Page:Poems Davidson.djvu/67

The prophet Montonoc is doomed to die!
His haughty spirit now must be brought low;
Long had he been the chieftain's direst foe:
The Indian's face was wrapped in mystic gloom,
As on they led him to his horrid doom.
A hectic flush upon his dark cheek burned,
His eye nor to the right nor left hand turned:
His lip nor quivered, nor turned pale with fear,
Though the death-note already met his ear.
Tall and majestic was his noble mien,
 Erect, he seemed to brave the foeman's ire,
His step was bold, his features all serene,
 As he approached the steep funereal pyre!

Close at his side, a figure glided slow,
Clad in the dark habiliments of woe,
Whose form was shrouded in a mantle's fold,
All, save one treacherous ringlet,—bright as gold.

The death-song's louder note shrill peals on high,
A signal that the victim soon must die!
While yell and war-note join the chorus still,
Till the wild dirge rebounds from hill to hill!
Rathmond now turned to snatch a last sad gaze,
Ere closed life's curtain o'er his youthful days;
When he beheld the dark, the piercing eye
Of Montonoc, the prophet doomed to die,
Bent upon him with such a steady gaze,
That not more fixed was death's own horrid glaze!
Then lifting his long swarthy finger high,
To where the sun's bright beams just tinged the sky