Part 2 — THE LAST LEAP OF UNCAS.
Reading edition
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BY PARK BENJAMIN.
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In the vicinity of the picturesque town of N——, in New England, there is a wild chasm through which tumbles a cascade, now not so formidable as when the stream above it was not dammed up for manufactories. About this cascade an Indian legend is told—and the verses I have here written are an attempt to embody it in such a manner as to give the reader an idea of the scope it would afford to a more imaginative poet.
On a high precipice of rock,
’Tis said, an Indian hunter stood;
Behind him was the following foe,
Before the opposing flood.
Chased, like the dun deer, to his death,
He turned, and paused, and gasped for breath:
Big on his brow, like drops of rain,
The sweat rolled from each swollen vein—
Yet sank he not, but bold and stern
He stood, as if with strength to spurn
A hundred foes. But soon there came
A shudder o’er his mighty frame;
For one dry branch that near him hung,
And to a stunted pine-tree clung,
Cracked like the sound of frost and fell
Down in the cataract’s boiling well,
He watched it as the foam and spray
Dash’d up and bore it far away.
Though lithe and agile as the hound,
He cannot leap that chasm’s bound,
And though his feet are shod with speed,
’Twere vain to try the daring deed.
He will not—no! the Indian knows
That he must die by flood or foes—
For now on his quick ear there falls
The echo of approaching calls.
His belt, his hatchet, bow and gun,
All that encumbered him in flight,
The bloody trophies he had won
In many a field of fight,
He casts where on the rocks below
The waves break up in showers of snow—
He is resolved to stand at bay,
And meet his foemen, face to face—
For there red Uncas lived that day
The last of all his race!
Hark! from the covert now they spring,
They see him as he towers alone
And many arrows round him ring,
Yet still he seems like stone!
Unstirred, with folded arms he views
Each warrior that his life pursues,
Unscathed beneath the sudden wrath
Of all that shouted on his path
And tracked him to the cataract’s lair,
He hurls defiance on the air.
What purpose moves him? Will he try,
Thus met on every side, to fly?
Wonder has struck his foemen dumb;
For, toward their ranks, behold him come!
’Tis but a single step, for swift
As lightning leaps from cloudy rift
He backward bounds. Great God! ’tis o’er,
His death-shriek sinks amid the roar
Of waves that bear his mangled form
Beyond the battle storm.
So plunged he in the dashing tide—
So fronting his fierce foes he died—
And now, though peaceful years have past,
And change has marred the rude, wild place,
Not unremembered is the last
And bravest of his race.