Landon in The Literary Gazette 1835/The Huron’s Child
ORIGINAL POETRY.
VERSIONS FROM THE GERMAN.
(Fourth Series.)
The Huron's Child.— Herder.
The only child within the tent,
Beneath the old fir-tree:
How pleasantly his days were spent—
The young, the glad, the free.
Not rosy, like an English child:
His cheek was dark and pale,
And black the long straight hair that wild
Was toss'd upon the gale.
And yet the child was beautiful,
And graceful as the fawn,
That at the noontide stoops to pull
The grass of some wood lawn.
He sat beside his mother's knee
The long and lonely day,
While, seeking where the deer might be,
His father was away.
He loved to hear her mournful song,
Her song of love and fear;
And never seem'd the day too long
With that sweet listener near.
At night it was a cheerful thing
To watch their hunter craft;
With feathers from the eagle's wing
They plumed the slender shaft.
Listened the child with eager joy
To all his father told—
Who'd watch his eyes and say, "my boy
Will be a hunter bold."
But showers are on a sunny sky,
And sorrow follows mirth;
The shadow of the grave was nigh
To that devoted hearth.
The child so loved, the child so young,
Grew paler day by day—
A weight upon his spirits hung,
They watched him pine away.
One night upon his mother's arm
He leant his weary head;
She whispered many a prayer and charm
In vain—the child was dead!
They laid him in a little grave,
Washed by the morning dew,
Which falls whene'er the pine boughs wave,
As they were weeping too.
Still night and morn upon the wind
Was heard her funeral cry—
"My child, why am I left behind?
My child, why would'st thou die?"
The father's moan was never heard—
None saw him weep or sigh;
Upon his lip there was no word,
But death was in his eye.
The moon above the funeral ground
Had just her race begun;
The hunter, ere her orb was round,
Lay sleeping with his son.
And then the mother ceased to weep,
And, with a patient grief,
Sang her sad songs, and strewed their sleep
With many a flower and leaf.
A white man, who was wandering 'lone
From some far distant shore,
And, wondering, asked, "When all are gone,
Why dost thou weep no more?"
The woman raised her languid head,
And said, "My child was weak—
He knew no one amid the dead
His daily food to seek!
My husband was a hunter good
As ever arrows bore:
I know my child will now have food,
Therefore I weep no more.
I sit and think upon the past,
And sing my mournful strain:
I know that we shall meet at last,
And never part again."
" Oh! strong in love," the traveller cried,
"Worthy a hope divine—
I would that all whom God hath tried,
Had faith as meek as thine!"L. E. L.