Page:Pocahontas, and Other Poems.djvu/26

10 Who led her train of playmates, day by day,

O'er rock, and stream, and wild, a weary way,

Their baskets teeming with the golden ear?

Whose generous hand vouchsaf'd its tireless aid

To guard a nation's germ? Thine, thine, heroic maid!

.

On sped the tardy seasons,—and the hate

Of the pale strangers wrung the Indian breast.

Their hoary prophet breath'd the ban of fate:—

"Hence with the thunderers! Hide their race, unblest,

Deep 'neath the soil they falsely call their own;

For, from our fathers' graves, a hollow moan,

Like the lash'd surge, bereaves my soul of rest.

'They come! They come!' it cries. 'Ye once were brave:

Will ye resign the world that the Great Spirit gave?

.

Yet, 'neath the settled countenance of guile,

They veil'd their vengeful purpose, dark and dire,

And wore the semblance of a quiet smile,

To lull the victim of their deadly ire:

But ye, who hold of history's scroll the pen,

Blame not too much those erring, red-brow'd men,

Tho' nurs'd in wiles. Fear is the white-lipp'd sire

Of subterfuge and treachery. 'Twere in vain

To bid the soul be true, that writhes beneath his chain.