Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXI, No. 2, August 1842 — John Shaqi
Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXI, No. 2, August 1842Various
General
Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXI, No. 2, August 1842
Various
Literature -- Periodicals; Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals
to land without the aid or intervention of him who should have been the
first to venture all, to lose all, for her safety.
[_To be continued._
* * * * *
THE LAST LEAP OF UNCAS.
BY PARK BENJAMIN.
In the vicinity of the picturesque town of N——, in New
England, there is a wild chasm through which tumbles a cascade,
now not so formidable as when the stream above it was not dammed
up for manufactories. About this cascade an Indian legend is
told—and the verses I have here written are an attempt to
embody it in such a manner as to give the reader an idea of the
scope it would afford to a more imaginative poet.
On a high precipice of rock,
’Tis said, an Indian hunter stood;
Behind him was the following foe,
Before the opposing flood.
Chased, like the dun deer, to his death,
He turned, and paused, and gasped for breath:
Big on his brow, like drops of rain,
The sweat rolled from each swollen vein—
Yet sank he not, but bold and stern
He stood, as if with strength to spurn
A hundred foes. But soon there came
A shudder o’er his mighty frame;
For one dry branch that near him hung,
And to a stunted pine-tree clung,
Cracked like the sound of frost and fell
Down in the cataract’s boiling well,
He watched it as the foam and spray
Dash’d up and bore it far away.
Though lithe and agile as the hound,
He cannot leap that chasm’s bound,
And though his feet are shod with speed,
’Twere vain to try the daring deed.
He will not—no! the Indian knows
That he must die by flood or foes—
For now on his quick ear there falls
The echo of approaching calls.
His belt, his hatchet, bow and gun,
All that encumbered him in flight,
The bloody trophies he had won
In many a field of fight,
He casts where on the rocks below
The waves break up in showers of snow—
He is resolved to stand at bay,
And meet his foemen, face to face—
For there red Uncas lived that day
The last of all his race!
Hark! from the covert now they spring,
They see him as he towers alone
And many arrows round him ring,
Yet still he seems like stone!
Unstirred, with folded arms he views
Each warrior that his life pursues,
Unscathed beneath the sudden wrath
Of all that shouted on his path
And tracked him to the cataract’s lair,
He hurls defiance on the air.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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