Of a terror which haunted bush and ❘ Or the gray earth-flax of the Devil's

Whether he lurked in the Oldtown Like a snowball growing while it

WHEN the reaper's task was ended, and the summer wearing late,
reapers
Parson Avery sailed from Newbury, with his wife and children eight,
Dropping down the river-harbor in the shallop "Watch and Wait."

Pleasantly lay the clearings in the mellow summer-morn,
With the newly planted orchards dropping their fruits first-born,
And the homesteads like green islands amid a sea of corn.

Broad meadows reached out seaward the tided creeks between,
And hills rolled wave-like inland, with oaks and walnuts green;
A fairer home, a goodlier land, his eyes had never seen.

Yet away sailed Parson Avery, away where duty led,
And the voice of God seemed calling, to break the living bread
To the souls of fishers starving on the rocks of Marblehead.

All day they sailed: at nightfall the pleasant land-breeze died,
The blackening sky, at midnight, its starry lights denied,
And far and low the thunder of tempest prophesied!

Blotted out were all the coast-lines, gone were rock, and wood, and sand;
Grimly anxious stood the skipper with the rudder in his hand,
And questioned of the darkness what was sea and what was land.

And the preacher heard his dear ones, nestled round him, weeping sore:
"Never heed, my little children! Christ is walking on before
To the pleasant land of heaven, where the sea shall be no more."

All at once the great cloud parted, like a curtain drawn aside,
To let down the torch of lightning on the terror far and wide;
And the thunder and the whirlwind together smote the tide.

There was wailing in the shallop, woman's wail and man's despair,
A crash of breaking timbers on the rocks so sharp and bare,
And, through it all, the murmur of Father Avery's prayer.

From his struggle in the darkness with the wild waves and the blast,
On a rock, where every billow broke above him as it passed,
Alone, of all his household, the man of God was cast.

There a comrade heard him praying, in the pause of wave and wind:
"All my own have gone before me, and I linger just behind;
Not for life I ask, but only for the rest thy ransomed find!

"In this night of death I challenge the promise of thy word! -
Let me see the great salvation of which mine ears have heard!
Let me pass from hence forgiven, through the grace of Christ, our Lord!

"In the baptism of these waters wash white my every sin,
And let me follow up to thee my household and my kin!
Open the sea-gate of thy heaven, and let me enter in!"

When the Christian sings his death-song, all the listening heavens draw near, And the angels, leaning over the walls of crystal, hear

How the notes so faint and broken swell to music in God's ear.

The ear of God was open to his servant's last request;

As the strong wave swept him downward the sweet hymn upward pressed,
And the soul of Father Avery went, singing, to its rest.

There was wailing on the mainland, from the rocks of Marblehead;
In the stricken church of Newbury the notes of prayer were read;
And long, by board and hearthstone, the living mourned the dead.

And still the fishers outbound, or scudding from the squall,
With grave and reverent faces, the ancient tale recall,

When they see the white waves breaking on the Rock of Avery's Fall!

THE TRUCE OF PISCATAQUA. | Where, moved like living shuttles,

1675.

RAZE these long blocks of brick and
stone,

These huge mill-monsters overgrown;
Blot out the humbler piles as well,

dwell

The weaving genii of the bell ;
Tear from the wild Cocheco's track
The dams that hold its torrents back;
And let the loud-rejoicing fall
Plunge, roaring, down its rocky wall;
And let the Indian's paddle play

On the unbridged Piscataqua!
Wide over hill and valley spread
Once more the forest, dusk and

dread,

With here and there a clearing cut From the walled shadows round it shut;

Each with its farm-house builded rude,

By English yeoman squared and hewed,

And the grim, flankered block-house
bound

With bristling palisades around.
So, haply, shall before thine eyes
The dusty veil of centuries rise,
The old, strange scenery overlay
The tamer pictures of to-day,
While, like the actors in a play,
Pass in their ancient guise along
The figures of my border song:
What time beside Cocheco's flood
The white man and the red man

stood,

Listening ever for the fleet
Patter of a dead child's feet!

"When the moon a year ago
Told the flowers the time to blow,
In that lonely wigwam smiled
Menewee, our little child.

"Ere that moon grew thin and old,
He was lying still and cold;
Sent before us, weak and small,
When the Master did not call!

"On his little grave I lay;
Three times went and came the day;
Thrice above me blazed the noon,
Thrice upon me wept the moon.

"In the third night-watch I heard,
Far and low, a spirit-bird;
Very mournful, very wild,
Sang the totem of my child.

""Menewee, poor Menewee,

With words of peace and brother-Walks a path he cannot see:

hood; When passed the sacred calumet From lip to lip with fire-draught wet, And, puffed in scorn, the peace-pipe's smoke

Through the gray beard of Waldron broke,

And Squando's voice, in suppliant
plea

For mercy, struck the haughty key
Of one who held, in any fate,
His native pride inviolate!

"Let your ears be opened wide!
He who speaks has never lied.
Waldron of Piscataqua,

Hear what Squando has to say!

"Squando shuts his eyes and sees,
Far off, Saco's hemlock-trees.
In his wigwam, still as stone,
Sits a woman all alone,

"Wampum beads and birchen strands
Dropping from her careless hands,

Let the white man's wigwam light
With its blaze his steps aright.

"All un-called, he dares not show
Empty hands to Manito:
Better gifts he cannot bear
Than the scalps his slayers wear.'

"All the while the totem sang,
Lightning blazed and thunder rang;
And a black cloud, reaching high,
Pulled the white moon from the sky

"I, the medicine-man, whose ear
All that spirits hear can hear,
I, whose eyes are wide to see
All the things that are to be,

"Well I knew the dreadful signs
In the whispers of the pines,
In the river roaring loud,
In the mutter of the cloud.

"At the breaking of the day,
From the grave I passed away;