'Ha! ha!' quoth he, 'full plain I see, The Devil knows how to row.'

"And now, all in my own countree,

I stood on the firm land!

The Hermit stepped forth from the boat,
And scarcely he could stand.

"O shrieve me, shrieve me, holy man!'
The Hermit crossed his brow.

'Say quick,' quoth he, 'I bid thee say— What manner of man art thou?'

"Forthwith this frame of mine was wrenched

With a woeful agony,

Which forced me to begin my tale;

And then it left me free.

"Since then, at an uncertain hour,

That agony returns:

And till my ghastly tale is told,
This heart within me burns.

"I

pass, like night, from land to land;
I have strange power of speech;
The moment that his face I see,

I know the man that must hear me:
To him my tale I teach.

"What loud uproar bursts from that door!

The wedding-guests are there:

But in the garden-bower the bride

And bridesmaids singing are:

And hark the little vesper bell,
Which biddeth me to prayer!

"O Wedding-guest! This soul hath been Alone on a wide, wide sea:

So lonely 'twas, that God himself

Scarce seemed there to be.

"O sweeter than the marriage feast,

"Tis sweeter far to me,

To walk together to the kirk
With a goodly company!

"To walk together to the kirk,

And all together pray,

While each to his great Father bends,

Old men, and babes, and loving friends,
And youths and maidens gay!
"Farewell, farewell! but this I tell
To thee, thou Wedding-guest!
He prayeth well, who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.
"He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all."42

The Mariner, whose eye is bright,
Whose beard with age is hoar,
Is gone: and now the Wedding-guest
Turned from the bridegroom's door.

He went like one that hath been stunned,

And is of sense forlorn:

A sadder and a wiser man,

He rose the morrow morn.

42. A friend of Coleridge's once told him that she admired The Ancient Mariner, but had a serious fault to find with it-it had no moral. Do you think, as you read this stanza, that her objection was a valid one?

THE BLACK HAWK TRAGEDY1

By EDWIN D. COE

DO not pose as an Indian lover. In fact the instincts and impressions of my early life bent me in the opposite direction. My father's log house, in which I was born, stood within a few rods of Rock River, about forty-five miles west of this city. The stream was the boundary line, in a half-recognized way, between two tribes of Indians, and a common highway for both. I well remember their frequent and unheralded entries into our house, and their ready assumption of its privileges. I can see them yet-yes, and smell them, too. In some unventilated chamber of my rather capacious nostrils an abiding breath of that intense, all-conquering odor of fish, smoke and muskrat, which they brought with them, still survives. I well remember their impudent and sometimes bullying demeanor; and the horror of one occasion I shall never forget, when a stalwart Winnebago, armed with a knife, tomahawk and gun, seized my mother by the shoulder as she stood by her ironing table, and shook her because she said she had no bread for him. I wrapped myself in her skirts and howled in terror. Having been transplanted from the city to the wilderness, she had a mortal fear of Indians, but never revealed it to them. She had nerve, and reso

1. The following account is taken from a paper read before the Loyal Legion at Milwaukee, May 6, 1896, by Mr. Coe.

1

lution as well; and this particular fellow she threatened with her hot flat-iron and drove him out of the house. So you see I have no occasion for morbid or unnatural sympathy with any of the Indian kind.

Black Hawk was born in 1767 at Saukenuk. His father was the war chief of the nation and a very successful leader. Young Black Hawk inherited his martial spirit and conducted himself so valorously in battle that he was recognized as a brave when only fifteen years old. He was enthusiastic and venturesome, and before the close of his twentieth year had led several expeditions against the Osages and Sioux. It was his boast that he had been in a hundred Indian battles and had never suffered defeat.

Life passed pleasantly with Black Hawk and his tribe at Saukenuk for many years. The location combined all the advantages possible for their mode of existence. When Black Hawk was taken to Washington after his capture in 1832, he made an eloquent and most pathetic speech at one of the many interviews which he held with the high officials of the government. He said: "Our home was very beautiful. My house always had plenty. I never had to turn friend or stranger away for lack of food. The island was our garden. There the young people gathered plums, apples, grapes, berries and nuts. The rapids furnished us fish. On the bottom lands our women raised corn, beans and squashes. The young men hunted game on the prairie and in the woods. It was good for us. When I see the great fields and big villages of the white people, I wonder why they wish to take our little territory from us."