And features yet that spoke a soul more fair.
Mute, gazing, agonizing as he knelt,
Of them that stood encircling his despair,
He heard some friendly words; but knew not what they
XXXIII.
For now, to mourn their judge and child, arrives
A faithful band. With solemn rites between,
'Twas sung, how they were lovely in their lives,
And in their deaths had not divided been.
Touched by the music, and the melting scene,
Was scarce one tearless eye amidst the crowd:
Stern warriors, resting on their swords, were seen
To veil their eyes, as passed each much-loved shroud
While woman's softer soul in wo dissolved aloud.
XXXIV.
Then mournfully the parting bugle bid
Its farewell o'er the grave of worth and truth;
Prone to the dust, afflicted Waldegrave hid
His face on earth; him watched in gloomy ruth,
His woodland guide: but words had none to soothe
The grief that knew not consolation's name :
Casting his Indian mantle o'er the youth,
He watched beneath its folds, each burst that came
Convulsive, ague-like, across his shuddering frame!
XXXV.
"And I could weep ;" th' Oneida chief
His descant wildly thus begun;
"But that I may not stain with grief
The death-song of my father's son !
Or bow this head in wo;
For by my wrongs, and by my wrath!
To-morrow, Areouski's breath,
(That fires yon heaven with storms of death,) Shall light us to the foe:
And we shall share, my Christian boy!
The foeman's blood, the avenger's joy!
But thee, my flower whose breath was given By milder genii o'er the deep,
The spirits of the white man's heaven
Forbid not thee to weep:
Nor will the Christian host,
Nor will thy father's spirit grieve
To see thee, on the battle's eve,
Lamenting take a mournful leave
Of her who loved thee most:
She was the rainbow to thy sigk.
Thy sun-thy heaven-of lost deligat.
To-morrow let us do or die!
But when the bolt of death is hurled,
Ah! whither then with thee to fly,
Shall Outalissi roam the world?
Seek we thy once-loved home?
The hand is gone that cropt its flowers : .
Unheard their clock repeats its hours!
Cold is the hearth within their bow'rs!
And should we thither roam,
Its echoes, and its empty tread,
Would sound like voices from the dead!
"Or shall we cross yon mountains blue, Whose streams my kindred nation quaffed; And by my side, in battle true,
A thousand warriors drew the shaft?
Ah! there in desolation cold,
The desert serpent dwells alone,
Where grass o'ergrows each mould'ring bone
And stones themselves to ruin grown,
Like me, are death-like old.
Then seek we not their camp-for there-
The silence dwells of my despair!
"But hark, the trump!—to morrow thou
In glory's fires shalt dry thy tears:
Even from the land of shadows now
My father's awful ghost appears,
Amidst the clouds that round us roll;
He bids my soul for battle thirst-
He bids me dry the last-the first-
The only tears that ever burst
From Outalissi's soul;
Because I may not stain with grief
The death song of an Indian chief,"
THE FLOWER OF LOVE LIES BLEEDING
OH once the harp of Innisfail*
Was strung full high to notes of gladness;
But yet it often told a tale
Of more prevailing sadness.
Sad was the note, and wild its fall,
As winds that moan at night forlorn
Along the isles of Fion-Gael,
When for O'Connor's child to mourn,
The harper told, how lone, how far
From any mansion's twinkling star,
From any path of social men,
Or voice, but from the fox's den,
The Lady in the desert dwelt,
And yet no wrongs, no fear she felt :
Say, why should dwell in place so wild
The lovely pale O'Connor's child?
Sweet lady! she no more inspires
Green Erin's heart with beauty's pow'r,
As in the palace of her sires
She bloomed a peerless flow'r.
Gone from her hand and bosom, gone,
The regal broche, the jewelled ring,
The ancient name of Ireland.
That o'er her dazzling whiteness shone
Like dews on lilies of the spring.
Yet why, though fallen her brother's kerne,*
Beneath De Bourgo's battle stern,
While yet in Leinster unexplored,
Her friends survive the English sword;
Why lingers she from Erin's host,
So far on Galway's shipwrecked coast;
Why wanders she a huntress wild-
The lovely pale O'Connor's child?
And fixed on empty space, why burn
Her eyes with momentary wildness;
And wherefore do they then return
To more than woman's mildness?
Dishevelled are her raven locks,
On Connocht Moran's name she calls;
And oft amidst the lonely rocks
She sings sweet madrigals.
Placed in the foxglove and the moss,
Behold a parted warrior's cross!
That is the spot where, evermore,
The lady, at her shieling† door,
Enjoys that in communion sweet,
The living and the dead can meet:
For lo! to lovelorn fantasy,
The hero of her heart is nigh.
Bright as the bow that spans the storm,
In Erin's yellow vesture clad,
A son of light-a lovely form,
He comes and makes her glad:
*Kerne, the ancient Irish foot soldiery.
† Rude hut, or cabin.
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