Page:Pocahontas and Other Poems (NY).pdf/249

And stranger-lips, unmoved and cold,
The legends of thy mansion told;
They lauded glittering brand and spear,
And costly gifts of prince and peer,
And broad claymore, with silver dight,
And hunting-horn of border knight—
    What were such gauds to me?
More dear had been one single word
From those whose veins thy blood had stirr'd
    To Scotia's accents free.

Yet one there was, in humble cell,
    A poor retainer, lone and old,
Who of thy youth remember'd well,
    And many a treasured story told;
And pride, upon her wrinkled face,
    Blent strangely with the trickling tear,
As Memory, from its choicest place,
Brought forth, in deep recorded trace,
    Thy boyhood's gambols dear,
Or pointed out, with wither'd hand,
Where erst thy garden-seat did stand,
When thou return'd from travel vain,
Wrapp'd in thy plaid, and pale with pain,
    Didst gaze with vacant eye,
For stern disease had drank the fount
    Of mental vision dry.

Ah! what avails, with giant power,
To wrest the trophies of an hour;
One moment write, with sparkling eye,
Our name on castled turrets high,