| |
| I KNOW where the timid fawn abides | |
| In the depths of the shaded dell, | |
| Where the leaves are broad and the thicket hides, | |
| With its many stems and its tangled sides, | |
| From the eye of the hunter well. | 5 |
| |
| I know where the young May violet grows, | |
| In its lone and lowly nook, | |
| On the mossy bank, where the larch tree throws | |
| Its broad dark boughs, in solemn repose, | |
| Far over the silent brook. | 10 |
| |
| And that timid fawn starts not with fear | |
| When I steal to her secret bower, | |
| And that young May violet to me is dear, | |
| And I visit the silent streamlet near, | |
| To look on the lovely flower. | 15 |
| |
| Thus Maquon sings as he lightly walks | |
| To the hunting ground on the hills; | |
| ’T is a song of his maid of the woods and rocks, | |
| With her bright black eyes and long black locks, | |
| And voice like the music of rills. | 20 |
| |
| He goes to the chase—but evil eyes | |
| Are at watch in the thicker shades; | |
| For she was lovely that smiled on his sighs, | |
| And he bore, from a hundred lovers, his prize, | |
| The flower of the forest maids. | 25 |
| |
| The boughs in the morning wind are stirr’d, | |
| And the woods their song renew, | |
| With the early carol of many a bird, | |
| And the quicken’d tune of the streamlet heard | |
| Where the hazels trickle with dew. | 30 |
| |
| And Maquon has promised his dark-hair’d maid, | |
| Ere eve shall redden the sky, | |
| A good red deer from the forest shade, | |
| That bounds with the herd through grove and glade, | |
| At her cabin door shall lie. | 35 |
| |
| The hollow woods, in the setting sun, | |
| Ring shrill with the fire-bird’s lay; | |
| And Maquon’s sylvan labors are done, | |
| And his shafts are spent, but the spoil they won | |
| He bears on his homeward way. | 40 |
| |
| He stops near his bower—his eye perceives | |
| Strange traces along the ground— | |
| At once, to the earth his burden he heaves, | |
| He breaks through the veil of boughs and leaves, | |
| And gains its door with a bound. | 45 |
| |
| But the vines are torn on its walls that leant, | |
| And all from the young shrubs there | |
| By struggling hands have the leaves been rent, | |
| And there hangs, on the sassafras broken and bent, | |
| One tress of the well known hair. | 50 |
| |
| But where is she who at this calm hour, | |
| Ever watch’d his coming to see, | |
| She is not at the door, nor yet in the bower, | |
| He calls—but he only hears on the flower | |
| The hum of the laden bee. | 55 |
| |
| It is not a time for idle grief, | |
| Nor a time for tears to flow, | |
| The horror that freezes his limbs is brief— | |
| He grasps his war axe and bow, and a sheaf | |
| Of darts made sharp for the foe. | 60 |
| |
| And he looks for the print of the ruffian’s feet, | |
| Where he bore the maiden away; | |
| And he darts on the fatal path more fleet | |
| Than the blast that hurries the vapor and sleet | |
| O’er the wild November day. | 65 |
| |
| ’T was early summer when Maquon’s bride | |
| Was stolen away from his door; | |
| But at length the maples in crimson are dyed, | |
| And the grape is black on the cabin side,— | |
| And she smiles at his hearth once more. | 70 |
| |
| But far in a pine grove, dark and cold, | |
| Where the yellow leaf falls not, | |
| Nor the autumn shines in scarlet and gold, | |
| There lies a hillock of fresh dark mould, | |
| In the deepest gloom of the spot. | 75 |
| |
| And the Indian girls, that pass way, | |
| Point out the ravisher’s grave;— | |
| “And how soon to the bower she loved,” they say, | |
| “Return’d the maid that was borne away | |
| From Maquon, the fond and the brave.” | 80 |
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