The rose of England bloomed on Gertrude's cheek
What though these shades had seen her birth, her sire
A Briton's independence taught to seek
Far western worlds; and there his household fire
The light of social love did long inspire,
And many a halcyon day he lived to see
Unbroken, but by one misfortune dire,
When fate had 'reft his mutual heart-but she [knee.
Was gone-and Gertrude climbed a widowed father's
XI.
A loved bequest,-and I may half impart
To them that feel the strong paternal tie,
How like a new existence to his heart
Uprose that living flower beneath his eye,
Dear as she was, from cherub infancy,
From hours when she would round his garden play,
To time when as the rip'ning years went by,
Her lovely mind could culture well repay,
And more engaging grew, from pleasing day to day.
I may not paint those thousand infant charms;
Unconscious fascinatior, undesigned !)
The orison repeated in his arms,
For God to bless her sire and all mankind;
The book, the bosom on his knee reclined,
Or how sweet fairy-lore he heard her con,
(The playmate ere the teacher of her mind :)
All uncompanioned else her years had gone [shone.
Till now in Gertrude's eyes their ninth blue summer
And summer was the tide, and sweet the hour,
When sire and daughter saw, with fleet descent,
An Indian from his bark approach their bower,
Of buskin❜d limb, and swarthy lineament;
The red wild feathers on his brow were blent,
And bracelets bound the arm that helped to light
A boy, who seemed, as he beside him went,
Of Christian vesture, and complexion bright,
Led by his dusky guide like morning brought by night.
XIV.
Yet pensive seemed the boy for one so young,
The dimple from his polished cheek had filed;
When, leaning on his forest-bow unstrung,
Th' Oneyda warrior to the planter said,
And laid his hand upon the stripling's head,
"Peace be to thee! my words this belt approve;
The paths of peace my steps have hither led:
This little nursling, take him to thy love,
[dove. And shield the bird unfledged, since gone the parent
"Christian! I am the foeman of thy foe;
Our wampum league thy brethren did embrace:
Upon the Michigan, three moons ago,
We launched our quivers for the bison chase;
And with the Hurons planted for a space,
With true and faithful hands, the olive-stalk;
But snakes are in the bosoms of their race,
And though they held with us a friendly talk,
The hollow peace-tree fell beneath their tomahawk!
"It was encamping on the lake's far port,
A cry of Areouski* broke our sleep,
Where stormed an ambushed foe thy nation's fort,
And rapid rapid whoops came o'er the deep;
But long thy country's war-sign on the steep
Appeared through ghastly intervals of light,
And deathfully their thunders seemed to sweep,
Till utter darkness swallowed up the sight,
As if a shower of blood had quenched the fiery fight!
I slept-it rose again—on high their tow'r
Sprung upwards like a torch to light the skies,
Then down again it rained an ember shower,
And louder lamentations heard we rise:
As when the evil Manitou* that dries
The Ohio woods, consumes them in his ire,
In vain the desolated panther flies,
And howls, amidst his wilderness of fire:
Alas! too late, we reached and smote those Hurons dire!
"But as the fox beneath the nobler hound,
So died their warriors by our battle brand;
And from the tree we with her child unbound
A lonely mother of the Christian land.
Her lord-the captain of the British band-
Amidst the slaughter of his soldiers lay.
Scarce knew the widow our delivering hand;
Upon her child she sobbed and swooned away,
Or shrieked unto the God to whom the Christians pray.-
"Our virgins fed her with their kindly bowls
Of fever-balm, and sweet sagamite ;
But she was journeying to the land of souls,
And lifted up her dying head to pray
That we should bid an ancient friend convey
Her orphan to his home of England's shore;
And take, she said, this token far away
* Manitou, Spirit or Deity
To one that will remember us of yore,
When he beholds the ring that Waldegrave's Julia
" And I, the eagle of my tribe,* have rushed
With this lorn dove."-A sage's self-command
Had quelled the tears from Albert's heart that gushed;
But yet his cheek—his agitated hand—
That showered upon the stranger of the land
No common boon, in grief but ill beguiled
A soul that was not wont to be unmanned;
"And stay," he cried, "dear pilgrim of the wild!
Preserver of my old, my boon companion's child!-
"Child of a race whose name my bosom warms,
On earth's remotest bounds how welcome here!
Whose mother oft, a child, has filled these arms
Young as thyself, and innocently dear,
Whose grandsire was my early life's compeer.
Ah happiest home of England's happy clime!
How beautiful ev'n now thy scenes appear,
As in the noon and sunshine of my prime!
How gone like yesterday these thrice ten years of time!
XXII.
66 And, Julia! when thou wert like Gertrude now,
Can I forget thee, fav'rite child of yore?
Or thought I, in thy father's house when thou
Wert lightest hearted on his festive floor
And first of all his hospitable door,
To meet and kiss me at my journey's end?
But where was I when Waldegrave was no more?
*The Indians are distinguished both personally and by tribes by the name of particular animals, whose qualities they affect to resemble either for cunning, strength, swiftness, or other qualities.-As the eagle, the serpent, the fox, or bear.
And thou didst pale thy gentle head extend,
In woes, that ev'n the tribe of deserts was thy friend!"
He said—and strained unto his heart the boy:
Far differently the mute Oneyda took
His calumet of peace,* and cup of joy ;
As monumental bronze unchanged his look:
A soul that pity touched but never shook:
Trained, from his tree-rocked cradlet to his bier,
The fierce extremes of good and ill to brook
Impassive-fearing but the shame of fear--
A stoic of the woods-a man without a tear.-
Yet deem not goodness on the savage stock
Of Outalissi's heart disdained to grow;
As lives the oak unwithered on the rock
By storms above, and barrenness below;
He scorned his own, who felt another's wo:
And ere the wolfskin on his back he flung,
Or laced his mocasins, in act to go,
A song of parting to the boy he sung,
Who slept on Albert's couch, nor heard his friendly
Sleep wearied one! and in the dreaming land Shouldst thou to-morrow with thy mother meet, Oh! tell her spirit, that the white man's hand Hath plucked the thorns of sorrow from thy feet; While I in lonely wilderness shall greet
* Calumet of Peace.-The calumet is the Indian name for the ornamented pipe of friendship, which they smoke as a pledge of amity.
↑ Tree-rocked cradle.-The Indian mothers suspend their children in their cradles from the boughs of trees, and let them be rocked by the wind.
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