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!
XVII.
’Twas now the early twilight hour,
That kindly comes with soothing power
To calm the day’s tumultuous strife,
And smooth the stormy waves of life.
Nemattanow, with thoughtful eye
Fix’d on the changeful evening sky,
Lean’d him against an aged tree,
Whose top for many a century
Had bathed in the earliest beams of day
And felt the sun’s last setting ray.
Out on a gentle hill-side stood
This aged monarch of the wood,
Whence Powhatan’s gray lodge was seen,
His fields, and groves, and valleys green;
And the younger trees on the sloping brow
Around this old trunk seem’d to bow,
As if it had a right to be
The ruler of their destiny.
The monarch loved this relic old
Of other days; perhaps the hold
It had upon his heart arose
From the charm similitude bestows,
For the scenes of life around it thrown
Seem’d but the shadowing of his own.
XVIII.
Now walking his accustom’d round
At closing of the day,
Old Powhatan the hill-side clomb,
And look’d toward Paspahey,
Where the English band had marr’d his groves
And made his forest bow,
And bitter was the curse he breathed,
And dark his frowning brow.
And here beside his old loved tree
Reclined Nemattanow,
Whose sadden’d eye and heaving breast
Betray’d his secret wo.
‘Let not the warrior’s eye grow sad,’
The monarch gravely said,
‘Because his gifts are not approved
‘By a young light-hearted maid.
‘It is not meet that Powhatan
‘Should bid his daughter love
‘The warrior, or receive his gifts,
‘Unless her heart approve.
‘But let the warrior bring to me
‘The scalp of brave Sir John,
‘And Metoka shall be his bride,
‘And he the monarch’s son.’
XIX.
New fire lit up the glowing eyes
Of sad Nemattanow;
He smote his war-club on the ground,
And firmly grasp’d his bow;
And tomahawk and scalping-knife
He buckled to his side,
Gave one fierce look toward Paspahey,
And down the valley hied.
END OF CANTO THIRD.