Page:Pocahontas, and Other Poems.djvu/104

 

They spake, and the war-dance wheel'd its round,
Or the wretch to the torturing stake was bound;
They lifted their hand, and the eagle fell
From his sunward flight, or his cloud-wrapt cell;
They frown'd, and the tempest of battle arose,
And streams were stain'd with the blood of foes.

Be silent, O Grave! o'er thy hoarded trust,
And smother the voice of the royal dust;
The ancient pomp of their council-fires,
Their simple trust in our pilgrim sires,
The wiles that blasted their withering race,
Hide, hide them deep in thy darkest place.

Till the rending caverns shall yield their dead,
Till the skies as a burning scroll are red,
Till the wondering slave from his chain shall spring,
And to falling mountains the tyrant cling,
Bid all their woes with their relics rest,
And bury their wrongs in thy secret breast.

But, when aroused at the trump of doom,
Ye shall start, bold kings, from your lowly tomb,
When some bright-wing'd seraph of mercy shall bend
Your stranger-eye on the Sinner's Friend,
Kneel, kneel at his His throne whose blood was spilt,
And plead for your pale-brow'd brother's guilt.