Yet could I seat me by this ivied stone
Til I had bodied forth the heated mind
Forms from the floating wreck which ruin leaves behind.
_Childe Harold's Pilgrimage_, _Canto_ iv. _Stanza_ civ.
Tawnor nehiegh Powhatan.
_Salvage dialect_, _apud Capt. Smith_.
I stand on hallowed ground--the sacred sod
Which once an ill-starred people bravely trod
In native freedom, ere the wanderer crost
The broad Atlantic waters and love lost
The fair reward of labor, ill repaid
By base desertion--country--friends betrayed--
Misery and exile from a native land,
Ending in death upon a foreign strand.
* * * * *
My spirit falls into a deeper mood
And thought goes darkly forth to gather food
For bitter contemplation;--for I trace
Some record of the spoilers of that race
Most gallant, wheresoe'er I turn mine eyes,--
While of the exiled--neath their native skies
Is scarce a token left--save what belongs
To a sad history of unnumbered wrongs.
Methinks the very sun's departing rays
With melancholy meaning seem to gaze
Upon the hostile monuments of yore,--
Yon ruined arch with ivy overgrown--
Those shattered tombs of moss-discolored stone--
That slowly moulder by the silent shore.
* * * * *
Might I the Genius of Old Time invoke,
This were the hour--the place--where many an oak
Tosses its arms and points to ancient graves
Beside the aisleless tower, which o'er the waves
Shall no more send its voice upon the air,
To call to matin or to vesper prayer.
Alone, it stands, like some grim sentinel
And in stern silence bids the world farewell!
* * * * *
Lift we the veil of vanished centuries--
Beneath the shade and shelter of these trees
The careless Indian smoked his calumet--
(The CHRISTIAN had not crost the ocean yet)--
Without a thought to mar his musing, save
To strand his light canoe beyond the wave
Or fasten it with sedgy rope secure,
Lest the next tide should steal it from the shore.
But lo! one evening as he lay beside
The margin where his native waters glide,
A sight of wonder on his vision broke;
And the deep voice of flame in thunder spoke
The doom of wo to him and all his race.
Yet fear, which might have blanched a paler face,
Quenched not the flashings of his dauntless eye,
Nor for an instant quelled that bearing high
Which best became the warrior of the wild--
The Hunter bold--the Forests' lordly child!
Ay! tho' the evil spirit of his sky,
For such well might his inexperienced eye
Have deemed it, lurked within the snow-white mist
That brooded o'er the silent river's breast,
And spoke in accents of the dark storm-cloud,
From out the folding of its gleaming shroud,
He stood prepared to meet the worst--like one
Who hath no fear of aught beneath the sun.
Methinks I see him watching by the shore,
With strained eye, intently gazing o'er
The river's course. Well may he clasp his brow
In doubt and wonder--is he dreaming now?--
The cloud seems gathering up its folds of snow,
And straight spars glitter in the sunset glow,
Far loftier than the loftiest pine that rears
Its stately crest above its tall compeers:
Beneath--a huge dark mass is seen to glide
With stealthy motion o'er the heaving tide,
Crowded with moving forms of human mould,
But of an aspect well might daunt the bold,
Gazing the first time on that pallid crew,
So foreign and so ghastly in their hue!
But hark!--the distant shout that wildly pours
Its thousand echoes on the strand, assures--
Swift to the Chiefs he speeds--the wise--the bold
In council meet--his tale is briefly told;
Then far and near they gathered in their might
And 'gainst the invader battled for their right,
As valiant men should for the altars reared
By their forefathers and the homes endeared
By thousand ties and recollections past
To which the heart clings warmly to the last.
But not to lengthen out a thrice told tale--
The Red Man never yielded to the Pale,
Though forced by foreign fire to wander far,
Homeless and houseless, neath the evening star.
Slowly and sad, the western hills they climb,
Yet find no rest beyond for wearied limb
And aching heart--no single spot of earth,
Of all the wide spread land that gave them birth,
Is theirs. They gaze upon the setting sun
And feel their course like his must soon be run--
They hear their requiem in the deepening roar
Of waves that dash upon the distant shore--
But they must wander on unceasingly
So long as space remains for footing free,
Til hemmed at last twixt ocean and the foe
They turn to bay _once more_ and perish so.
* * * * *
Oh! little dreamed the tender hearted maid,
By love and her own gentleness betrayed,
That death and desolation's fellest wrath
So surely followed--in the very path
Of good intent--to whelm her race with woes
She would have warded even from her foes.
Where yonder temporary structure frail[1]
Extends across the strait its slender rail,
The shallow waves at flood scarce overflow
The sandy bar the ebb reveals below--
'Twas there the royal daughter crost to save
The pilgrim strangers from an early grave.
Who that had seen her on that fatal night,
Swift gliding, like a startled water sprite,
To that lone Island-Fort where calmly slept
The dreaming foe, in fancied safety wrapt--
Who could have aimed at such a breast the shaft?
Tho' well apprised no other means were left
To baffle treason--not as such designed
In the simplicity of her guileless mind.
Had she been only destined to inherit
A portion of that fierce determined spirit
And deep prophetic hate--like vestal fire
Nursed in the bosom of her royal sire,
A nation's doom had not been rashly sealed
By mercy thus so erringly revealed--
But it is done--and lo! the love which hurled
An ancient race to ruin--GAINED A WORLD!!
[Footnote 1: Alluding to the new bridge erected by Collier Minge, Esq.
affording passage from the main land to the island, where a wharf has
been built for the accommodation of steamboat travellers.]
For the Southern Literary Messenger.