Vale of Wyoming

There's many a beauteous region of the earth,Doth take its baptism from Castalia's fount,And henceforth, to the ears of men, becomeA charmed name. But in this new-found WestThere hath been little pomp, or ornamentBestow'd to herald Nature, where she worksWith glorious skill.And so, the traveller goesTo muse at Thessaly, or strike his lyreBeside Geneva's lake, or raptured mountBenlomond's cliff, pouring o'er other climesThe enthusiasm which his own might well inspire.Yet go not forth, Son of the patriot West,To give the ardor of thine earliest loveUnto an older world, till thou hast seenJune's cloudless sun o'er Wyoming go down,And from her palace-gate, the queenly moonCome slowly forth, wrapped in her silver veil,So calm, so still, not as at AjalonTo light the vengeance of the warrior's arm,But lost in admiration of a scene

She helps to beautify. Yea, go not forth,Till from the brow of yonder mountain heightThrough interlacing branches, rich with bloom,The tulip, or magnolia, thou dost partThe canopy of close-enwreathed vines,And through a mass of foliage, looking downOn copse, and cultured field, and village spire,Behold the Susquehannah, like a bride,Glide on in beauty, to her nuptial hour.Here, too, are gloomy haunts, where roam the bear,Or the insatiate wolf, and sunny glades,Where with light foot the red deer leads her fawn,And quiet, shaded brooklets, where leap upThe speckled trout.Yet still, deceitful Vale,So lulled, and saturate in deep contentWith thine exceeding beauty, thou dost hideA blotted history, of tears and blood,A dire, Vesuvian, lava-written scroll,Which the confiding lover at thy feetBut little wots of. Thy romantic groves.And fairy islets, have sent up the cryOf wounded men, and o'er the embroidered bankWhere violets grow, the carnage-tint hath lainDeep as a plague-spot.Ask yon monument.That o'er the velvet verdure lifts so highIts lettered chronicle, who sleeps below?And why, so many lustrums, tearful Spring

Did weep, like Rizpah, o'er the slaughtered brave,Unnamed, unhonored ere its pillared breastArose to take the record of their names,And of their valor, teach a race unborn.

The memories of red war, how thick they springAmong these flowers. Here in fierce strife have stoodIndian and white man, aye! and they whose faithWas in the same Redeemer, through whose breastsFlowed the same kindred blood-drop, casting offThe name of brother, in their cradle learned,Have madly met, I may not tell you how.History hath stained her pencil and her pageWith these dark deeds, and ye may read them there.

Yet would I tell one tale of Wyoming,Before we part. There was a pleasant home,In times long past. A little, crystal brook.Where water-cresses grew, went singing by,While the ripe apples, gleaming thro' the boughs,And in its humble garden, many a bushOf scarlet berries, sprinkled here and thereWith fragrant herbs, sage and the bee-loved thyme,Betokened thrift and comfort.Once, as closedThe autumn-day, the mother, by her sideHeld her young children, with her storied lore,Fast by her chair, a bold and bright-eyed boy,Stood, statue-like, while closer, at her feet,

Were his two gentle sisters. One, a girlOf some eight summers, youngest and most lovedFor her prolonged and feeble infancy.She leaned upon her mother's lap, and lookedInto her face, with an intense regard,And that quick, intermitting sob that tellsHow the soul's listening may impede the flowOf respiration. Pale she was, and fair,And so exceeding fragile, that the nameGiven by her stronger playmates, at their sports,Of "Lily of the Vale," seemed well bestowed.The mother told them of her native clime,Her own, beloved New England, of the school,Where many children o'er their lessons bent,Each mindful of the rules, to read, or spell,Or ply the needle, at the appointed hour,And how they serious sate, with folded hands,When the good mistress through her spectaclesRead from the Bible.Of the church she spake,With slender spire, o'er-canopied by elms,And how the sweet bell on the sabbath-morn,Did call from every home, the people forth,All neatly clad, and with a reverent air,Children, by parents led, to worship God.Absorbed in such recital, ever mixedBy that maternal lip, with precepts pure,Of love to God and man, they scarcely markedA darkening shadow, o'er the casement steal,

Until the savage footstep, and the flashOf tomahawks, appalled them.Swift as thoughtThey fled, thro' briars and brambles fiercely trackedBy grim pursuers. The mother taxedWith the loved burden of her youngest-born,Moved slowest, and they cleft her fiercely down:Yet with that impulse, which doth sometimes moveThe sternest purpose of the red man's breast,To a capricious mercy, spared the child.Her little, struggling limbs, her pallid faceAverted from the captors, her shrill cry,Coming in fitful echoes from afar,Deepened the mother's death pang.Eve drew on,And from his toil the husband, and the sire,Turned wearied home. With wondering thought he markedNo little feet come forth to welcome him;And through the silence, listened for her voice,His Lily of the Vale, who first of allWas wont to espy him.Through the house he rushed,Empty and desolate, and down the wild.There lay his dearest, weltering in her bloodUpon the trampled grass. In vain he boreThe form of marble to its couch, and stroveOnce more to vivify that spark of lifeWhich ruthless rage had quenched.On that dread hour

Of utter desolation, broke a cry"Oh father! father!" and around his neckTwo weeping children twined their trembling arms,His elder-born, who in the thicket's depthsScaped the destroyer's eye.When bitter griefWithdrew its palzying power, the tireless zealOf that dismembered household, sought the childReft from their arms, and oft, with shuddering thought,Revolved the hardships, that must mark her lot,If life was hers. And when the father layIn his last, mortal sickness, he enjoinedHis children, never to remit their searchFor his lost Lily. Faithful to the charge.They strove, but still in vain.Years held their way,The boy became a man, and o'er his browStole the white, sprinkled hairs. Around his hearthWere children's children, and one pensive friend,His melancholy sister, night and day,Mourning the lost. At length a rumor came.Of a white woman, found in Indian tents,Far, far away. A father's dying wordsCame o'er the husbandman, and up he rose,And took his sad-eyed sister by the hand,Blessing his household, as he bade farewellFor their uncertain pilgrimage.They prest

O'er cloud-capped mounts, through forests, dense with shade,O'er bridgeless rivers, swoln to torrents hoarse,O'er prairies like the never-ending sea,Following the chart that had been dimly tracedBy stranger-guide.At length they reached a lodge,Deep in the wilderness, beside whose doorA wrinkled woman, with the Saxon browSate, coarsely mantled in her blanket-robe,The Indian pipe between her shrivelled lips.Yet, in her blue eye dwelt a gleam of thought,A hidden memory, whose electric forceThrilled to the fount of being, and revealedThe kindred drops, that had so long wrought outA separate channel.With affection's hasteThe sister clasped her neck, "Oh lost and found!Lily! dear sister! praise to God above!"Then, in wild sobs, her trembling voice was lost.The brother drew her to his side, and bentA long and tender gaze, into the depthsOf her clear eye. That glance unsealed the scrollOf many years. Yet no responding tearMoistened her cheek, nor did she stretch her armsTo answer their embrace."O Lily! love!For whom this heart so many years hath keptIts dearest place," the sister's voice resumed,

"Hast thou forgot the home, the grassy bankWhere we have played? the blessed mother's words,Bidding us love each other? and the prayer.With which our father at the evening hourCommended us to God?"Slowly she spake,—"I do remember, dimly as a dream,A brook, a garden, and two children fair,A loving mother, with a bird-like voice,Teaching us goodness; then, a trace of blood,A groan of death, a lonely captive's pain;—But all are past away.Here is my home.These are my daughters.If ye ask for him,The eagle-eyed, and lion-hearted chief.My fearless husband, who the battle led,There is his grave.""Go back, and dwell with us.Back to thy people, to thy father's God,"The brother said. "I have a happy home,A loving wife and children. Thou shalt beWelcome to all. And these thy daughters too,The dark-eyed, and the raven-haired shall beUnto me, as mine own. My heart doth yearnO'er thee, our hapless mother's dearest one,Let my sweet home be thine."A trembling nerveThrilled all unwonted, at her bosom's core,

And her lip blanched. But her two daughters gazedAll fixedly upon her, to their cheekRushing the proud Miami chieftain's blood,In haughty silence. So, she wept no tears,The moveless spirit of the race she lovedHad come upon her, and her features showedSlight touch of sympathy."Upon my headRest sixty winters. Scarcely eight were pastAmong the pale-faced people. Hate they notThe red man in their heart? Smooth christian wordsThey speak, but from their touch, we fade away,As from the poisonous snake.Have I not saidHere is my home? and yonder is the bedOf the Miami Chief? Two sons who boreHis brow, rest on his pillow.Shall I turnMy back upon my dead, and bear the curseOf the Great Spirit?"Through their feathery plumesHer dark-eyed daughters, mute approval gaveTo these stern words.Yet still, with faithful zeal,The brother, and the sister waited long,In patient hope. If on her brow they tracedAught like relenting, fondly they implored"Oh sister! go with us!" and every taleThat poured o'er childhood's days a flood of light,

Had the same whispered burden.Oft they walkedBeside her, when the twilight's tender hour,Or the young moonlight blendeth kindred hearts,So perfectly together. But in vain,For with the stony eye of prejudiceWhich gathereth coldness from an angel's smile,She looked upon their love.And so they leftTheir pagan sister in her Indian home,And to their native vale of Wyoming,Turned mournful back. There, often steeped in tearsAt morn or evening, rose the tearful prayerThat God would keep alive within her soulThe seed their Maker sowed, and by his graceSo water it, that they might meet in Heaven.

"Nor wanted yet the eye for scope to muse,Nor vistas opened by the wandering stream;Both where at evening Alleghany viewsThrough ridges burning in her western beam,Lake after lake, interminably gleam:And past those settlers' haunts, the eye might roam

Where earth's unliving silence all might seem,Save where on rocks the beaver built his dome,Or buffalo remote, lowed far from human home."

Near this spot was foughtOn the afternoon of the 3d of July, 1778,The Battle of Wyoming:In which a small band of pratriotic Americans,Chiefly the undisciplined, the youthful and the aged,Spared by inefficiency from the distant ranks of the Republic,Led by Col. Zebulon Butler and Col. Nathan Denison,With a courage that deserved success,Fearlessly met, and bravely foughtA combined British, Tory and Indian forceOf thrice their number:

Numerical superiority alone gave victory to the Invaders,And wide-spread havoc, desolation and ruinMarked their savage and bloody footsteps through the valley.

This Monument,Commemorative of these events,And in memory of the actors in them,Has been erectedOver the bones of the slain,By their descendants and others, who gratefully appreciateThe service and sacrifices of Patriot Ancestors.

Proud dowry hast thou, beauteous dell,Of murmuring stream, and mountain swell,And storied legend, stern and highOf ancient border chivalry,And ashes of the brave, that sleepIn hallowed urn, mid foliage deep.

Still Memory calls with magic power.Forth from his cherished natal bower,

A form, whom Beauty rare and high,And Genius, with an eagle eye,And Piety on radiant throne,Did consecrate, and make their own.

A traveller in the realms of old,Where art and wealth their charms unfold,Amid the Alpine cliffs be sawThat Name which woke his infant awe,And summoned to an early tomb,In bright, but scarce perfected bloom,Beheld, with faith's exulting thought,The crown by his Redeemer bought.

Fair Wyoming, the enthusiast's eyeDoth scan thy charms with ecstasy.Yet though the tide of minstrel songHath flowed thine echoing haunts along,And martyr-courage, bold and free,Bequeathed its blood-stained wreath to thee,A holier fame for thee is spread,The birth-place of the sainted dead.