| |
| CAN I forget that happiest day, | |
| That happiest day of all the year, | |
| When on the sloping rock I lay, | |
| Toccoa dripping near? | |
| The lifted wonder of thy eyes | 5 |
| The marvel of thy soul expressed. | |
| Aloft I saw serenest skies, | |
| Below, thy heaving breast. | |
| On wings of mist, in robes of spray | |
| Long trailed, and flowing wide and white, | 10 |
| Adown the mountain steep and gray | |
| We saw Toccoa glide. | |
| Her garments sweeping through the vale | |
| Began the whispering leaves to wake, | |
| And wafted like a tiny sail | 15 |
| A leaf across the lake. | |
| |
| The murmur of the falling shower, | |
| Which did the solitude increase, | |
| We heard; the cool and happy hour | |
| Filled our young hearts with peace. | 20 |
| Thou sattest with a maiden grace, | |
| Thou sawest the rugged rocks and hoary, | |
| As with a half-uplifted face | |
| Thou listenedst to my story. | |
| |
| How many of the banished race, | 25 |
| Those old red warriors of the bow, | |
| Have slumbered in this shadowy place, | |
| Have watched Toccoa flow. | |
| Perchance, where now we sit, they laid | |
| Their arms, and raised a boastful chant, | 30 |
| While through the gorgeous Autumn shade | |
| The sunshine shot aslant. | |
| |
| One night, a hideous howling night, | |
| The black boughs swaying overhead,— | |
| Three painted braves across the height | 35 |
| A false Pe-ro-kah 1 led. | |
| Bright were her glances, bright her smiles, | |
| Wondrous her waving length of hair, | |
| (Ye who descend through slippery wiles, | |
| A maiden’s eyes beware!) | 40 |
| |
| What saw these swarthy Cherokees | |
| In the deep darkness on the brink? | |
| They saw a red fire through the trees, | |
| Through the tossed branches wave and wink; | |
| They saw pale faces white and dreaming, | 45 |
| Clutched their keen knives, and held their breath, | |
| —All this was but a cheating seeming, | |
| For them, not for the phantom’s death. | |
| Spoke then the temptress (maid or devil),— | |
| “Let the pale sleepers sleep no more!” | 50 |
| Whoop!—three good bounds on solid rock, | |
| Then empty blackness for a floor. | |
| Yelled the fierce braves with rage and fright, | |
| With fright their bristling war-plumes rose: | |
| On these down fluttering, did the night | 55 |
| Her jaws sepulchral close. | |
| |
| These rocks tall-lifted, rent apart, | |
| This Indian legend old | |
| To thee, enchantress as thou art, | |
| A warning truth unfold. | 60 |
| Who love, mid midnight dangers stand, | |
| To them false fires wink: | |
| Accursèd be the evil hand | |
| That beckons to the brink. | |
