Lays of Ancient Virginia, and Other Poems

Excerpt

POCAHONTAS.

Where yonder moss-grown ruinlonely stands,Which from the James, the Pilgrim may survey,Stretch alway forth its old, forsaken handsAs if to beg some friend its fall to stay,And now the wild vine flaunts in greenness gay;Erst rose a Castle, known to deathless fame,Though now the mournful rampart falls away,Hither Virginia's hero-father came,To found a glorious state, and give these regions name.For, then, both far and near the forest wide,Stretched from the main unto the setting sun,And Bears and Panthers walked in fiercest pride,And slept at ease when their red feast was done,But here of white men there had ne'er walked one,But a fierce race of wild and savage hue,Their simple life from chase and angling won,And oft, when wrath arose, each other slew,In bloody wars which dyed their soil with crimson dew.I ween it was a novel sight to seeThe white man landing in the vasty wild,Which each familiar creature seemed to flee,Where not a christian dwelling ever smiled,Nor e'er a well-known sound the ear beguiled,But all was wild and hideous—and the heart,Mayhap, of stout man, trembled as a child,—And oft the exile's tear would, gushing, start,That ever he was lured from Albion's coast to part.But there was one, the chieftan, of that band,Whose soul no dread, however great, could chill,His was the towering mind, the mighty hand,On which, his feeble followers resting, stillWould fear no peril from approaching ill.With him the strangers built their rugged home,And turned the soil, and eat, and drank their fill;Glad that to this fair Eden they had come,And reconciled became to their adopted home.Thus pass'd away in peaceful happiness,A little space by yonder river's side,But now arose the wail of keen distress,Famine, with his murderous eye, they spied,Stalk round the walls of those who wept and sighed,And when their venturous chieftain wandered forth,Ill hap betrayed him to the savage pride,The death-club rose, his head upon the earth,To perish there and thus, that man of kingly worth.Not yet! before that last sad deed be done,An Indian maiden springs beneath the blow,And says her virgin blood shall freely run,For him, extended on the ground below,See! how, her face upturned, her tears do flow,See Love and anguish painted in her eyes,That, like a Seraph's, in their pity, glow,And surely Angels, looking from the skiesClaimed this poor savage girl a sister in disguise.Those eyes, those tears prevent the falling stroke,For Powhatan could not withstand her tears,His favorite child, who, charmed, beneath the oak,His savage spirit from her dawning years,The wondering white man now he kindly rears,And bids his menials haste the Indian's fareFor him whom now his daughter's love endears,And lo! within the Lion's horrid lair,The Dove has brought her mate, and sees him unhurt there.Oh Love! how powerful o'er all thou art,In dusky breasts or breasts of whiter hue,To thy delicious touch the human heartThrobs with respondent transport ever true....