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The pale, ghostly fathers
Remembered her well,

And had cursed her while passing,
With taper and bell,
But the men of Monhegan,

Of Papists abhorr'd,

Had welcomed and feasted
The heretic Lord.

They had loaded his shallop
With dun-fish and ball,
With stores for his larder,
And steel for his wall.
Pemequid, from her bastions
And turrets of stone,
Had welcomed his coming
With banner and gun.

And the prayers of the elders
Had followed his way,
As homeward he glided,
Down Pentecost Bay.
O! well sped La Tour!
For, in peril and pain,
His lady kept watch

For his coming again.

O'er the Isle of the Pheasant

The morning sun shone, On the plane-trees which shaded The shores of St. John. "Now, why from yon battlements Speaks not my love! Why waves there no banner My fortress above?"

Dark and wild, from his deck

St. Estienne gazed about,

On fire-wasted dwellings,
And silent redoubt;

From the low, shattered walls Which the flame had o'errun, There floated no banner, There thunder'd no gun!

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"Half-veiled in the smoke-cloud,
Her hand grasped thy pennon,
While her dark tresses swayed
In the hot breath of cannon!
But woe to the heretic,
Evermore woe!

When the son of the church
And the cross is his foe!

"In the track of the shell, In the path of the ball, Pentagoet swept over

The breach of the wall! Steel to steel, gun to gun,

One moment-and then Alone stood the victor, Alone with his men!

"Of its sturdy defenders,
Thy lady alone

Saw the cross-blazon'd banner
Float over St. John."

"Let the dastard look to it!"
Cried fiery Estienne,
"Were D'Aulney King Louis,
I'd free her again!

"Alas, for thy lady!

No service from thee

Is needed by her

Whom the Lord hath set free:

Nine days, in stern silence,

Her thraldom she bore,

But the tenth morning came,

And Death opened her door!"

As if suddenly smitten

La Tour stagger'd back; His hand grasped his sword-hilt, His forehead grew black.

He sprang on the deck
Of his shallop again :

"We cruise now for vengeance!
Give way!" cried Estienne.

"Massachusetts shall hear
Of the Huguenot's wrong,
And from island and creek-side
Her fishers shall throng!
Pentagoet shall rue

What his Papists have done,
When his palisades echo
The Puritan's gun !"

O! the loveliest of heavens
Hung tenderly o'er him,

There were waves in the sunshine,
And green isles before him:
But a pale hand was beckoning
The Huguenot on;

And in blackness and ashes

Behind was St. John'

PENTUCKET.

1708.

How sweetly on the wood-girt town
The mellow light of sunset shone!
Each small, bright lake, whose waters still
Mirror the forest and the hill,

Reflected from its waveless breast
The beauty of a cloudless West,
Glorious as if a glimpse were given
Within the western gates of Heaven,
Left, by the spirit of the star
Of sunset's holy hour, ajar!

Beside the river's tranquil flood
The dark and low-wall'd dwellings stood,
Where many a rood of open land
Stretch'd up and down on either hand,
With corn-leaves waving freshly green
The thick and blacken'd stumps between.
Behind, unbroken, deep and dread,
The wild, untravell'd forest spread,
Back to those mountains, white and cold,
Of which the Indian trapper told,
Upon whose summits never yet
Was mortal foot in safety set.

Quiet and calm, without a fear
Of danger darkly lurking near,
The weary laborer left his plough—
The milk-maid caroll'd by her cow-
From cottage door and household hearth
Rose songs of praise, or tones of mirth.
At length the murmur died away,
And silence on that village lay-
So slept Pompeii, tower and hall,
Ere the quick earthquake swallow'd all,
Undreaming of the fiery fate

Which made its dwellings desolate!

Hours pass'd away. By moonlight sped
The Merrimack along his bed.
Bathed in the pallid lustre, stood
Dark cottage-wall and rock and wood,
Silent, beneath that tranquil beam,
As the hush'd grouping of a dream.
Yet on the still air crept a sound—
No bark of fox-nor rabbit's bound-
Nor stir of wings-nor waters flowing-
Nor leaves in midnight breezes blowing.

Was that the tread of many feet,
Which downward from the hill-side beat?

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