Monument Mountain

Thou who wouldst see the lovely and the wildMingled in harmony on Nature's face,Ascend our rocky mountains. Let thy footFail not with weariness, for on their topsThe beauty and the majesty of earth,Spread wide beneath, shall make thee to forgetThe steep and toilsome way. There, as thou stand'st,The haunts of men below thee, and aroundThe mountain summits, thy expanding heartShall feel a kindred with that loftier worldTo which thou art translated, and partakeThe enlargement of thy vision. Thou shalt lookUpon the green and rolling forest tops,And down into the secrets of the glens,And streams, that with their bordering thickets striveTo hide their windings. Thou shalt gaze, at once,Here on white villages, and tilth, and herds,And swarming roads, and there on solitudesThat only hear the torrent, and the wind,And eagle's shriek. There is a precipiceThat seems a fragment of some mighty wall,Built by the hand that fashioned the old world,To separate its nations, and thrown downWhen the flood drowned them. To the north, a pathConducts you up the narrow battlement.Steep is the western side, shaggy and wildWith mossy trees, and pinnacles of flint,And many a hanging crag. But, to the east,Sheer to the vale go down the bare old cliffs,--Huge pillars, that in middle heaven upbearTheir weather-beaten capitals, here darkWith the thick moss of centuries, and thereOf chalky whiteness where the thunderboltHas splintered them. It is a fearful thingTo stand upon the beetling verge, and seeWhere storm and lightning, from that huge gray wall,Have tumbled down vast blocks, and at the baseDashed them in fragments, and to lay thine earOver the dizzy depth, and hear the soundOf winds, that struggle with the woods below,Come up like ocean murmurs. But the sceneIs lovely round; a beautiful river thereWanders amid the fresh and fertile meads,The paradise he made unto himself,Mining the soil for ages. On each sideThe fields swell upward to the hills; beyond,Above the hills, in the blue distance, riseThe mighty columns with which earth props heaven.

There is a tale about these reverend rocks,A sad tradition of unhappy love,And sorrows borne and ended, long ago,When over these fair vales the savage soughtHis game in the thick woods. There was a maid,The fairest of the Indian maids, bright-eyed,With wealth of raven tresses, a light form,And a gay heart. About her cabin-doorThe wide old woods resounded with her songAnd fairy laughter all the summer day.She loved her cousin; such a love was deemed,By the morality of those stern tribes,Incestuous, and she struggled hard and longAgainst her love, and reasoned with her heart,As simple Indian maiden might. In vain.Then her eye lost its lustre, and her stepIts lightness, and the gray-haired men that passedHer dwelling, wondered that they heard no moreThe accustomed song and laugh of her, whose looksWere like the cheerful smile of Spring, they said,Upon the Winter of their age. She wentTo weep where no eye saw, and was not foundWhen all the merry girls were met to dance,And all the hunters of the tribe were out;Nor when they gathered from the rustling huskThe shining ear; nor when, by the river's side,Thay pulled the grape and startled the wild shadesWith sounds of mirth. The keen-eyed Indian damesWould whisper to each other, as they sawHer wasting form, and say the girl will die.

One day into the bosom of a friend,A playmate of her young and innocent years,She poured her griefs. "Thou know'st, and thou alone,"She said, "for I have told thee, all my love,And guilt, and sorrow. I am sick of life.All night I weep in darkness, and the mornGlares on me, as upon a thing accursed,That has no business on the earth. I hateThe pastimes and the pleasant toils that onceI loved; the cheerful voices of my friendsHave an unnatural horror in mine ear.In dreams my mother, from the land of souls,Calls me and chides me. All that look on meDo seem to know my shame; I cannot bearTheir eyes; I cannot from my heart root outThe love that wrings it so, and I must die."

It was a summer morning, and they wentTo this old precipice. About the cliffsLay garlands, ears of maize, and shaggy skinsOf wolf and bear, the offerings of the tribeHere made to the Great Spirit, for they deemed,Like worshippers of the elder time, that GodDoth walk on the high places and affectThe earth-o'erlooking mountains. She had onThe ornaments with which her father lovedTo deck the beauty of his bright-eyed girl,And bade her wear when stranger warriors cameTo be his guests. Here the friends sat them down,And sang, all day, old songs of love and death,And decked the poor wan victim's hair with flowers,And prayed that safe and swift might be her wayTo the calm world of sunshine, where no griefMakes the heart heavy and the eyelids red.Beautiful lay the region of her tribeBelow her--waters resting in the embraceOf the wide forest, and maize-planted gladesOpening amid the leafy wilderness.She gazed upon it long, and at the sightOf her own village peeping through the trees,And her own dwelling, and the cabin roofOf him she loved with an unlawful love,And came to die for, a warm gush of tearsRan from her eyes. But when the sun grew lowAnd the hill shadows long, she threw herselfFrom the steep rock and perished. There was scoopedUpon the mountain's southern slope, a grave;And there they laid her, in the very garbWith which the maiden decked herself for death,With the same withering wild flowers in her hair.And o'er the mould that covered her, the tribeBuilt up a simple monument, a coneOf small loose stones. Thenceforward all who passed,Hunter, and dame, and virgin, laid a stoneIn silence on the pile. It stands there yet.And Indians from the distant West, who comeTo visit where their fathers' bones are laid,Yet tell the sorrowful tale, and to this dayThe mountain where the hapless maiden diedIs called the Mountain of the Monument.