blame her not, as to her soul All the desert's glamour stole, That a tear for childhood's loss Dropped upon the Indian's cross.
When, that night, the Book was read, And she bowed her widowed head, And a prayer for each loved name Rose like incense from a flame, With a hope the creeds forbid In her pitying bosom hid, To the listening ear of Heaven Lo! the Indian's name was given.
1860.
MY PLAYMATE.
THE pines were dark on Ramoth hill, Their song was soft and low; The blossoms in the sweet May wind Were falling like the snow.
The blossoms drifted at our feet, The orchard birds sang clear; The sweetest and the saddest day It seemed of all the year.
For, more to me than birds or flowers, My playmate left her home, And took with her the laughing spring, The music and the bloom.
She kissed the lips of kith and kin, She laid her hand in mine What more could ask the bashful boy Who fed her father's kine?
She left us in the bloom of May The constant years told o'er Their seasons with as sweet May morns, But she came back no more.
I walk, with noiseless feet, the round Of uneventful years; Still o'er and o'er I sow the spring And reap the autumn ears.
She lives where all the golden year Her summer roses blow; The dusky children of the sun Before her come and go.
There haply with her jewelled hands She smooths her silken gown,-- No more the homespun lap wherein I shook the walnuts down.
The wild grapes wait us by the brook, The brown nuts on the hill, And still the May-day flowers make sweet The woods of Follymill.
The lilies blossom in the pond, The bird builds in the tree, The dark pines sing on Ramoth hill The slow song of the sea.
I wonder if she thinks of them, And how the old time seems,-- If ever the pines of Ramoth wood Are sounding in her dreams.
I see her face, I hear her voice; Does she remember mine?
And what to her is now the boy Who fed her father's kine?
What cares she that the orioles build For other eyes than ours,-- That other hands with nuts are filled, And other laps with flowers?
O playmate in the golden time! Our mossy seat is green, Its fringing violets blossom yet, The old trees o'er it lean.
The winds so sweet with birch and fern A sweeter memory blow; And there in spring the veeries sing The song of long ago.
And still the pines of Ramoth wood Are moaning like the sea,-- The moaning of the sea of change Between myself and thee! 1860.
COBBLER KEEZAR'S VISION.
This ballad was written on the occasion of a Horticultural Festival.
Cobbler Keezar was a noted character among the first settlers in the valley of the Merrimac.
THE beaver cut his timber With patient teeth that day, The minks were fish-wards, and the crows Surveyors of highway,-- When Keezar sat on the hillside Upon his cobbler's form, With a pan of coals on either hand To keep his waxed-ends warm.
And there, in the golden weather, He stitched and hammered and sung; In the brook he moistened his leather, In the pewter mug his tongue.
Well knew the tough old Teuton Who brewed the stoutest ale, And he paid the goodwife's reckoning In the coin of song and tale.
The songs they still are singing Who dress the hills of vine, The tales that haunt the Brocken And whisper down the Rhine.
Woodsy and wild and lonesome, The swift stream wound away, Through birches and scarlet maples Flashing in foam and spray,-- Down on the sharp-horned ledges Plunging in steep cascade, Tossing its white-maned waters Against the hemlock's shade.
Woodsy and wild and lonesome, East and west and north and south; Only the village of fishers Down at the river's mouth; Only here and there a clearing, With its farm-house rude and new, And tree-stumps, swart as Indians, Where the scanty harvest grew.
No shout of home-bound reapers, No vintage-song he heard, And on the green no dancing feet The merry violin stirred.
"Why should folk be glum," said Keezar, "When Nature herself is glad, And the painted woods are laughing At the faces so sour and sad ?" Small heed had the careless cobbler What sorrow of heart was theirs Who travailed in pain with the births of God, And planted a state with prayers,-- Hunting of witches and warlocks, Smiting the heathen horde,-- One hand on the mason's trowel, And one on the soldier's sword.
But give him his ale and cider, Give him his pipe and song, Little he cared for Church or State, Or the balance of right and wrong.
"T is work, work, work," he muttered,-- "And for rest a snuffle of psalms!" He smote on his leathern apron With his brown and waxen palms.
"Oh for the purple harvests Of the days when I was young For the merry grape-stained maidens, And the pleasant songs they sung! "Oh for the breath of vineyards, Of apples and nuts and wine For an oar to row and a breeze to blow Down the grand old river Rhine!" A tear in his blue eye glistened, And dropped on his beard so gray.
"Old, old am I," said Keezar, "And the Rhine flows far away!" But a cunning man was the cobbler; He could call the birds from the trees, Charm the black snake out of the ledges, And bring back the swarming bees.
All the virtues of herbs and metals, All the lore of the woods, he knew, And the arts of the Old World mingle With the marvels of the New.
Well he knew the tricks of magic, And the lapstone on his knee Had the gift of the Mormon's goggles Or the stone of Doctor Dee.( 11) For the mighty master Agrippa Wrought it with spell and rhyme From a fragment of mystic moonstone In the tower of Nettesheim.
To a cobbler Minnesinger The marvellous stone gave he,-- And he gave it, in turn, to Keezar, Who brought it over the sea.
He held up that mystic lapstone, He held it up like a lens, And he counted the long years coming Ey twenties and by tens.
"One hundred years," quoth Keezar, "And fifty have I told Now open the new before me, And shut me out the old!" Like a cloud of mist, the blackness Rolled from the magic stone, And a marvellous picture mingled The unknown and the known.
Still ran the stream to the river, And river and ocean joined; And there were the bluffs and the blue sea-line, And cold north hills behind.
But--the mighty forest was broken By many a steepled town, By many a white-walled farm-house, And many a garner brown.
Turning a score of mill-wheels, The stream no more ran free; White sails on the winding river, White sails on the far-off sea.
Below in the noisy village The flags were floating gay, And shone on a thousand faces The light of a holiday.
Swiftly the rival ploughmen Turned the brown earth from their shares; Here were the farmer's treasures, There were the craftsman's wares.
Golden the goodwife's butter, Ruby her currant-wine; Grand were the strutting turkeys, Fat were the beeves and swine.
Yellow and red were the apples, And the ripe pears russet-brown, And the peaches had stolen blushes From the girls who shook them down.
And with blooms of hill and wildwood, That shame the toil of art, Mingled the gorgeous blossoms Of the garden's tropic heart.
"What is it I see ?" said Keezar "Am I here, or ant I there?
Is it a fete at Bingen?
Do I look on Frankfort fair?
"But where are the clowns and puppets, And imps with horns and tail?
And where are the Rhenish flagons?
And where is the foaming ale?
"Strange things, I know, will happen,-- Strange things the Lord permits; But that droughty folk should be jolly Puzzles my poor old wits.
"Here are smiling manly faces, And the maiden's step is gay; Nor sad by thinking, nor mad by drinking, Nor mopes, nor fools, are they.
"Here's pleasure without regretting, And good without abuse, The holiday and the bridal Of beauty and of use.
"Here's a priest and there is a Quaker, Do the cat and dog agree?
Have they burned the stocks for ovenwood?
Have they cut down the gallows-tree?
"Would the old folk know their children?
Would they own the graceless town, With never a ranter to worry And never a witch to drown ?" Loud laughed the cobbler Keezar, Laughed like a school-boy gay; Tossing his arms above him, The lapstone rolled away.
It rolled down the rugged hillside, It spun like a wheel bewitched, It plunged through the leaning willows, And into the river pitched.
There, in the deep, dark water, The magic stone lies still, Under the leaning willows In the shadow of the hill.
But oft the idle fisher Sits on the shadowy bank, And his dreams make marvellous pictures Where the wizard's lapstone sank.
And still, in the summer twilights, When the river seems to run Out from the inner glory, Warm with the melted sun, The weary mill-girl lingers Beside the charmed stream, And the sky and the golden water Shape and color her dream.
Air wave the sunset gardens, The rosy signals fly; Her homestead beckons from the cloud, And love goes sailing by.
1861.
AMY WENTWORTH TO WILLIAM BRADFORD.
As they who watch by sick-beds find relief Unwittingly from the great stress of grief And anxious care, in fantasies outwrought From the hearth's embers flickering low, or caught From whispering wind, or tread of passing feet, Or vagrant memory calling up some sweet Snatch of old song or romance, whence or why They scarcely know or ask,--so, thou and I, Nursed in the faith that Truth alone is strong In the endurance which outwearies Wrong, With meek persistence baffling brutal force, And trusting God against the universe,-- We, doomed to watch a strife we may not share With other weapons than the patriot's prayer, Yet owning, with full hearts and moistened eyes, The awful beauty of self-sacrifice, And wrung by keenest sympathy for all Who give their loved ones for the living wall 'Twixt law and treason,--in this evil day May haply find, through automatic play Of pen and pencil, solace to our pain, And hearten others with the strength we gain.
I know it has been said our times require No play of art, nor dalliance with the lyre, No weak essay with Fancy's chloroform To calm the hot, mad pulses of the storm, But the stern war-blast rather, such as sets The battle's teeth of serried bayonets, And pictures grim as Vernet's.

Yet with these Some softer tints may blend, and milder keys Relieve the storm-stunned ear.

Let us keep sweet, If so we may, our hearts, even while we eat The bitter harvest of our own device And half a century's moral cowardice.
As Nurnberg sang while Wittenberg defied, And Kranach painted by his Luther's side, And through the war-march of the Puritan The silver stream of Marvell's music ran, So let the household melodies be sung, The pleasant pictures on the wall be hung-- So let us hold against the hosts of night And slavery all our vantage-ground of light.
Let Treason boast its savagery, and shake From its flag-folds its symbol rattlesnake, Nurse its fine arts, lay human skins in tan, And carve its pipe-bowls from the bones of man, And make the tale of Fijian banquets dull By drinking whiskey from a loyal skull,-- But let us guard, till this sad war shall cease, (God grant it soon!) the graceful arts of peace No foes are conquered who the victors teach Their vandal manners and barbaric speech.
And while, with hearts of thankfulness, we bear Of the great common burden our full share, Let none upbraid us that the waves entice Thy sea-dipped pencil, or some quaint device, Rhythmic, and sweet, beguiles my pen away From the sharp strifes and sorrows of to-day.
Thus, while the east-wind keen from Labrador Sings it the leafless elms, and from the shore Of the great sea comes the monotonous roar Of the long-breaking surf, and all the sky Is gray with cloud, home-bound and dull, I try To time a simple legend to the sounds Of winds in the woods, and waves on pebbled bounds,-- A song for oars to chime with, such as might Be sung by tired sea-painters, who at night Look from their hemlock camps, by quiet cove Or beach, moon-lighted, on the waves they love.
(So hast thou looked, when level sunset lay On the calm bosom of some Eastern bay, And all the spray-moist rocks and waves that rolled Up the white sand-slopes flashed with ruddy gold.) Something it has--a flavor of the sea, And the sea's freedom--which reminds of thee.
Its faded picture, dimly smiling down From the blurred fresco of the ancient town, I have not touched with warmer tints in vain, If, in this dark, sad year, it steals one thought from pain.
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