Legend of Mount Hood
LEGEND OF MOUNT HOOD.
- "Tahoma"—thus the native Indian legends run—
- "A god magnificent and pure of soul, dwelt in a grove
- Of giant trees where stands this mountain now. None came to share
- His meditations, or his loneliness,
- 'Till form empyreal, of loveliness
- And grace and majesty and holiness
- Coequal with his own, swept through the vault—a goddess fair,
- On errand from the stars. 'Twas Red Tamahnous, queen of love!
- Tahoma saw; she smiled, and passed beyond the sun.
- Aflame with strange, ecstatic fire, the fervent god,
- In sleepless vigil, waited through the years for her return—
- Ten hundred years. She came at last, at rising of the sun.
- Exalting all his form Tahoma rose
- To greet his queen; in maidenly repose
- She lingered in the west; upon her brows
- A wreathed effulgence flamed. In form the lovers were as one,
- Their ornaments the same. Each learned that fires celestial burn
- Where love is pure. Thus, near opposed, they willing stood.
- Foredoomed to earthly home, Tahoma sued her dear
- Companionship—that she, with silver hair untressed and spread
- In beauty through the skies, no more from stars to sun should roam.
- An errant messenger. She gave consent;
- Above the pair a morning halo bent,
- The greater spirit's token of assent.
- With arms outstretched the god essayed to clasp his bride's fair form,
- When lo! behind her 'rose a grisly shape of aspect dread;
- It veiled her from his sight and bore her through the air.
- ’Twas Black Tamahnous, fiend of rage and hate, the foe
- Of all the good and pure in heaven, on earth; relentless, fierce,
- Of form prodigious, aspect foul, she murders joy and love
- Where e'er she goes. Transfixed Tahoma stood;
- Then burst his heart: above his head the blood,
- In fountain red and hot, poured all its flood,
- And thus he died. The Spirit Great bewailed his son and wove
- A mantle pure and white around his form, and as the years
- Speed past renews the garb, as symbol of his woe.
- And ever as the summer comes the mystic queen,
- Forbidden ever to return as comet to the sky,
- Steals silently from out the west, at rising of the sun,
- To look upon her lover’s mantled form
- And meditate, alone, that sweet, sad morn
- When first they met; and still the hag, hell born,
- Pursues and draws obscuring veil o’er each; to realms unknown
- They thus return. The tale is true, for even mortal eye,
- When blessed of sight, may yet behold that very scene."