THE INDIAN WITH HIS DEAD CHILD

[An Indian, who had established himself in a township of Maine, feeling indignantly the want of sympathy evinced towards him by the white inhabitants, particularly on the death of his only child, gave up his farm soon afterwards, dug up the body of his child, and carried it with him two hundred miles through the forests to join the Canadian Indians.]

IN the silence of the midnight
I journey with my dead;
In the darkness of the forest-boughs
A lonely path I tread.

But my heart is high and fearless,
As by mighty wings upborne;
The mountain eagle hath not plumes
So strong as love and scorn.

I have raised thee from the grave-sod,
By the white man's path defiled;
On to the ancestral wilderness
I bear thy dust, my child!

I have asked the ancient deserts
To give my dead a place,

Where the stately footsteps of the free
Alone should leave a trace.

And the tossing pines made answer—

Go, bring us back thine own!"

And the streams from all the hunters' hills,

Rushed with an echoing tone.

THE INDIAN WITH HIS DEAD CHILD

Thou shalt rest by sounding waters
That yet untamed may roll;
The voices of that chainless host
With joy shall fill thy soul.

In the silence of the midnight
I journey with the dead,
Where the arrows of my father's bow
Their falcon-flight have sped.

I have left the spoilers' dwellings
For evermore behind;

Unmingled with their household sounds,
For me shall sweep the wind.

Alone, amidst their hearth-fires,
I watched my child's decay,
Uncheered I saw the spirit-light
From his young eyes fade away.

When his head sank on my bosom,

When the death-sleep o'er him fell,
Was there one to say, "A friend is near?"
There was none !—pale race, farewell!

To the forests, to the cedars,

To the warrior and his bow,

Back, back!-I bore thee laughing thence,
I bear thee slumbering now!

I bear thee unto burial

With the mighty hunters gone;
I shall hear thee in the forest-breeze,
Thou wilt speak of joy, my son !

In the silence of the midnight
I journey with the dead;
But my heart is strong, my step is fleet,
My fathers' path I tread.

BERNARDO DEL CARPIO

[THE celebrated Spanish champion, Bernardo del Carpio, having made many ineffectual efforts to procure the release of his father, the Count Saldana, who had been imprisoned by King Alfonso of Asturias, almost from the time of Bernardo's birth, at last took up arms in despair. The war which he maintained proved so destructive, that the men of the land gathered round the King, and united in demanding Saldana's liberty. Alfonso, accordingly, offered Bernardo immediate possession of his father's person in exchange for his castle of Carpio. Bernardo, without hesitation, gave up his stronghold, with all his captives; and being assured that his father was then on his way from prison, rode forth with the King to meet him. "And when he saw his father approaching, he exclaimed," says the ancient chronicle, "Oh, God! is the Count of Saldana indeed coming?'-'Look where he is,' replied the cruel King; 'and now go and greet him whom you have so long desired to see.' The remainder of the story will be found related in the ballad. The chronicles and romances leave us nearly in the dark as to Bernardo's history after this event.]

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THE warrior bowed his crested head and tamed his heart of fire,

And sued the haughty king to free his long-imprisoned

sire:

"I bring thee here my fortress keys, I bring my captive

train,

I pledge thee faith, my liege, my lord !-oh, break my father's chain !"

BERNARDO DEL CARPIO

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Rise, rise! even now thy father comes, a ransomed

man this day:

Mount thy good horse, and thou and I will meet him on his way."

Then lightly rose that loyal son, and bounded on his

steed,

And urged, as if with lance in rest, the charger's foamy

speed.

And lo! from far, as on they pressed, there came a glittering band,

With one that midst them stately rode, as a leader in the land;

"Now haste, Bernardo, haste! for there, in very truth, is he,

The father whom thy faithful heart hath yearned so long to see."

His dark eye flashed, his proud breast heaved, his cheek's blood came and went;

He reached that grey-haired chieftain's side, and there, dismounting, bent;

A lowly knee to earth he bent, his father's hand he took,

What was there in its touch that all his fiery spirit

shook?

That hand was cold—a frozen thing-it dropped from his like lead:

He looked up to the face above-the face was of the dead!

A plume waved o'er the noble brow-the brow was fixed and white;

He met at last his father's eyes—but in them was no

sight!

Up from the ground he sprang, and gazed, but who could paint that gaze?

They hushed their very hearts, that saw its horror and

amaze ;

They might have chained him, as before that stony form he stood,

For the power was stricken from his arm, and from his lip the blood.

"Father!" at length he murmured low, and wept like childhood then

Talk not of grief till thou hast seen the tears of warlike men!

He thought on all his glorious hopes, and all his young

renown,

He flung the falchion from his side, and in the dust sat down.

Then covering with his steel-gloved hands his darkly mournful brow,

"No more, there is no more," he said, "to lift the sword for now.

My king is false, my hope betrayed, my father—oh, the worth,

The glory and the loveliness, are passed away from

earth!

I thought to stand where banners waved, my sire! beside thee yet—

I would that there our kindred blood on Spain's free soil had met !

Thou wouldst have known my spirit then-for thee my fields were won,—

And thou hast perished in thy chains, as though thou hadst no son !"