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(Excerpt)
A SUMMER shower had swept the woods; | |
| But when, from all the scene, | |
| Rolled off at length the thunder-floods, | |
| And streamed the sunset sheen, | |
| I came where my postilion raised | 5 |
| His horsewhip for a wand, | |
| And said, “There ’s Horicon, good sir, | |
| And here ’s the Bloody Pond! | |
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| “And don’t you see yon low gray wall, | |
| With grass and bushes grown? | 10 |
| Well, that ’s Fort George’s palisade, | |
| That many a storm has known: | |
| But here ’s the Bloody Pond where lies | |
| Full many a soldier tall; | |
| The spring, they say, was never pure | 15 |
| Since that red burial.” | |
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| ’T was rare to see! That vale beneath; | |
| That lake so calm and cool! | |
| But mournful was each lily-wreath, | |
| Upon the turbid pool: | 20 |
| And—“On, postilion, let us haste | |
| To greener banks,” I cried, | |
| “O, stay me not where man has stained | |
| With brother’s blood the tide!” | |
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| An hour,—and though the Even-star | 25 |
| Was chasing down the sun, | |
| My boat was on thine azure wave, | |
| Sweet, holy Horicon! | |
| And woman’s voice cheered on our bark, | |
| With soft bewildering song, | 30 |
| While fireflies, darting through the dark, | |
| Went lighting us along. | |
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| Anon, that bark was on the beach, | |
| And soon I stood alone | |
| Upon thy mouldering walls, Fort George, | 35 |
| So old and ivy-grown. | |
| At once, old tales of massacre | |
| Were crowding on my soul, | |
| And ghosts of ancient sentinels | |
| Paced up the rocky knoll. | 40 |
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| The shadowy hour was dark enow | |
| For fancy’s wild campaign, | |
| And moments were impassioned hours | |
| Of battle and of pain: | |
| Each brake and thistle seemed alive | 45 |
| With fearful shapes of fight, | |
| And up the feathered scalp-locks rose | |
| Of many a tawny sprite. | |
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| The Mohawk war-whoop howled agen; | |
| I heard St. Denys’ charge, | 50 |
| And then the volleyed musketry | |
| Of England and St. George. | |
| The vale, the rocks, the cradling hills, | |
| From echoing rank to rank, | |
| Rung back the warlike rhetoric | 55 |
| Of Huron and of Frank. | |
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| “So, keep thy name, Lake George,” said I, | |
| “And bear to latest day, | |
| The memory of our primal age, | |
| And England’s early sway; | 60 |
| And when Columbia’s flag shall here | |
| Her starry glories toss, | |
| Be witness how our fathers fought | |
| Beneath St. George’s cross.” * * * * * | |
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