網頁圖片
PDF
ePub 版

This little nursling, take him to thy love,
And shield the bird unfledged, since gone the pa-

rent dove.

XV.

"Christian! I am the foeman of thy foe;
Our wampum league thy brethren did embrace:
Upon the Michigan, three moons ago,

We launch'd our pirogues 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 toma-
kawk!

XVI.

"It was encamping on the lake's far port,
A cry of Areouski* broke our sleep,
Where storm'd an ambush'd foe thy nation's fort,
And rapid, rapid whoops came o'er the deep;
But long thy country's war-sign on the steep
Appear'd through ghastly intervals of light,
And deathfully their thunder seem'd to sweep,
Till utter darkness swallow'd up the sight,
As if a shower of blood had quench'd the fiery
fight!

*The Indian God of War.

[merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

Sprang upward like a torch to light the skies, Then down again it rain'd an ember shower, And louder lamentations heard we rise

As when the evil Manitou* that dries

[ocr errors]

Th' Ohio woods, consumes them in his ire,
In vain the desolated panther flies,

And howls amidst his wilderness of fire:

Alas! too late, we reach'd and smote those Hurons

dire!

XVIII.

[ocr errors]

"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 sobb'd, and swoon'd away,
Or shriek'd unto the God to whom the Christians

pray.

XIX.

"Our virgins fed her with their kindly bowls
Of fever-balm and sweet sagamité:

But she was journeying to the land of souls,
And lifted up her dying head to pray

*Manitou, Spirit or Deity.

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,

To one that will remember us of yore,

When he beholds the ring that Waldegrave's Julia wore.

XX.

[ocr errors]

"And I, the eagle of my tribe,* have rush'd With this lorn dove." A sage's self-command Had quell'd the tears from Albert's heart that gush'd;

But yet his cheek his agitated handThat shower'd upon the stranger of the land No common boon, in grief but ill-beguiled A soul that was not wont to be unmann'd ; "And stay," he cried, "dear pilgrim of the wild, Preserver of my old, my boon companion's child!

XXI.

"Child of a race whose name my bosom warms, On earth's remotest bounds how welcome here! Whose mother oft, a child, has fill'd these arms, Young as thyself, and innocently dear,

*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.

Whose grandsire was my early life's compeer.
Ah, happiest home of England's happy clime!
How beautiful e'en now thy scenes appear,
As in the noon and sunshine of my prime !
How gone like yesterday these thrice ten years of
time!

XXII.

"And, Julia! when thou wert like Gertrude

now,

Can I forget thee, favourite 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?
And thou did'st pale thy gentle head extend
In woes, that e'en the tribe of deserts was thy
friend!"

He said

[ocr errors]

XXIII.

and strain'd unto his heart the boy :

Far differently, the mute Oneida took
His calumet of peace, and cup of joy ;*
As monumental bronze unchanged his look;
A soul that pity touch'd, but never shook;

Calumet of peace.

The calumet is the Indian name for the ornamental pipe of friendship, which they smoke as a pledge of amity.

Train'd from his tree-rock'd cradle* to his bier
The fierce extremes of good and ill to brook
Impassive fearing but the shame of fear --

[ocr errors]

A stoic of the woods a man without a tear.

[ocr errors]

XXIV.

Yet deem not goodness on the savage stock
Of Outalissi's heart disdain'd to grow;
As lives the oak unwither'd on the rock
By storms above, and barrenness below;
He scorn'd his own, who felt another's wo;
And ere the wolf-skin on his back he flung,
Or laced his moccasins, in act to go,

A song of parting to the boy he sung,

Who slept on Albert's couch, nor heard his friendly tongue.

XXV.

"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 pluck'd the thorns of sorrow from thy feet; While I in lonely wilderness shall greet

Thy little footprints or by traces know

[ocr errors]

The fountain, where at noon I thought it sweet

*Tree-rock'd cradle. -The Indian mothers suspend their children in their cradles from the boughs of trees, and let them be rocked by the wind.

[blocks in formation]
« 上一頁繼續 »