POCAHONTAS.


Where yonder moss-grown ruin[A] lonely stands,
Which from the James, the Pilgrim may survey,
Stretch alway forth its old, forsaken hands
As if to beg some friend its fall to stay,
And now the wild vine flaunts in greenness gay;
Erst rose a Castle, known to deathless fame,
Though now the mournful rampart falls away,
Hither Virginia's hero-father came,
To found a glorious state, and give these regions name.

For, then, both far and near the forest wide,
Stretched from the main unto the setting sun,
And Bears and Panthers walked in fiercest pride,
And slept at ease when their red feast was done,
But here of white men there had ne'er walked one,
But a fierce race of wild and savage hue,
Their simple life from chase and angling won,
And oft, when wrath arose, each other slew,
In bloody wars which dyed their soil with crimson dew.

I ween it was a novel sight to see
The white man landing in the vasty wild,
Which each familiar creature seemed to flee,
Where not a christian dwelling ever smiled,
Nor e'er a well-known sound the ear beguiled,