Monument Mountain.

Thou who wouldst see the lovely and the wild     Mingled in harmony on Nature's face,     Ascend our rocky mountains. Let thy foot     Fail not with weariness, for on their tops     The beauty and the majesty of earth,     Spread wide beneath, shall make thee to forget     The steep and toilsome way. There, as thou stand'st,     The haunts of men below thee, and around     The mountain summits, thy expanding heart     Shall feel a kindred with that loftier world     To which thou art translated, and partake     The enlargement of thy vision. Thou shalt look     Upon the green and rolling forest tops,     And down into the secrets of the glens,     And streams, that with their bordering thickets strive     To hide their windings. Thou shalt gaze, at once,     Here on white villages, and tilth, and herds,     And swarming roads, and there on solitudes     That only hear the torrent, and the wind,     And eagle's shriek. There is a precipice     That seems a fragment of some mighty wall,     Built by the hand that fashioned the old world,     To separate its nations, and thrown down     When the flood drowned them. To the north, a path     Conducts you up the narrow battlement.     Steep is the western side, shaggy and wild     With 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 upbear     Their weather-beaten capitals, here dark     With the thick moss of centuries, and there     Of chalky whiteness where the thunderbolt     Has splintered them. It is a fearful thing     To stand upon the beetling verge, and see     Where storm and lightning, from that huge gray wall,     Have tumbled down vast blocks, and at the base     Dashed them in fragments, and to lay thine ear     Over the dizzy depth, and hear the sound     Of winds, that struggle with the woods below,     Come up like ocean murmurs. But the scene     Is lovely round; a beautiful river there     Wanders amid the fresh and fertile meads,     The paradise he made unto himself,     Mining the soil for ages. On each side     The fields swell upward to the hills; beyond,     Above the hills, in the blue distance, rise     The 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 sought     His 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-door     The wide old woods resounded with her song     And 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 long     Against her love, and reasoned with her heart,     As simple Indian maiden might. In vain.     Then her eye lost its lustre, and her step     Its lightness, and the gray-haired men that passed     Her dwelling, wondered that they heard no more     The accustomed song and laugh of her, whose looks     Were like the cheerful smile of Spring, they said,     Upon the Winter of their age. She went     To weep where no eye saw, and was not found     When all the merry girls were met to dance,     And all the hunters of the tribe were out;     Nor when they gathered from the rustling husk     The shining ear; nor when, by the river's side,     Thay pulled the grape and startled the wild shades     With sounds of mirth. The keen-eyed Indian dames     Would whisper to each other, as they saw     Her 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 morn     Glares on me, as upon a thing accursed,     That has no business on the earth. I hate     The pastimes and the pleasant toils that once     I loved; the cheerful voices of my friends     Have an unnatural horror in mine ear.     In dreams my mother, from the land of souls,     Calls me and chides me. All that look on me     Do seem to know my shame; I cannot bear     Their eyes; I cannot from my heart root out     The love that wrings it so, and I must die."     It was a summer morning, and they went     To this old precipice. About the cliffs     Lay garlands, ears of maize, and shaggy skins     Of wolf and bear, the offerings of the tribe     Here made to the Great Spirit, for they deemed,     Like worshippers of the elder time, that God     Doth walk on the high places and affect     The earth-o'erlooking mountains. She had on     The ornaments with which her father loved     To deck the beauty of his bright-eyed girl,     And bade her wear when stranger warriors came     To 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 way     To the calm world of sunshine, where no grief     Makes the heart heavy and the eyelids red.     Beautiful lay the region of her tribe     Below her, waters resting in the embrace     Of the wide forest, and maize-planted glades     Opening amid the leafy wilderness.     She gazed upon it long, and at the sight     Of her own village peeping through the trees,     And her own dwelling, and the cabin roof     Of him she loved with an unlawful love,     And came to die for, a warm gush of tears     Ran from her eyes. But when the sun grew low     And the hill shadows long, she threw herself     From the steep rock and perished. There was scooped     Upon the mountain's southern slope, a grave;     And there they laid her, in the very garb     With 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 tribe     Built up a simple monument, a cone     Of small loose stones. Thenceforward all who passed,     Hunter, and dame, and virgin, laid a stone     In silence on the pile. It stands there yet.     And Indians from the distant West, who come     To visit where their fathers' bones are laid,     Yet tell the sorrowful tale, and to this day     The mountain where the hapless maiden died     Is called the Mountain of the Monument.