C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
Margaret Junkin Preston (1820–1897)
The Mystery of Cro-a-tàn
From ‘Colonial Ballads, Sonnets, and Other Verses’
And on the island’s marge
Sir Richard waited restlessly
To step into the barge.
“As he were loath to go:
With food before and want behind,
There should be haste, I trow.”
“Nay, fret not, for the men
Have held me back with frantic let,
To have them home again.
Will come again (he saith)
Before the May;—before the May
We shall have starved to death!’
I’ve vowed by Court and Crown,
Nor yet appeased them. Comrade, thou,
Mayhap, canst soothe them down.”
Impatient hands abroad:—
“Have ye no trust in man?” he cried,
“Have ye no faith in God?
To bear through royal grace,
Hither, such food-supply that want
May never blench a face.
Whatso ye had of ease;
For neither stress of liege nor law
Hath forced you over seas.
As costliest pledge of care,—
His daughter yonder, and her child,
The child Virginia Dare.
Thou’lt be the first, I ween,
To bend the knee, and send through me
Thy birthland’s virgin fealty
Unto its Virgin Queen.
If ye are fain to roam
Beyond this island’s narrow bounds,
To seek elsewhere a home,—
Score deep the Indian name
Of tribe or village where ye haunt,
That we may read the same.
Through dire distress or loss,
Cut deep within the wood above
The symbol of the cross.
And seal it with this sign,
That if the fleet that sails to-day
Return not hither by the May,
The fault shall not be mine!”
Anon the Governor stepped
His good ship’s deck right merrily,—
His promise had been kept.
He heard the mariners shout,—
“We’ll drop our anchors in the Sound
Before a star is out!”
“Who saves from all that harms:
The morrow morn my pretty ones
Will rest within my arms.”
And dared the breakers’ roar:
What meant it? Not a man was there
To welcome them ashore!
The quick green sedge had thrown
Its knotted web o’er every door,
And climbed the chimney-stone.
And feebly gurgled on;
And from the pathway, strewn with rack,
All trace of feet was gone.
If there, perchance, a mound
Unseen might heave the broken turf;
But not a grave was found.
If haply in despair
They might have strayed into its glade,
But found no vestige there.
And there each staring man
Read in a maze, one single word,
Deep carven,—C
No symbol of distress;
Naught else beside that mystic line
Within the wilderness!
But not an answer came;
And none of all who read it there
Had ever heard the name.
Across his misty eyes:
“Some land, may be, of savagery
Beyond the coast that lies;
In ambush may have lain:
God’s mercy! Could such sweetest heads
Lie scalped among the slain?
My harrowed brain is wild!
Up with the anchors! I must find
The mother and the child!”
The search no tidings brought;
Till ’mid a forest’s dusky tribe
They heard the name they sought.
Of corn and slaughtered deer:
What room for savage treachery
Or foul suspicion here?
They searched the wigwam through;
But neither lance nor helm nor spear,
Nor shred of child’s nor woman’s gear,
Could furnish forth a clue.
Straight out of life, nor find
Device through which to mark their fate,
Or leave some hint behind?
An eagre’s deadly spray,
That overwhelmed the island’s breadth,
And swept them all away?
No tidings reached them more;
No record save that silent word
Upon that silent shore.
Unsolved of mortal man:
Sphinx-like untold, the ages hold
The tale of C