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.
X.
But where’s the straggling colonist,
Who came not home last night?
His friends are out in search of him
By the earliest morning light.
At last away in a lonely spot,
His bleeding corpse is found;
His scalp is off, and his gory head
Lies weltering on the ground.
His wife in yonder graveyard sleeps:
She long before had died;
They feel it were a pious act
To place him by her side;
And slow they bear the corse along
Where the homeward pathway leads,
But a deadly arrow cleaves the air,
And another victim bleeds.
They see no foe, they hear no sound,
But they know that death is nigh;
They fly, and leave the death-stricken one
Alone with the dead to die.
XI.
Now deep the sorrow, pale the fear,
That fell on Jamestown’s sons;
New forts are built, their swords new sharp’d,
And loaded are their guns;
And all their homes are picketed,
And all their doors are barr’d,
And fifty men with loaded arms
By day and night keep guard.
And now they sadly wish Sir John
Were there again to throw
The terror of his valiant arm
Around their savage foe.
But where they could, and where they must,
They still their labor plied,
And in the field the farmer toil’d
With musket by his side.
Oh, these were sad and fearful days;
Death lurk’d in every sound;
And English blood was often spilt
Like water on the ground;
And eagerly revenge and fear
Watch’d every dark wood-side,
And the sound of many a musket shot
Told where an Indian died.
XII.
Where rests the monarch’s daughter now?
Can she such scenes abide?
She’s gone a far and weary way,
To bright Potomac’s side.
The coldness of her father’s eye
Has made her eye grow dim—
Sir John has gone beyond the sea,
And her heart is gone with him;
And the sound of war, and the sight of blood,
That stain’d her native wild,
Have thrown a gloom on the weary life
Of the fair and gentle child.
She could not rest in her father’s lodge,
Nor bide in her summer bower,
But wander’d alone about the woods,
And droop’d like a fading flower.
The monarch watch’d her changing hue
In sunshine and in shade,
And the father’s heart within him yearn’d
When he saw her beauty fade.
For fifteen years her joyous heart,
And smiling cheek and eye,
Had been the light of the old man’s life,
And he could not see her die.
XIII.
He call’d her to his side, and said,
With kind and gentle tone,
‘Why does my daughter weep all day,
‘And wander thus alone?
‘These days are evil days, my child,
‘But long they will not last;
‘I would thou hadst a safe retreat
‘Till the raging storm be past.
‘Potomac’s skies are bright and blue,
‘Potomac’s groves are green,
‘And brightly roll Potomac’s waves
‘Her lovely banks between;
‘And gladly would King Japazaws
‘All friendly rites extend
‘To the daughter of King Powhatan,
‘His sovereign and his friend.
‘Then go, my child, and rest awhile
‘On fair Potomac’s side;
‘There will thy days glide gently on,
‘As the peaceful waters glide;
‘And there young health will come again
‘And kiss thy fading cheek,
‘And in thy cheerful voice once more
‘Thy mother’s soul will speak.
‘No sound of war will there disturb
‘Thy silent rest at night,
‘Nor wilt thou wake to the sight of blood
‘When comes the morning light.
‘And when from our dark-shadow’d land
‘The clouds shall all pass o’er,
‘And all these strange and dreadful foes
‘Are driven from our shore,
‘Thou’lt come again, all life and love,
‘In thy father’s lodge to rest,
‘And the closing days of Powhatan
‘Will yet be bright and blest.’
Thus spoke the monarch, and away
His gentle child has gone,
A weary way through pathless woods,
Like a lost and lonely fawn;
And now, a sweet transplanted flower,
She breathes the balmy air
On fair Potomac’s sunny banks,
And sheds her fragrance there.