WAUMBEK METHNA — MOUNTAINS WITH SNOWY FOREHEADS — THE INDIAN NAME OF THE WHITE HILLS; AGI'OCHOOK, OF MOUNT WASHINGTON O LONE Waumbek Methna! Who dares to profane Thy solitudes, sacred to Manitou's reign? Thy peaks rosy-flushed with the last beam of day, Or lost in the stars, white and stainless as they? Thy woods in whose dimness the bright streams are born, And the loud winds are lulled till the breaking of morn? The sagamore turned from thy borders in dread, Afraid the high trails of the hill-gods to tread, Lest in flood, or in flame leaping vengeful, their ire Made the black pool his grave, the bleak summit his pyre. He saw their weird forms as the clouds floated past; He heard their dark words in the wail of the blast; Their arrows the lightnings, their drumbeats the thunder That rolled till the mountains seemed rending asunder; And hunter and warrior stole valeward to shun Agi'ochook lifting his brow to the sun. What! Pemigewas'set glide low to his tryst With Winnepesau'kee — his waning tide kissed No more by the shadows that droop and entwine Of the birch and the maple, the beech and the pine, The firs whose battalions so slender and tall Guard the gloom of the gorge and the flash of the fall? What! Merrimack's might left to languish and fail, While Pennacook's meadows their verdure bewail; While the mill-wheels are moveless, the flying looms still, For the proud stream no longer his channels can fill? — But, shorn of his forests, bereft of his springs, Forlorn as an eagle despoiled of its wings, Now grieving by rapids, now moaning by lea, Deserted, he creeps to the scorn of the sea! What! swift Ammonoo'suc, the foam-wreath, the bride Of lordly Connecticut, faint at his side, While his lakes, wood-embosomed, and pure as his snows, Are ravaged, and robbed of their sylvan repose? What! Saco forsake his loved intervales, spent Ere the brooks of the lowlands their tributes have sent, While eastward and westward the gray ledges rise All treeless and springless confronting the skies, And Moosil'auk, Pequaw'ket, Chocor'ua, frown, As sad on the bare river-vales they look down? By the bounty and grandeur of river and steep, What the Red Man has hallowed the White Man must keep! — Must pause with the hill-roving hunter, and ken The mighty ones guarding the cliff and the glen. No impious Vandal shall ruthless invade The temple whose stones were to Manitou laid; Shall quench the clear springs and leave desert and bare The slopes and the valleys the gods have made fair! O peerless New Hampshire! awake from thy dreams! Save the wealth of thy woodlands, the rush of thy streams, Thy wild mountain splendor —the torrent, the pine — Thy groves and thy meadows, thy shade and thy shine! For, part with the forest, the bright, brimming river, And thy strength and thy glory will vanish forever, And in wide desolation and ruin will fall Great Manitou's vengeance, thy soul to appall!— Away with this folly, this madness, this shame! Be true to thy birthright, thy future, thy fame! And vow, by thy grandeurs of river and steep, What the Red Man has hallowed the White Man will keep! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE LIVING DEAD by RALPH CHAPLIN A SHROPSHIRE LAD: 4. REVEILLE by ALFRED EDWARD HOUSMAN UPON THE SAYING THAT MY VERSES WERE MADE BY ANOTHER by ANNE KILLIGREW EPIGRAM: PERJURY by ROBERT NUGENT AT THE CEDARS by DUNCAN CAMPBELL SCOTT NOVEMB. 5. 1644 by JOSEPH BEAUMONT BRITANNIA'S PASTORALS: BOOK 2. THE FIRST SONG by WILLIAM BROWNE (1591-1643) |