Classic Poem

The miller sate at his cabin door —
A man of seventy years and more;
It was old Michael Beattison,
The gray-beard miller of Crooked Run.

The summer boughs of a chestnut spread
Over his white and reverend head,
And, catching the west wind in their leaves,
Rustled against his cabin eaves.
The wind that stirred the lintel tree
Touched the old man tenderly.

Serene of look the miller sate
Erect in his wicker chair of state,
And now and then a smile would grace
The pleasant lines of his fresh hale face.
Was it because his earnest mill,
With merry clank, and clamour shrill,
Discoursed so well beneath the hill?
Or is it because some thought swells high
Of happy scenes in the time gone by?

The miller's hoary pow has store
Of frontier deeds, and Indian lore,
And he can show old times as well
As any written chronicle.

I, with another, crossed the green,
Saying, " Old gentleman, good e'en, "
And Michael, with fair courtesy,
Gave the good even back to me.
" Michael, " I said, " my friend is taking
Notes for a good book he is making,
And much desires to hear you tell
The tale you bear in mind so well —
How the great sachem long ago
Was killed with Ellinipsico. "

A happy man seemed Michael then.
" Good sirs, " quoth he, " I was but ten,
When Cornstalk died; but older men
Have told me how the murder chanced.
My life is very far advanced,
But not enough that I should know,
Of things that chanced so long ago,
Like one who saw the very deed. "

" Michael, " I said, " there is no need
To parley so; pray tell the story. "

Freely upspake the old man hoary;
" Sirs, I will tell what I have heard.
In seventy-seven some scouts brought word
That the great chief was coming down,
From his Chilicothe town,
To meet Arbuckle at the fort.
And shortly after this report
He came; myself was there that day,
For folk had come, from miles away,
In crowds to see the Shawnee king.
The Winnebago, Eagle-wing,
Came with him, for the two were friends,
And wrought together for their ends.
I saw them come, and can declare
What like of men the chieftains were.
The Shawnee was a man of care,
A grave, and quiet man, and old,
But upright in his gait, and bold,
And with a look about the eyes
Which said that he was good and wise.
He left his arms beyond the river,
And came up, like a sage lawgiver,
In flowing robes. The Eagle-wing
Was younger than the Shawnee king,
But a great chief and orator.
The two had fought in seventy-four
On that same spot, and Cornstalk's look
Calm survey of the country took.
He raised his robes, and touched a scar,
And said some words of Dunmore's war,
And smiled — and then, with thoughtful port,
Entered the gateway of the fort.

" His words and voice were soft, and low,
But there were men at hand who said
That it was craft that they were so;
For on the bloody day, and dread,
Of that great fight, when Lewis thinned.
His lines, the old chief's cry rang out
As loud as any stormy wind;
There was a tempest in his shout
That drowned the guns. " Be strong — be strong,"
Was Cornstalk's battle-cry, and long
The frontier bore its sound in mind.
Our women heard it in the wind
That swept the forests, bare and brown,
When autumn nights had settled down,
And fear sat by the chimney side;
And hushed their children when they cried,
In wantonness of baby grief,
With stories of the Cornstalk chief.

" What drew the Shawnee to the fort,
Indeed I cannot well report.
Some said he came down as a spy —
If so he merited to die.
But others have it that he came —
And this seems truer — to proclaim
That the great northern tribes were won
By British arts, and he must run
With the strong stream, unless we brought
Sure aid to him — and such he sought.
This sounds more like the Shawnee king.
However, after counselling,
Our men — to make my story short —
Refused to let him leave the fort.
A month passed by. The Eagle-wing,
Denied his freedom, seemed to pine;
But the stout-hearted Shawnee king —
They said who saw him — gave no sign
Of moodiness, but seemed to be
Careless of his captivity.
He kept his head, and heart, erect,
And, with courageous counsel, checked
The misery of his pining friend;
Saying, " The oak should never bend" —
And to the white men — " We are here,
And helpless, but we have no fear;
I — weary and old and worn — am ready
To live or die." His looks were steady —
Serene his voice — erect his head —
When valiant words like these he said.

" I said a long month passed away.
In the fifth week, one quiet day,
The Shawnee sachem, with a wand,
Was mapping, on a floor of sand,
The winding rivers of the west.
Arbuckle, Stuart, and the rest
Were looking on, when suddenly
The old chief paused with listening ear,
As one who catches some far cry,
Then raised his face with pleasant cheer,
And smiled, and said that he had heard
" The whistle of a Shawnee bird."
These words to Eagle-wing he said,
And left the hut with stately tread.

" He stept three steps beyond the door.
The river passed with a solemn roar.
But over its sounds from the westward shore,
Where the dark-green boughs of the forest hung,
He heard a call in the Shawnee tongue.
He shouted in turn — the voice replied —
And an Indian came to the water-side.
He looked on the current swift and clear,
For a little time, as a man in fear,
Then took to the stream like a mountain dee.
Sometime he waded, sometime he swam:
The chief looked on with a visage calm —
There was no light in his face to show
That he knew his son in the stream below,
His dear boy Ellinipsico.

" That night passed by; the guard who kept
Watch on the hut where the Indians slept,
Heard the voices of father and son,
And their falling footsteps, one by one,
For an hour beyond the middle night —
Himself then fell asleep outright.
He said the words — in that strange sweet tongue —
Of the ancient chief, and the boy so young,
Were like some music — so soft they were.
The day came on serene and fair,
And, side by side, in the open air,
With moving lips, and steps most slow,
The white men saw them come and go —
Cornstalk and Ellinipsico.

" That day, at rising of the sun,
Gilmer, and Robin Hamilton
Had left the fort to stalk for deer
On the Kanawha's southern side.
It chanced some Delawares lurked near —
These crouching Delawares espied
The hunters, from their screen of grass,
And lay in wait, to let them pass,
Then fired upon them; Gilmer fell,
And the red devils, with a yell,
Leapt out, and rushed on Hamilton.
But Robin turned, and ran to win
The river-side — which soon he won,
And in his fear plunged headlong in.
His friends came swiftly to his aid,
And plucked him from the stream half dead,
Half drowned and terribly dismayed.

" His comrades heard the hunter's story,
With vengeful threats, and curses loud;
But at sight of the dead man, scalped and gory,
A very fiend possessed the crowd.
John Hall, a desperate man and bad,
Said with an oath, " The Shawnee lad
Brought down these Indians when he came."
The crowd was grass — these words were flame.
Awful and stern outbrake the cry,
" The Indians in the fort must die."

" Arbuckle strove, but strove in vain,
The fury of the crowd to rein —
Its fierce intent of blood to check.
Right little did the miscreants reck
Of such entreaty or command.
John Hall, with rifle in his hand,
And a wild devil in his eye,
Menaced his captain for reply.

" Meanwhile the Indians sat alone,
Nor knew what fate came swiftly on;
But Stuart broke in suddenly,
And warned them of the peril nigh.
The Winnebago glared around,
For refuge, but no refuge found,
And bent his dark brows to the ground.
The trembling Ellinipsico
His innocence essayed to show,
Saying, with utterance like a moan,
" Father, I came on my way alone.
My path was single in the wood.
Our people are white of the Long Knife's blood."
But the great chief, the pale boy's sire,
Calmly arranged his wild attire;
Courage and pride were in his face,
And he stood in his robes with a stately grace,
And spoke with an air of majesty —
" My son," he said, " fear not to die.
The Mighty Spirit who loves our race
Looked on my old age tenderly,
And sent my son to die with me."

" The mob surged onward with a roar.
The bristling guns are at the door!
" What Manitou wills is for the best,"
The old chief said, and bared his breast.
A click of locks! — and the rifles tore
The sachem's very heart, and bore
His body, drenched with its spouting blood,
Far back from where in life it stood.
The poor boy Ellinipsico —
His eyes saw not that scene of wo.
The courage of his race had come
To nerve him for the martyrdom,
But his weak vision could not brave
The face of murder, and he gave
His young life to the sacrifice
With bending head and cowering eyes.
The Winnebago stood at bay,
And, bloody from brow to knee, contended;
But his fierce life soon ebbed away,
And then the tragedy was ended.
And with it ends my old-world story. "
So said, and sighed, the miller hoary.

My bookish friend — when he had done —
Gave thanks to Michael Beattison;
And said such tales were worth the printing,
And, with some fair art in the minting,
Would pass as well as many told
In the high chronicles of old.