The Ambuscade
A TRADITION OF LAKE IROQUOIS, OR CHAMPLAIN .
The mountain-tops are bright above,
The lake is bright beneath —
And the mist is seen, the rocks between,
In a silver shroud to wreathe.
Merrily on the maple spray
The redbreast trills his roundelay,
And the oriole blithely flits among
The boughs where her pendent nest is hung:
The squirrel his morning revel keeps
In the chestnut's leafy screen,
And the fawn from the thicket gayly leaps
To gambol upon the green.
Now on the broad lake's waters blue
Dances many a light canoe;
And banded there, in wampum sheen,
Many a crested chief is seen;
Now as the foamy fringe they break,
Which the waves, where they kiss the margin, make,
The shallops shoot on the snowy strand,
And the plumed warriors leap to land.
They bear their pirogues of birchen bark
Far in the shadowy forest glade,
And plunge them deep in covert dark
Of the closely-woven hazel shade;
Then stealthily tread in each other's track,
And with wary step come gliding back.
And when the water again is won,
Unlace the beaded moccason,
And covering first with careful hand
The footmarks dash'd in the yielding sand,
Round jutting point and dented bay
Through the wave they take their winding way.
Awhile their painted forms are seen
Gleaming along the margin green,
And then the sunny lake is left —
Where issuing from a mountain cleft —
Above whose bold impending height
The dusky larch excludes the light,
The current of a rivulet
Conceals their wary footsteps yet.
Scaling the rocks, where strong and deep
Abrupt the waters foaming leap,
Along the stream they bending creep,
Where the hanging birch's tassels sweep,
Thrid the witch-hazel and alder-maze,
Where in broken rills the streamlet strays,
And reach the spot where its oozy tide
Steals from the mountain's shaggy side.
Now where wild vines their tendrils fling,
From crag to crag their forms they swing,
Some boldly find a footing where
The mountain cat would hardly dare;
Others as lightly onward bound
As the frolic chipmonk skips the ground,
Till all the midway mountain gain
And there once more collected meet,
Where on the eagle's wild domain
The morning sunbeams fiercely beat.
There's a glen upon that mountain side,
A sunny dell expanding wide,
Where the eye that looks through the green arcade
Of cliffs in vines and shrubs array'd,
Sees many a silver stream and lake
Upon its raptured vision break;
That sunny dell has its opening bright
Almost within an arrow's flight
Of a fearful gorge whose upper side
Rank weeds and furze as closely hide,
As if Pau-puck-wis there had plied
His skill in weaving osiers green,
And thus in thievish freak had tried
Its gloomy mouth to screen.
'Tis a chasm beneath the wooded steep,
Where the brain will swim and the blood will creep
When its dizzy edge is seen,
And the Fiend will prompt the heart to leap
When the eye would measure the yawning deep
Of that hideous ravine!
Far down the gulf in distance dim
The bat will oft at noontide skim,
The rattlesnake like a shadow glides
Through poisonous weeds in its shelvy sides,
While swarming lizards loathsome crawl
Where the green-damp stands on the slimy wall,
And the venomous copper-snake's heard to hiss
On the frightful edge of that black abyss.
Here, in the feathery fern — between
The tangled thicket's matted screen,
Their weapons hid, save where a blade
From straggling ray reflection made,
The Adirondach warriors lay.
The morning sees them gather there
And crouch within their leafy lair —
The scorching beams of noontide hour,
If boughs should lift, would only play
On bronzed and motionless array
Within that silent bower:
Still silent when the mantle gray
Of sombre twilight slowly fell
O'er rocky height and wooded dell,
Those men of bronze all silent they
Still waited for their prey!
How slow the languid moments move,
How long to him their lapse appears
In whom remorse, or fear, or love,
Concentres griefs untold by tears,
The gather'd agony of years!
But o'er the Indian warrior's soul
Uncounted and unheeded roll
Long hours, like these in watching spent,
The moments thaThe knows within,
When on the glorious War-Path sent,
Are calm as those which usher in
The thunders of the firmament!
The moose hath left the rushy brink
Where he stole to the lake at eve to drink,
And sought his lair in thicket dark,
Lit only by the fire-fly's spark.
Now myriad stars are twinkling through
The vaulted heaven's veil of blue,
And seen reflected in the wave
With golden studs its bed to pave.
Now as upon the western hills
The moon her mystic circle fills,
Against the sky each cliff is flung,
As if at magic touch it sprung;
And as the wood her beam receives,
The dewdrop in that virgin light
Pendent from the quivering leaves,
Sparkles upon the pall of night.
Deep in the linden's foliage hid,
Complains the peevish katydid,
And the shrill screech-owl answers back
From tulip tree and tamarack.
At times along the placid lake
A solitary trout will break,
And rippling eddies on the stream
In trembling circles faintly gleam;
While near the sedgy shore is heard
The plash of that ill-omen'd bird,
Whose dismal note and boding cry
Will oft the startled ear assail,
When lowering clouds obscure the sky,
And when the tempest gathers nigh
Come quivering in the rising gale.
Oh, why cannot that loon's wild shriek
To them a feeble warning speak,
Whose proudly waving banner now
Comes floating round the mountain brow,
Whose gallant ranks in close array
Now gleam along the moonlit way;
And now with many a break between,
Are winding through the long ravine?
Oh, why cannot that loon's wild shriek
To them a feeble warning speak,
Who careless press a foeman's sod
As if in banquet-hall they trod;
Who rashly thus undaunted dare
To chase in woods the forest child,
To hunt the panther to his lair,
The Indian in his native wild?
Unapprehensive thus, at night
The wild doe looking from the brake,
To where there gleams a fitful light
Dotted upon the rippling lake,
Sees not the silver spray-drop dripping
From the lithe oar which, softly dipping,
Impels the wily hunter's boat;
But on his ruddy torch's rays,
As nearer, clearer now they float,
The fated quarry stands to gaze,
And dreaming not of cruel sport,
Withdraws not thence her gentle eyes
Until the rifle's sharp report
The simple creature hears and dies.
Buoyant with youth, as heedless they
Pursue the death-besetted way,
As cautionless each one proceeds,
Where his doom'd steps the pathway leads,
As if the peril of that hour
But led those steps to beauty's bower.
They come with stirring fife and drum,
With flaunting plume and pennon come,
To solitudes where never yet
Hath gleamed the glistening bayonet —
Banner upon the breeze hath flown,
Or bugle note before been blown.
The cautious beaver starts with fear,
That strange unwonted sound to hear;
But still her grave demeanor keeps,
As from her hovel-door she peeps —
Observing thence with curious eye
The pageant as it passes by;
Pauses the wailing whipporwill
One moment, in her plaintive trill,
As echoing on the mountain-side
Their martial music wanders wide;
Then, as the last note dies away,
Pursues once more her broken lay.
At length they reach that fatal steep,
Which, hanging o'er the chasm deep,
With stunted copse and tangled heath,
Conceals the gulf that yawns beneath.
The watchful Indian, from his lair,
One moment sees them falter there —
One moment looks, with eagle eye,
To mark their forms against the sky;
Then through the night air, wild and high,
Peals the red warrior's battle cry.
From sassafras and sumac green,
From shatter'd stump, and riven rock —
From the dark hemlock boughs between
Is launch'd the gleaming tomahawk.
And savage eyes glare fiercely out
From every bush and vine about;
And savage forms the branches throw
In dusky masses on the foe.
In vain their leaders strive to form
Their ranks beneath that living storm!
As whoop on whoop discordant fell
Loudly on their astounded ears,
As if at once each fiendish yell
Awoke, within that narrow dell,
The echoes of a thousand years!
No rallying cry, no hoarse command
Can marshal that bewilder'd band;
Nor clarion-call to standard, more
Those panic-stricken ranks restore;
Now strown like pines upon the path
Where bursts the fierce tornado's wrath.
Yet some there are who undismay'd
Seek sternly, back to back array'd,
With eye and blade alert, in vain
A moment's footing to maintain.
Though gallanThearts direct the steel,
And stalwart arms the buffets deal,
What can a score of brands avail
When each as many foes assail!
Like scud before the wintry blast,
That through the sky comes sweeping fast,
Like leaves upon the tempest whirl'd
They toward the steep are struggling hurl'd.
Valor in vain, in vain despair
Nerves many a frantic bosom there,
Furious with the unequal strife,
To cling with desperate force to life.
There, fighting still, with mad endeavor,
As on the dizzy edge they hover,
Their bugle breathes one rallying note,
Pennon and plume one moment float;
Then, swept beyond the frightful brink
Like mist, into the chasm sink;
Within whose bosom as they fell,
Arose as hideous, wild a yell
As if the very earth were riven,
And shrieks from hell were upward driven.
The mountain-tops are bright above,
The lake is bright beneath —
And the mist is seen, the rocks between,
In a silver shroud to wreathe.
Merrily on the maple spray
The redbreast trills his roundelay,
And the oriole blithely flits among
The boughs where her pendent nest is hung:
The squirrel his morning revel keeps
In the chestnut's leafy screen,
And the fawn from the thicket gayly leaps
To gambol upon the green.
Now on the broad lake's waters blue
Dances many a light canoe;
And banded there, in wampum sheen,
Many a crested chief is seen;
Now as the foamy fringe they break,
Which the waves, where they kiss the margin, make,
The shallops shoot on the snowy strand,
And the plumed warriors leap to land.
They bear their pirogues of birchen bark
Far in the shadowy forest glade,
And plunge them deep in covert dark
Of the closely-woven hazel shade;
Then stealthily tread in each other's track,
And with wary step come gliding back.
And when the water again is won,
Unlace the beaded moccason,
And covering first with careful hand
The footmarks dash'd in the yielding sand,
Round jutting point and dented bay
Through the wave they take their winding way.
Awhile their painted forms are seen
Gleaming along the margin green,
And then the sunny lake is left —
Where issuing from a mountain cleft —
Above whose bold impending height
The dusky larch excludes the light,
The current of a rivulet
Conceals their wary footsteps yet.
Scaling the rocks, where strong and deep
Abrupt the waters foaming leap,
Along the stream they bending creep,
Where the hanging birch's tassels sweep,
Thrid the witch-hazel and alder-maze,
Where in broken rills the streamlet strays,
And reach the spot where its oozy tide
Steals from the mountain's shaggy side.
Now where wild vines their tendrils fling,
From crag to crag their forms they swing,
Some boldly find a footing where
The mountain cat would hardly dare;
Others as lightly onward bound
As the frolic chipmonk skips the ground,
Till all the midway mountain gain
And there once more collected meet,
Where on the eagle's wild domain
The morning sunbeams fiercely beat.
There's a glen upon that mountain side,
A sunny dell expanding wide,
Where the eye that looks through the green arcade
Of cliffs in vines and shrubs array'd,
Sees many a silver stream and lake
Upon its raptured vision break;
That sunny dell has its opening bright
Almost within an arrow's flight
Of a fearful gorge whose upper side
Rank weeds and furze as closely hide,
As if Pau-puck-wis there had plied
His skill in weaving osiers green,
And thus in thievish freak had tried
Its gloomy mouth to screen.
'Tis a chasm beneath the wooded steep,
Where the brain will swim and the blood will creep
When its dizzy edge is seen,
And the Fiend will prompt the heart to leap
When the eye would measure the yawning deep
Of that hideous ravine!
Far down the gulf in distance dim
The bat will oft at noontide skim,
The rattlesnake like a shadow glides
Through poisonous weeds in its shelvy sides,
While swarming lizards loathsome crawl
Where the green-damp stands on the slimy wall,
And the venomous copper-snake's heard to hiss
On the frightful edge of that black abyss.
Here, in the feathery fern — between
The tangled thicket's matted screen,
Their weapons hid, save where a blade
From straggling ray reflection made,
The Adirondach warriors lay.
The morning sees them gather there
And crouch within their leafy lair —
The scorching beams of noontide hour,
If boughs should lift, would only play
On bronzed and motionless array
Within that silent bower:
Still silent when the mantle gray
Of sombre twilight slowly fell
O'er rocky height and wooded dell,
Those men of bronze all silent they
Still waited for their prey!
How slow the languid moments move,
How long to him their lapse appears
In whom remorse, or fear, or love,
Concentres griefs untold by tears,
The gather'd agony of years!
But o'er the Indian warrior's soul
Uncounted and unheeded roll
Long hours, like these in watching spent,
The moments thaThe knows within,
When on the glorious War-Path sent,
Are calm as those which usher in
The thunders of the firmament!
The moose hath left the rushy brink
Where he stole to the lake at eve to drink,
And sought his lair in thicket dark,
Lit only by the fire-fly's spark.
Now myriad stars are twinkling through
The vaulted heaven's veil of blue,
And seen reflected in the wave
With golden studs its bed to pave.
Now as upon the western hills
The moon her mystic circle fills,
Against the sky each cliff is flung,
As if at magic touch it sprung;
And as the wood her beam receives,
The dewdrop in that virgin light
Pendent from the quivering leaves,
Sparkles upon the pall of night.
Deep in the linden's foliage hid,
Complains the peevish katydid,
And the shrill screech-owl answers back
From tulip tree and tamarack.
At times along the placid lake
A solitary trout will break,
And rippling eddies on the stream
In trembling circles faintly gleam;
While near the sedgy shore is heard
The plash of that ill-omen'd bird,
Whose dismal note and boding cry
Will oft the startled ear assail,
When lowering clouds obscure the sky,
And when the tempest gathers nigh
Come quivering in the rising gale.
Oh, why cannot that loon's wild shriek
To them a feeble warning speak,
Whose proudly waving banner now
Comes floating round the mountain brow,
Whose gallant ranks in close array
Now gleam along the moonlit way;
And now with many a break between,
Are winding through the long ravine?
Oh, why cannot that loon's wild shriek
To them a feeble warning speak,
Who careless press a foeman's sod
As if in banquet-hall they trod;
Who rashly thus undaunted dare
To chase in woods the forest child,
To hunt the panther to his lair,
The Indian in his native wild?
Unapprehensive thus, at night
The wild doe looking from the brake,
To where there gleams a fitful light
Dotted upon the rippling lake,
Sees not the silver spray-drop dripping
From the lithe oar which, softly dipping,
Impels the wily hunter's boat;
But on his ruddy torch's rays,
As nearer, clearer now they float,
The fated quarry stands to gaze,
And dreaming not of cruel sport,
Withdraws not thence her gentle eyes
Until the rifle's sharp report
The simple creature hears and dies.
Buoyant with youth, as heedless they
Pursue the death-besetted way,
As cautionless each one proceeds,
Where his doom'd steps the pathway leads,
As if the peril of that hour
But led those steps to beauty's bower.
They come with stirring fife and drum,
With flaunting plume and pennon come,
To solitudes where never yet
Hath gleamed the glistening bayonet —
Banner upon the breeze hath flown,
Or bugle note before been blown.
The cautious beaver starts with fear,
That strange unwonted sound to hear;
But still her grave demeanor keeps,
As from her hovel-door she peeps —
Observing thence with curious eye
The pageant as it passes by;
Pauses the wailing whipporwill
One moment, in her plaintive trill,
As echoing on the mountain-side
Their martial music wanders wide;
Then, as the last note dies away,
Pursues once more her broken lay.
At length they reach that fatal steep,
Which, hanging o'er the chasm deep,
With stunted copse and tangled heath,
Conceals the gulf that yawns beneath.
The watchful Indian, from his lair,
One moment sees them falter there —
One moment looks, with eagle eye,
To mark their forms against the sky;
Then through the night air, wild and high,
Peals the red warrior's battle cry.
From sassafras and sumac green,
From shatter'd stump, and riven rock —
From the dark hemlock boughs between
Is launch'd the gleaming tomahawk.
And savage eyes glare fiercely out
From every bush and vine about;
And savage forms the branches throw
In dusky masses on the foe.
In vain their leaders strive to form
Their ranks beneath that living storm!
As whoop on whoop discordant fell
Loudly on their astounded ears,
As if at once each fiendish yell
Awoke, within that narrow dell,
The echoes of a thousand years!
No rallying cry, no hoarse command
Can marshal that bewilder'd band;
Nor clarion-call to standard, more
Those panic-stricken ranks restore;
Now strown like pines upon the path
Where bursts the fierce tornado's wrath.
Yet some there are who undismay'd
Seek sternly, back to back array'd,
With eye and blade alert, in vain
A moment's footing to maintain.
Though gallanThearts direct the steel,
And stalwart arms the buffets deal,
What can a score of brands avail
When each as many foes assail!
Like scud before the wintry blast,
That through the sky comes sweeping fast,
Like leaves upon the tempest whirl'd
They toward the steep are struggling hurl'd.
Valor in vain, in vain despair
Nerves many a frantic bosom there,
Furious with the unequal strife,
To cling with desperate force to life.
There, fighting still, with mad endeavor,
As on the dizzy edge they hover,
Their bugle breathes one rallying note,
Pennon and plume one moment float;
Then, swept beyond the frightful brink
Like mist, into the chasm sink;
Within whose bosom as they fell,
Arose as hideous, wild a yell
As if the very earth were riven,
And shrieks from hell were upward driven.
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