Poems Sigourney 1834/The Bell of St. Regis
THE BELL OF ST. REGIS.
In 1704, when Deerfield was taken by the Indians, a small church-bell was carried away on a sledge as far as Lake Champlain and buried. It was afterwards taken up and conveyed to Canada.
The red men came in their pride and wrath,
Deep vengeance fired their eye,
And the blood of the white was in their path,
And the flame from his roof rose high.
Then down from the burning church they tore
The bell of tuneful sound,
And on with their captive train they bore
That wonderful thing toward their native shore,
The rude Canadian bound.
But now and then, with a fearful tone,
It struck on their startled ear—
And sad it was, 'mid the mountains lone,
Or the ruined tempest muttered moan,
That terrible voice to hear.
It seemed like the question that stirs the soul
Of its secret good or ill,
And they quaked as its stern and solemn toll
Re-echoed from rock to hill.
And they started up in their broken dream,
'Mid the lonely forest-shade,
And thought that they heard the dying scream,
And saw the blood of slaughter stream
Afresh through the village glade.
Then they sat in council, those chieftains old,
And a mighty pit was made,
Where the lake with its silver waters rolled
They buried that bell 'neath the verdant mould,
And crossed themselves and prayed.
And there till a stately powow came
It slept in its tomb forgot,
With a mantle of fur, and a brow of flame
He stood on that burial spot:
They wheeled the dance with its mystic round
At the stormy midnight hour,
And a dead man's hand on his breast he bound,
And invoked, ere he broke that awful ground,
The demons of pride and power.
Then he raised the bell, with a nameless rite,
Which none but himself might tell,
In blanket and bear-skin he bound it tight,
And it journeyed in silence both day and night,
So strong was that magic spell.
It spake no more, till St. Regis' tower
In northern skies appeared,
And their legends extol that powow's power
Which lulled that knell like the poppy flower,
As conscience now slumbereth a little hour
In the cell of a heart that 's seared.