Page:Scenes in my Native Land.pdf/215

Until the savage footstep, and the flash
Of tomahawks, appalled them.
                                                Swift as thought
They fled, thro' briars and brambles fiercely tracked
By grim pursuers. The mother taxed
With the loved burden of her youngest-born,
Moved slowest, and they cleft her fiercely down:
Yet with that impulse, which doth sometimes move
The sternest purpose of the red man's breast,
To a capricious mercy, spared the child.
Her little, struggling limbs, her pallid face
Averted from the captors, her shrill cry,
Coming in fitful echoes from afar,
Deepened the mother's death pang.
                                                     Eve drew on,
And from his toil the husband, and the sire,
Turned wearied home. With wondering thought he marked
No little feet come forth to welcome him;
And through the silence, listened for her voice,
His Lily of the Vale, who first of all
Was wont to espy him.
                                Through the house he rushed,
Empty and desolate, and down the wild.
There lay his dearest, weltering in her blood
Upon the trampled grass. In vain he bore
The form of marble to its couch, and strove
Once more to vivify that spark of life
Which ruthless rage had quenched.
                                                    On that dread hour