Poems (Hoffman)/The Legend of Lover's Leap

by Martha Lavinia Hoffman

Squaw Rock, or Lover's Leap, near Cloverdale, Cal.

THE LEGEND OF LOVER'S LEAP

Where the narrow grade winds up and down
And the stage rattles past to the distant town,
Where the torrent pours down the cañon wild,
Where the rocks in shapeless walls are piled.
Where the speckled trout o'er the ripples play
And the grasses droop to the cascade's spray,
Where the wild deer pauses at eve to drink
And leaves his tracks on the mossy brink,
High over the stream towers a rock-hewn steep
That is known by the name of "Lover's Leap."

'Tis an Indian legend of storied fame
That gave to the stern old rock its name,
A legend of love and jealous hate,
Of a dusky maiden desolate,
Her swarthy lover a truant gone
With a dark-browed rival, and following on
With a fierce, wild look in her midnight eyes
On, on, through the forest gloom she flies
Over fallen logs, o'er hill and dell,
Thick with manzanita and chaparral,
'Till at last she stops where the waters sweep
Round the ragged turrets of Lover's Leap.

But why does she turn from the torrent's edge
With one startled glance from ledge to ledge
Ere she bounds away like a frightened fawn
With her raven hair on the breezes blown?
She knows where the path leads up the height
And thither she takes her breathless flight;
Higher and higher her light feet bound
'Till the shadowy forest is left behind,
With a heart of stone and an eye of fire
Possessed with one wild, one fierce desire
That they her reckless revenge may reap
Where they rest at the foot of Lover's Leap.

She has reached the end of her journey now
And stands alone on the mountain's brow.
Far over the rocks she stoops to lean
What, what has the Indian maiden seen?
For she tears a stone from a broken rift
As large as her swarthy arms can lift,
And stands transfixed on the very edge
Gazing wildly down on the rocky gorge
Where four hundred feet from the mountain's crest
Her lover and rival have paused to rest;
A crash, a cry, a heavy thud—
And the spot is vacant where she stood
And the three lie there in a mangled heap
On the rocks at the foot of Lover's Leap.

Thus the tragic tale of the rock is told
And its romance envelopes the mountain old
And the travelers passing by each day
Look up at the turrets grim and gray
And repeat the tradition whose early fame
Gave the stern old rock its romantic name,
And the grasses fall o'er the rocks below
And gracefully sweep the river's flow,
And the hill-slopes are speckled with grazing flocks,
And the buzzard hovers above the rocks,
And the rock-plants cling and the mosses creep
O'er the storm-scarred ledges of Lover's Leap.