XVI.
Where rests Nemattanow the while?
Is sleep to him as kind?
And has it calm’d the passion-flame,
That preys upon his mind?
On his deer-skin soft, full six miles off,
He has pillow’d his restless brain,
And has turn’d himself from side to side,
And tried to sleep in vain;
For over his deep and burning thoughts
His will has no control;
He only thinks of Metoka,
Whose beauty has fired his soul.
Hour after hour he watch’d the moon
Steal over his cabin floor,
And the more he look’d upon its light,
He thought of her the more;
And if his fancy stray’d abroad
In the chase o’er plain and hill,
Or wander’d by the moon-lit stream,
Her image met him still.
He rose and left his sleepless couch,
And into the woods has gone;
He crosses meadow, grove, and glen,
And still he wanders on;
And when on Metoka’s abode
First glanced the morning beam,
Nemattanow was in the bower
Beside the fountain stream.
And round that bower and through the grove
He linger’d all day long,
To catch a glimpse of Metoka,
Or listen to her song;
And when her form glanced on his sight,
Or her voice through the air rung clear,
It sent a sun-light to his heart,
And a joy upon his ear.
But oh, how soon that sun-light fled,
How quick that thrill of joy was dead,
When recollection came again
And whirl’d the thought across his brain,
That since he brought with anxious care
His choicest presents to the fair,
Four suns had risen and four had set,
But his gifts were not accepted yet!