Excerpt
MABEL MARTIN. A HARVEST IDYL.
Susanna Martin, an aged woman of Amesbury, Mass., was tried and executed for the alleged crime of witchcraft. Her home was in what is now known as Pleasant Valley on the Merrimac, a little above the old Ferry way, where, tradition says, an attempt was made to assassinate Sir Edmund Andros on his way to Falmouth (afterward Portland) and Pemaquid, which was frustrated by a warning timely given. Goody Martin was the only woman hanged on the north side of the Merrimac during the dreadful delusion. The aged wife of Judge Bradbury who lived on the other side of the Powow River was imprisoned and would have been put to death but for the collapse of the hideous persecution.
The substance of the poem which follows was published under the name of The Witch's Daughter, in The National Era in 1857. In 1875 my publishers desired to issue it with illustrations, and I then enlarged it and otherwise altered it to its present form. The principal addition was in the verses which constitute Part I.
PROEM.I CALL the old time back: I bring my layin tender memory of the summer dayWhen, where our native river lapsed away,
We dreamed it over, while the thrushes madeSongs of their own, and the great pine-trees laidOn warm noonlights the masses of their shade.
And she was with us, living o'er againHer life in ours, despite of years and pain,—The Autumn's brightness after latter rain.
Beautiful in her holy peace as oneWho stands, at evening, when the work is done,Glorified in the setting of the sun!
Her memory makes our common landscape seemFairer than any of which painters dream;Lights the brown hills and sings in every stream;
For she whose speech was always truth's pure goldHeard, not unpleased, its simple legends told,And loved with us the beautiful and old.
I. THE RIVER VALLEY.Across the level tableland,A grassy, rarely trodden way,With thinnest skirt of birchen spray
And stunted growth of cedar, leadsTo where you see the dull plain fallSheer off, steep-slanted, ploughed by all
The seasons' rainfalls. On its brinkThe over-leaning harebells swing,With roots half bare the pine-trees cling;
And, through the shadow looking west,You see the wavering river flowAlong a vale, that far below
Holds to the sun, the sheltering hillsAnd glimmering water-line between,Broad fields of corn and meadows green,
And fruit-bent orchards grouped aroundThe low brown roofs and painted eaves,And chimney-tops half hid in leaves.
No warmer valley hides behindYon wind-scourged sand-dunes, cold and bleak;No fairer river comes to seek
The wave-sung welcome of the sea,Or mark the northmost border lineOf sun-loved growths of nut and vine.
Here, ground-fast in their native fields,Untempted by the city's gain,The quiet farmer folk remain
Who bear the pleasant name of Friends,And keep their fathers' gentle waysAnd simple speech of Bible days;
In whose neat homesteads woman holdsWith modest ease her equal place,And wears upon her tranquil face
The look of one who, merging notHer self-hood in another's will,Is love's and duty's handmaid still....