Lays of Ancient Virginia | Page 2

straying oft, among the leafy bowers,?Whilst Luna's silvery smiles upon them rest,?And Earth sleeps deeply, in that beauty drest,?The lonely Muckawiss[B], with doleful strain,?Pities her fate--alas, she is not blest,?But hopes and doubts, and dares to hope again,?That Smith may love, and ne'er is free from love's soft pain.
And fair was she, the dim wood's lustrous child,?Though born amid a race of uncouth men,?And gentle as the fawn, which, through the wild,?Trembled with timorous haste, and fled, and when?She stood within the rude and silent glen,?Of deepest forests, she appear'd more bright,?Than other nymphs who roamed these regions then,?And now--for o'er her form and sylph-like waist,?A native modesty entranced the most fastidious taste.
He whom she loved to all these charms was cold,?Though well he saw her bosom's gentle fire,?Stern is the soul that worships fame or gold,?To all that softer ecstacies inspire.?A stony heart these tyrants e'er require,?Brave Smith ne'er thought of Pocahontas' love,?But only that his name would glitter higher?In coming centuries, others' names above,?Whose soon contented souls an humbler distance rove.
To cheat her pining soul of this dear dream,?They told a dreary tale that he had died,?While to her father's hut, like some fair gleam?Of sunlight, with some heavenly thought, she hied,?And now both day and night, how sorely sighed,?And inly groaned the poor bereaved maid,?Nor could restrain strong nature's gushing tide,?That in the dark, cold grave, her love was laid;--?Disconsolate, she moved along the leafy glade.
Pausing beside her Smith's imagined tomb,?Weeping, by moonlight pale, she strewed fair flowers,?To wither o'er him, emblems of his bloom?So soon departed from these lovely bowers.?Once plucked, these buds will never bless the showers,?Sweet charities, by wearing wonted charms,?But lose for aye their balm for summer hours;?So all her showery grief him no more charms,?To spring and rest a joy in her exulting arms.
She deems he sleeps within the envious ground,?Which stole him early from her young, warm breast,?No more her brow with wild flower wreaths is bound,?And all her ornaments, neglected, rest;?Since fled is now the dreamy hope which blest?Her artless soul, she loathes her glance to fling?On corals, braids, and flowers, and royal vest,?And slowly wanders like some moon-struck thing,?Through gloomy cypress groves, and by yon haunted spring.
But time must soothe the most exquisite smart?Of love, when wounded by the dart of death;?For life would flee, should not such woe depart,?Too deeply weighing on the heart beneath.?Fair Pocahontas breathes the wonted breath?Of tranquil life, a creature darkly bright,?Decking her hair again with many a wreath,?Walking amid the high wood's gentle night,?Charming her wild, old Father's heart with strange delight.
Yet nought could make her cease to view with love,?The tender memory of the mournful past;?And once when warring clouds grew black above,?The shrieking Earth with awful night o'ercast,?And long foiled Hatred hoped to glut his fast?With English gore, with irksome steps she stole,?O'er deep morass, through tangled brake, and cast?The boon of life to each devoted soul,?Who slept within that Castle's frail and weak control.
Oh! we might marvel that her savage heart,?Would show such love to her loved father's foes;?But love like this, will act no selfish part;?Over drear earth, diffusing joy, it goes,?Its breath the fragrance of the earliest rose,?Its voice the sound of an unearthly thing,?Its form an Angel's, and as pure as those,?Who come to gladdened man on shining wing,?Which scatters round the sweets of an immortal spring.
Now when the dogwood gemmed with blossoms white,?The gorgeous grove where oak and stately pine,?Upthrew their gnarled arms of massy might,?And thus a leafy canopy did twine,?This dusky Dryad would with grace recline,?Along the mossy bank of crystal stream,?In whose smooth glass her angel beauties shine,?Beside brave Rolfe, a man of pallid gleam,?Who sighed his soul to her, and taught her love's true dream.
Beneath the silver moon, resplendent queen,?With simple rites, these mingling souls were wed;?The happy stars looked down, with brighter sheen,?To view love's wretched fears for ever fled;?The wild flowers trembled in their dewy bed,?And up a most enchanting fragrance sent;?The blissful Hours, unnoticed, onward sped;?And, with their gentle music sweetly blent,?The breathing winds and waters murmured their content.
Ah me! what deep, celestial transports thrill'd?These beating bosoms, in so sweet a scene:?What tears of tender joy their visions filled,?Scanning each other's soul-absorbing mien?And, in that bower of paradisal green,?Happy, they sighed, in accents fond and warm,?That thus enclosed Earth's primal pair had been,?Where oft they spied bright Seraph's glorious form,?And rose on high afar the grove's eternal charm.
There oft the mocking bird, a songster gay,?Would soothe their souls, with multifarious song,?Singing his farewell-hymns to dying Day,?As fade his smiles the darkening glades along;?And when the frowns of night more thickly throng,?The amorous firefly led them at that hour,?O'er wooded hills, and marshes deep and long,?To their sweet rest, which sank, with grateful power,?Along their wearied nerves, in their wild,