Could it be his fathers ever Loved to linger here? These bare hills, this conquered river,-- Could they hold them dear, With their native loveliness Tamed and tortured into this? Sadly, as the shades of even Gathered o'er the hill, While the western half of heaven Blushed with sunset still, From the fountain's mossy seat Turned the Indian's weary feet. Year on year hath flown forever, But he came no more To the hillside on the river Where he came before. But the villager can tell Of that strange man's visit well. And the merry children, laden With their fruits or flowers, Roving boy and laughing maiden, In their school-day hours, Love the simple tale to tell Of the Indian and his well. 1837 PENTUCKET. The village of Haverhill, on the Merrimac, called by the Indians Pentucket, was for nearly seventeen years a frontier town, and during thirty years endured all the horrors of savage warfare. In the year 1708, a combined body of French and Indians, under the command of De Chaillons, and Hertel de Rouville, the famous and bloody sacker of Deerfield, made an attack upon the village, which at that time contained only thirty houses. Sixteen of the villagers were massacred, and a still larger number made prisoners. About thirty of the enemy also fell, among them Hertel de Rouville. The minister of the place, Benjamin Rolfe, was killed by a shot through his own door. In a paper entitled The Border War of 1708, published in my collection of Recreations and Miscellanies, I have given a prose narrative of the surprise of Haverhill. 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-walled dwellings stood, Where many a rood of open land Stretched up and down on either hand, With corn-leaves waving freshly green The thick and blackened stumps between. Behind, unbroken, deep and dread, The wild, untravelled 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 milkmaid carolled by her cow; From cottage door and household hearth Rose songs of praise, or tones of mirth.