"How cold, how beautiful, how bright
The cloudless heaven above us shines!
But 't is a howling winter's night;
'T would freeze the very forest pines.
"The winds are up while mortals sleep;
The stars look forth while eyes are shut;
The bolted snow lies drifted deep
Around our poor and lonely hut.
"With silent step and listening ear,
With bow and arrow, dog and gun,
We'll mark his track,—his prowl we hear:
Now is our time! Come on! come on!
"O'er many a fence, through many a wood,
Following the dog's bewildered scent,
In anxious haste and earnest mood,
The white man and the Indian went.
"The gun is cocked; the bow is bent;
The dog stands with uplifted paw;
And ball and arrow both are sent,
Aimed at the prowler's very jaw.
"The ball to kill that fox is run
Not in a mould by mortals made;
The arrow which that fox should shun
Was never shaped from earthly reed.
"The Indian Druids of the wood
Know where the fatal arrows grow;
They spring not by the summer flood;
They pierce not through the winter's snow.
"Why cowers the dog, whose snuffing nose
Was never once deceived till now?
And why amidst the chilling snows
Does either hunter wipe his brow?
"For once they see his fearful den;
'T is a dark cloud that slowly moves
By night around the homes of men,
By day along the stream it loves.
"Again the dog is on the track,
The hunters chase o'er dale and hill;
They may not, though they would, look back;
They must go forward, forward still.
"Onward they go, and never turn,
Amidst a night which knows no day;
For nevermore shall morning sun
Light them upon their endless way.
"The hut is desolate; and there
The famished dog alone returns;
On the cold steps he makes his lair;
By the shut door he lays his bones.
"Now the tired sportsman leans his gun
Against the ruins on its site,
And ponders on the hunting done
By the lost wanderers of the night.
"And there the little country girls
Will stop to whisper, listen, and look,
And tell, while dressing their sunny curls,
Of the Black Fox of Salmon Brook."
The same writer has happily versified a pleasant superstition of the valley of the Connecticut. It is supposed that shad are led from the Gulf of Mexico to the Connecticut by a kind of Yankee bogle in the shape of a bird.
All books are sourced from Project Gutenberg