The Lost Hunter

Numb'd by the piercing, freezing air,
And burden'd by his game,
The hunter, struggling with despair,
Dragg'd on his shivering frame;
The rifle he had shoulder'd late
Was trail' d along, a weary weight;
His pouch was void of food;
The hours were speeding in their flight,
And soon the long, keen, winter night
Would wrap the solitude.
Oft did he stoop a listening ear,
Sweep round an anxious eye, —
No bark or axe-blow could he hear.
No human trace descry.
His sinuous path, by blazes, wound
Among trunks group'd in myriads round;
Through naked boughs, between
Whose,, tangled architecture, fraught
With many a shape grotesquely wrought,
The hemlock's spire was seen.
An antler'd dweller of the wild
Had met his eager gaze,
And far his wandering steps beguiled
Within an unknown maze;
Stream, rock, and run-way he had cross'd,
Unheeding, till the marks were lost
By which he used to roam;
And now, deep swamp and wild ravine
And rugged mountain were between
The hunter and his home.
A dusky haze, which slow had crept
On high, now darken'd there,
And a few snow-flakes fluttering swept
Athwart the thick, gray air,
Faster and faster, till between
The trunks and boughs, a mottled screen
Of glimmering motes was spread,
That tick'd against each object round
With gentle and continuous sound,
Like brook o'er pebbled bed.
The laurel tufts, that drooping hung
Close roll'd around their stems,
And the sear beech-leaves still that clung,
Were white with powdering gems.
But, hark! afar a sullen moan
Swell'd out to louder, deeper tone,
As surging near it pass'd,
And, bursting with a roar, and shock
That made the groaning forest rock,
On rush'd the winter blast.
As o'er it whistled, shriek'd, and hiss'd,
Caught by its swooping wings,
The snow was whirl'd to eddying mist,
Barb'd, as it seem'd, with stings;
And now 'twas swept with lightning flight
Above the loftiest hemlock's height,
Like drifting smoke, and now
It hid the air with shooting clouds,
And robed the trees with circling shrouds,
Then dash'd in heaps below.
Here, plunging in a billowy wreath,
There, clinging to a limb,
The suffering hunter gasp'd for breath,
Brain reel'd, and eye grew dim;
As though to whelm him in despair,
Rapidly changed the blackening air
To murkiest gloom of night,
Till naught was seen around, below,
But falling flakes and mantled snow,
That gleam'd in ghastly white.
At every blast an icy dart
Seem'd through his nerves to fly,
The blood was freezing to his heart —
Thought whisper'd he must die.
The thundering tempest echo'd death,
He felt it in his tighten'd breath;
Spoil, rifle dropp'd, and slow
As the dread torpor crawling came
Along his staggering, stiffening frame,
He sunk upon the snow.
Reason forsook her shatter'd throne, —
He deem'd that summer-hours
Again around him brightly shone
In sunshine, leaves, and flowers;
Again the fresh, green, forest-sod,
Rifle in hand, he lightly trod, —
He heard the deer's low bleat;
Or, couch'd within the shadowy nook,
He drank the crystal of the brook
That murmur'd at his feet.
It changed; — his cabin roof o'erspread,
Rafter, and wall, and chair,
Gleam'd in the crackling fire, that shed
Its warmth, and he was there;
His wife had clasp'd his hand, and now
Her gentle kiss was on his brow,
His child was prattling by,
The hound crouch'd, dozing, near the blaze,
And through the pane's frost-pictured haze
He saw the white drifts fly.
That pass'd; — before his swimming sight
Does not a figure bound,
And a soft voice, with wild delight,
Proclaim the lost is found?
No, hunter, no! 'tis but the streak
Of whirling snow — the tempest's shriek —
No human aid is near!
Never again that form will meet
Thy clasp'd embrace — those accents sweet
Speak music to thine ear.
Morn broke; — away the clouds were chased,
The sky was pure and bright,
And on its blue the branches traced
Their webs of glittering white.
Its ivory roof the hemlock stoop'd,
The pine its silvery tassel droop'd,
Down bent the burden'd wood,
And, scatter'd round, low points of green,
Peering above the snowy scene,
Told where the thickets stood.
In a deep hollow, drifted high,
A wave-like heap was thrown,
Dazzlingly in the sunny sky
A diamond blaze it shone;
The little snow-bird, chirping sweet,
Dotted it o'er with tripping feet;
Unsullied, smooth, and fair,
It seem'd, like other mounds, where trunk
And rock amid the wreaths were sunk,
But, O! the dead was there.
Spring came with wakening breezes bland,
Soft suns and melting rains,
And, touch'd by her Ithuriel wand,
Earth bursts its winter-chains.
In a deep nook, where moss and grass
And fern-leaves wove a verdant mass,
Some scatter'd bones beside,
A mother, kneeling with her child,
Told by her tears and wailings wild
That there the lost had died.