He knew naught of magic arrows, Nor O-kis-ko"s secret mission; He saw only his own arrow Piercing through her tender bosom, Never doubting but the wonder Which his awe-struck eyes had witnessed Had been wrought by his own arrow, Silver arrow from a far land, Fashioned by the skill of Pale-Face, Gift of Pale-Face Weroanza To a race she willed to conquer.
All his hatred of the Pale-Face, Fed by fear and superst.i.tion, To him made this sudden vision Seem an omen of the future, When the Red Man, like the White Doe, Should give place unto the Pale-Face, And the Indian, like the white mist, Fade from out his native forest.
All his courage seemed to weaken With the dread of dark disaster; And with instincts strong for safety Fled he from the place in terror.
Love hath not the fear of danger, And O-kis-ko"s faith in magic Kept him brave to meet the changes Which had each so quickly followed.
For he saw the human maiden Where had stood the living White Doe; And he knew his hazel arrow, Charmed with all We-nau-don"s magic, Had restored the lost Wi-no-na To reward his patient loving.
But the conflict of _two_ arrows, Bringing death unto the maiden, Was a deep and darksome myst"ry Which his ignorance could not fathom.
All the cause of his undoing Saw he in the silver arrow; So with true love"s tireless effort, Quick he strove to break its power.
From her heart he plucked the arrow, Hastened to the magic water, Hoping to destroy the evil Which had stilled the maiden"s pulses.
In the sparkling spring he laid it So no spot was left uncovered, So the full charm of the water Might act on the blood-stained arrow.
As the blood-stains from it melted, Blood of Pale-Face shed by Red Man, Slowly, while he watched and waited, _All the sparkling water vanished;_ Dry became the magic fountain, Leaving bare the silver arrow.
Was it thus the spell would weaken Which had wrought his love such evil?
Would she be again awakened When he sought her in the thicket?
Must he shoot this arrow at her To restore her throbbing pulses?
Must he seek again We-nau-don To make warm her icy beauty?
While he of himself sought guidance, Sought to know the hidden meaning Of the mysteries he witnessed; Lo! another mystic wonder Met his eyes as he sat musing.
From the arrow made by Pale-Face, As th" enchanted water left it, Sprang a tiny shoot with leaflets Pushing upward to the sunlight.
Did the arrow dry the fountain With the blight of death it carried?
Or in going, had the water Left a charm upon the arrow?
Did the heart-blood of the Pale-Face From the arrow in the water Cause the coming of the green shoot, Which reached upward to the sunlight?
All O-kis-ko"s love and courage Could not give him greater knowledge.
Savage mind could not unravel All the meaning of this marvel.
Fear forbade him touch the arrow Lest he should destroy the green shoot; So he left the tender leaflets Reaching upward to the sunlight, Sought again the lifeless maiden For whose love his soul had hungered; Knelt beside her in the forest, With the awe of death upon him, Which in heathen as in Christian Moves the human soul to worship.
All his faith in savage magic Turned to frenzy at his failure; And the helplessness of mortals Pressed upon him like a burden; While a mighty longing seized him For a knowledge of the Unknown, For a light to pierce the Silence Into which none enter living.
And unconsciously his spirit Rose in quest of Might Supernal, Which should rule both dead and living, Leaving naught to chance or magic; Which should seize the throbbing pulses Ebbing from a dying mortal, And create a higher being Free from thrall of earthly nature; Almost grasping in his yearning Knowledge of the G.o.d Eternal, In whose hand the earth lies helpless, In whose heart all souls find refuge.
But no light came to O-kis-ko; Still the burden pressed upon him, And a pall of hopeless yearning Wrapped his soul in voiceless sorrow As he gazed upon the maiden With death"s mysteries enfolded.
Then he made upon her bosom The strange Cross-Sign she had taught him; From his shoulders took the mantle Made of skins of many sea-gulls, Gently wrapped the maiden in it, Heaped the tinted leaves about her; Leaving all his own life"s brightness With her where the shadows darkened.
Thus the ancient legend runneth, with its plaint of hopeless doom, Bearing in its heart the fragrance of the Truth"s enduring bloom, Standing in the light of knowledge, where developed ages meet, We can read the mystic omens which O-kis-ko"s eyes did greet.
And to us they seem the symbols of what coming ages brought, Realization gives the answer, which in vain the Savage sought.
For we know the silver arrow, fatal to all sorcery, Was the gleaming light of Progress speeding from across the sea, Before which the Red Man vanished, shrinking from its silvery light As the magic waters yielded to the silver arrow"s blight.
And the tiny shoot with leaflets, by the sunlight warmed to life, Was the Vine of Civilization in the wilderness of strife; With no friendly hand to tend it, yet it grew midst slight and wrong, Taking root in other places,[AC]--growing green, and broad, and strong, Till its vigor knew no weakness, with its branches flower-fraught, Till a prosp"rous land it sheltered where th" oppressed a refuge sought, Till its fruit made all who labored "neath its shade both bold and free, Till a people dwelt beneath it strong to meet their destiny.
Now beneath its spreading branches dwells a nation brave and free, Raising glad, triumphant paeans for the boon of Liberty; Holding fast the Holy Cross-Sign,--Heirs of Duty and of Light,-- Still they speed the arrow, Progress, on its civilizing flight; Keeping bright the Fires of Freedom, where Man, Brotherhood may know, For G.o.d"s breath upon the altar keeps the sacred flame aglow.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote AC: Jamestown and Plymouth Rock.]
APPENDIX
NOTE _a_.--"We viewed the land about us, being where we first landed very sandy and low towards the water side, but so full of grapes as the very beating and surge of the sea overflowed them, of which we found such plenty, as well there as in all places else, both on the sand and on the green soil, on the hills as in the plains, as well on every little shrub, as also climbing towards the tops of high cedars, that I think in all the world the like abundance is not to be found."--_First voyage of Amadas and Barlowe, 1584. From Hakluyt._
NOTE _b_.--"The second of July we found shoal water, where we smelled so sweet and so strong a smell as if we had been in the midst of some delicate garden abounding with all kinds of odoriferous flowers, by which we were a.s.sured that the land could not be far distant."--_First voyage of Amadas and Barlowe, 1584._
NOTE _c_.--"Deer, in some places there are great store: near unto the seacoast they are of the ordinary bigness of ours in England, and some less: but further up into the country where there is better feed, they are greater."--_Harriot"s Report._
NOTE _d_.--"The Governor (John White) with divers of his company, walked to the north end of the island, where Master Ralph Lane had his fort, with sundry necessary and decent dwelling houses, made by his men about it, the year before, where we hoped to find some signs, or certain knowledge of our fifteen men. When we came thither we found the fort razed down, but all the houses standing unhurt, saving that the neather rooms of them, and also of the fort, were overgrown with melons of divers sorts, and deer within them, feeding on those melons; so we returned to our company, without hope of ever seeing any of the fifteen alive."--_Hakluyt._
NOTE _e_.--"At our first landing they seemed as though they would fight with us, but perceiving us begin to march with our shot towards them, they turned their backs and fled. Then Manteo, their countryman, called to them in their own language, whom, as soon as they heard, they returned, and threw away their bows and arrows, and some of them came unto us embracing and entertaining us friendly, desiring us not to gather or spoil any of their corn, for that they had but little. We answered them that neither their corn nor any other thing of theirs should be diminished by any of us, and that our coming was only to renew the old love, that was between us and them at the first, and to live with them as brethren and friends; which answer seemed to please them well, wherefore they requested us to walk up to their town, who there feasted us after their manner, and desired us earnestly _that there might be some token or badge given them of us_, whereby we might know them to be our friends," etc.
"And also we understood by them of Croatoan, how that the fifteen Englishmen left at Roanoak the year before, by Sir Richard Grenville, were suddenly set upon by thirty of the men of Secota, Aquoscogoc, and Dasamonguepeuc, in manner following. They conveyed themselves secretly behind the trees, near the houses where our men carelessly lived, and having perceived that of those fifteen they could see but eleven only, two of those savages appeared to the eleven Englishmen, calling to them by friendly signs that but two of their chief men should come unarmed to speak with those two savages, who seemed also to be unarmed.
Wherefore two of the chiefest of our Englishmen went gladly to them; but whilst one of those savages traitorously embraced one of our men, the other with his sword of wood, which he had secretly hidden under his mantle, struck him on the head and slew him, and presently the other eight and twenty savages shewed themselves; the other Englishman perceiving this, fled to his company, whom the savages pursued with their bows and arrows so fast that the Englishmen were forced to take the house, wherein all their victuals and weapons were; but the savages forthwith set the same on fire, by means whereof our men were forced to take up such weapons as came first to hand, and without order to run forth among the savages, with whom they skirmished above an hour. In this skirmish another of our men was shot into the mouth with an arrow, where he died; and also one of the savages was shot into the side by one of our men, with a wild fire arrow, whereof he died presently. The place where they fought was of great advantage to the savages, by means of the thick trees, behind which the savages through their nimbleness defended themselves, and so offended our men with their arrows, that our men, being some of them hurt, retired fighting to the water side where their boat lay, with which they fled towards Hatorask. By that time they had rowed but a quarter of a mile, they espied their four fellows coming from a creek thereby, where they had been to fetch oysters; these four they received into their boat, leaving Roanoak, and landed on a little island on the right hand of our entrance into the harbor of Hatorask, where they remained awhile, but afterwards departed, whither as yet we know not."--_Hakluyt._
NOTE _f_.--"The thirteenth of August, our savage, Manteo, by the commandment of Sir Walter Raleigh, was christened in Roanoak, and called Lord thereof, and of Dasamonguepeuc, in reward of his faithful services."--_Hakluyt._
NOTE _g_.--"The eighteenth, Eleanor, daughter to the Governor, and wife to Ananias Dare, one of the a.s.sistants, was delivered of a daughter, in Roanoak, and the same was christened there the Sunday following, and because this child was the first Christian born in Virginia, she was named Virginia."--_Hakluyt._
NOTE _h_.--"The twenty-second of August, the whole company, both of the a.s.sistants and planters, came to the Governor, and with one voice requested him to return himself into England, for the better and sooner obtaining of supplies and other necessaries for them; but he refused it, and alleged many sufficient causes why he would not.... The next day, not only the a.s.sistants, but divers others, as well women as men, began to renew their requests to the Governor again, to take upon him to return into England for the supplies and dispatch of all such things as there were to be done.... The Governor being at the last, through their extreme entreating, constrained to return into England, having then but half a day"s respite to prepare himself for the same, departed from Roanoak the seven and twentieth of August in the morning, and the same day about midnight came aboard the Fly-boat who already had weighed anchor, and rode without the bar, the admiral riding by them, who but the same morning was newly come thither again. The same day both the ships weighed anchor and set sail for England."--_Hakluyt._
NOTE _k_.--"Our boats and all things filled again, we put off from Hatorask, being the number of nineteen persons in both boats; but before we could get to the place where our planters were left, it was so exceeding dark, that we overshot the place a quarter of a mile, where we espied towards the North end of the island the light of a great fire through the woods to the which we presently rowed: when we came right over against it we let fall our grapnel near the sh.o.r.e, and sounded with a trumpet a call, and afterwards many familiar English tunes of songs, and called to them friendly; but we had no answer, we therefore landed at daybreak, and coming to the fire we found the gra.s.s and sundry rotten trees burning about the place. From hence we went through the woods to that part of the island directly over against Dasamonguepeuc, and from thence we returned by the water side round about the north point of the island, until we came to the place where I left our colony in the year 1586. In all this way we saw in the sand the print of the savages" feet of two or three sorts trodden in the night; and as we entered up the sandy bank, upon a tree, in the very brow thereof, were curiously carved these fair Roman letters C. R. O., which letters presently we knew to signify the place where I should find the planters seated, according to a secret token agreed upon between them and me at my last departure from them; which was, that in any way they should not fail to write or carve on the trees or posts of the doors the name of the place where they should be seated; for at my coming away they were prepared to remove from Roanoak fifty miles into the main. Therefore at my departure from them in An. 1587, I willed them that if they should happen to be distressed in any of those places, that then they should carve over the letters or name, a cross in this form; but we found no such sign of distress.... And having well considered of this, we pa.s.sed towards the place where they were left in sundry houses, but we found the houses taken down, and the place very strongly enclosed with a high palisade of great trees, with curtains and flankers, very fort-like, and one of the chief trees or posts at the right side of the entrance had the bark taken off, and five feet from the ground in fair capital letters was graven CROATOAN without any cross or sign of distress.... I greatly joyed that I had safely found a certain token of their safe being at Croatoan, which is the place where Manteo was born, and the savages of the island our friends."--_From Governor White"s account of his voyage in search of the colonists, after the defeat of the Spanish Armada. Hakluyt, Vol. III._
NOTE _l_.--"We brought home also two of the savages, being l.u.s.ty men, whose names were Wan-ches-e and Man-te-o."--_First voyage by Amadas and Barlowe._
NOTE _m_.--All authorities agree in the statement that the favorite time among the Indians for an attack on an enemy was at, or about, daybreak.
NOTE _n_.--"Into this river falls another great river called Cipo in which there is found great store of mussels in which there are pearls."--_Voyage of Amadas and Barlowe._
"In her ears she had bracelets of pearls, hanging down to her middle, and these were of the bigness of good pease."--_Voyage of Amadas and Barlowe._
"Sometimes feeding on mussels, we found some pearle, but it was our hap to meet with ragges, or of a pied colour; not having yet discovered those places where we heard of better and more plenty."--_Harriot"s Report._
NOTE _o_.--"The manner of making their boats in Virginia is very wonderful. For whereas they want instruments of iron or others like unto ours, yet they know how to make them as handsomely, to sail with where they list in their rivers, and to fish withal, as ours. First they choose some long and thick tree, according to the bigness of the boat which they would frame, and make a fire on the ground about the roots thereof, kindling the same by little and little with dry moss of trees, and chips of wood that the flame should not mount up too high, and burn too much of the length of the tree. When it is almost burnt through, and ready to fall they make a new fire which they suffer to burn until the tree falls of its own accord. Then burning off the top and boughs of the tree in such wise that the body of the same may retain his just length, they raise it upon poles laid over cross wise upon forked posts at such a reasonable height as they may handsomely work upon it. Then take they off the bark with certain sh.e.l.ls; they reserve the innermost part of the bark for the nethermost part of the boat. On the other side they make a fire according to the length of the body of the tree saving at both the ends. That which they think is sufficiently burned, they quench and sc.r.a.pe away with sh.e.l.ls, and making a new fire they burn it again and so they continue, sometimes burning and sometimes sc.r.a.ping until the boat have sufficient bottoms."--_Harriot"s Report._
NOTE _p_.--"They are a people clothed with loose mantles made of deer skin, and ap.r.o.ns of the same round about their middles."--_Harriot"s Report._
NOTE _s_.--"They have commonly conjurers or jugglers, which use strange gestures, and often contrary to nature in their enchantments: For they be very familiar with devils of whom they inquire what their enemies do, or other such things."--_Harriot"s Report._