Page:Pocahontas and Other Poems (NY).pdf/229

Till humbled at his Saviour's feet
    In penitence he lay,
And felt his pagan passions fleet
    On prayer's soft breath away.

Stern sickness rack'd his aged frame,
    Unwonted torpor stole,
And death all unresisted came
    To claim the ransom'd soul,
Which, spreading wide a wondering wing,
    With song of triumph past
From vengeful winter's sharpest sting,
    High o'er the shrieking blast.

Red torches pierced the midnight gloom
    As with the dead they hied,
And burst Beata's stony tomb
    To lay him by her side;
The lip so oft her sire that blest,
    No filial welcome gave,
As brow to brow, and breast to breast,
    They fill'd that frost-bound grave.

Strange music mid the funeral rite!
    Sad dirges, soft and slow!
Whence cometh, in this realm of night,
    Such melody of wo?
A chapel-bell! Who bids it speak
    In this forsaken bourne?
And thus, with Sabbath sweetness, break
    The trance of those who mourn?