IX.
‘Your deep debate,’ Pamunky said,
‘Ye may no longer hold,
‘Nor longer fear our pale-face foe;
‘His days at last are told.
‘Their mighty werowance, Sir John,
‘Who exercised such skill,
‘That all the poison of our land
‘Could not his people kill,
‘His death-wound has received at last—
‘From their strange fire it came;
‘That fire which thunders in their hands,
‘And burns with a lightning flame—
‘That fire they brought across the sea,
‘To hunt us from the earth,
‘Has turn’d on them its serpent fang,
‘And stung them to the death.
‘I saw Sir John with his bleeding wounds,
‘And his muffled face and head,
‘Creep slowly to their tall ship’s deck,
‘Like one that was near dead.
‘And away that ship is sailing now
‘Across the ocean wave,
‘To carry Sir John to his English isle
‘To rest in his English grave.
‘And now this land is ours again;
‘The rest of the pale-face crew
‘We’ll brush away from our forest home,
‘As we brush the drops of dew.’{[25]}
Great joy then felt King Powhatan,
Great joy felt all his men,
And wild and loud were the shouts that made
Their forests ring again.
No more in long suspense and fear
They lay like a strong man bound,
But light and free, the feast and song
Through all the tribes went round;
And every hunter freely breathed
Along by the winding shore,
And warriors trod their native woods
In conscious pride once more.