That instant, bounding from the wood,
A furious warrior came;
His weapon was a huge war-club,
His eye a living flame—
And as he rush’d to the battle-field
He shouted with his might—
The old woods leapt at the well-known sound,
As if they felt delight.
He paused a moment to survey
The dying and the dead:
His fallen warriors strew’d the ground;
The living few had fled;
And now before the conquering foe
There stood but a single man—
But fierce the conflict yet must rage,
For he was Powhatan.
The monarch’s back to mortal foe
Had never yet been given,
And, come what will, he meets it now
In the face of earth and heaven.
Swinging his knotted war-club high,
To the thickest ranks he press’d,
Where fifty swords and bayonets
Were pointed to his breast,
And up and down, this way and that,
His ponderous weapon threw,
And broken muskets strew’d the ground,
And swords like feathers flew.
In vain the rallying forces came
To aid the falling band;
Numbers, nor arms, nor courage could
The monarch’s rage withstand.
At last, pale-faces in their turn
To the sheltering forest fly,
Nor longer hold the king at bay,
For, they that linger, die.
XV.
The aged monarch stood alone,
By his council-hall again;
The unbending monarch, unsubdued,
King of his bloody plain.
But what was that red plain to him?
His groves? his country? all?
In his lodge there were no loved ones now,
No voice in his council-hall.
The old man’s heart was desolate—
His warriors all were dead;
He knew the pale-face tree had root,
And far and wide would spread.
And sadly toward the western sky
He turn’d his weary eyes,
Where mountains blue are dimly seen,
And the land of spirits lies;
And he thought, could he lay his aged bones
In that peaceful land to rest,
Where the pale-face foe could never come,
The red man to molest;
Where his gather’d tribes might hunt the deer
Through the forest wilds again,
And plant their corn in peace once more
Upon the sunny plain;
And where by the shadowy mountain’s brow;
He in his quiet cot
His wife and children might behold,
’Twould be a blessed lot;
And casting one long, painful look
On his lost land and home,
Ere through the western wilds afar
A pilgrim he should roam,
He took his war-club for a staff,
And his footsteps westward turn’d,
And sought for rest in the far-off land,
Where the ruddy sunset burn’d.
NOTES.
[[NOTE 1—CANTO FIRST, SECT. I.]
Far in their mountain lurking-place
The Manakins had heard his fame,
And Manahocks dared not come down
His valleys to pursue their game.
The Manakins and Manahocs, or Manahoacs, dwelt in the hilly country above the falls of the great rivers which empty into Chesapeake Bay; while the dominion of Powhatan extended over the whole of the flat country below the falls. The Manakins dwelt on the head waters of the James River, and the Manahocs on the head waters of the Potomac and Rappahannock. They were subdivided into several nations or tribes, and formed a sort of league or confederacy of the upland and mountain Indians against the power and tyranny of Powhatan. The Manakins consisted of four or five tribes, and the Manahocs of eight, and the whole, being combined in firm league against the empire of Powhatan, must have constituted rather a formidable foe.]