Page:Pocahontas, and Other Poems.djvu/17



of the West! that, slumbering long and deep,

Beneath thy misty mountains' solemn shade,

And, lull'd by melancholy winds that sweep

The unshorn forest and untrodden glade,

Heard not the cry when mighty empires died,

Nor caught one echo from oblivion's tide,

While age on age its stormy voyage made,—

See! Europe, watching from her sea-girt shore,

Extends the sceptred hand and bids thee dream no more.

.

Say,—was it sweet, in cradled rest to lie,

And 'scape the ills that older regions know?

Prolong the vision'd trance of infancy,

And hide from manhood's toil, mischance and woe?

Sweet, by the margin of thy sounding streams

Freely to rove, and nurse illusive dreams, B