THE CHAIR OF THE INDIAN KING.
In the neighbourhood of Mohegan is a rude recess, environed by rocks, which still retains the name of "the chair of Uncas." When the fort of that King was besieged by the Narragansetts, and his people were perishing with famine, he took measures to inform the English of their danger, and was found seated in this rocky chair, anxiously watching the river on the night when those supplies arrived, which rescued his tribe from destruction. These were conveyed in a large canoe from Saybrook, under cover of darkness, by an enterprising man, of the name of Leffingwell, to whom Uncas, as a proof of his gratitude, gave a large tract of land, comprising nearly the whole town of Norwich.
The monarch sat on his rocky throne,
Before him the waters lay,—
His guards were the shapeless columns of stone,
Their lofty helmets with moss o'ergrown,
And their spears of the bracken gray.
His lamps were the fickle stars that beam'd
Through the veil of their midnight shroud,
And the redd'ning flashes that fitfully gleam'd
When the distant fires of the war-dance stream'd
Where his foes in frantic revel scream'd
'Neath their canopy of cloud.
Say! why was his glance so restless and keen
As it fell on the waveless tide?
And why, mid the gloom of that silent scene
Did the sigh heave his warlike bosom's screen
And bow that front of pride?
Behind him his leaguer'd forces lay
Withering in Famine's blight,
And he knew with the blush of the morning ray
That Philip would summon his fierce array,
On the core of the warrior's heart to prey,
And quench a nation's light.
It comes! It comes!—that misty speck
Which over the waters moves!
It boasts nor sail, nor mast, nor deck,
Yet dearer to him was that nameless wreck
Than the maid to him who loves.
It bears to the warrior's nerveless arm
The might of a victor's aim,
Its freight is a spell whose mystic charm
Shall protect the tottering sire from harm,
And the ire-doom'd babe, whose life-blood warm
Was to hiss in the wigwam's flame.
The eye of the king with that lightning blazed
Which the soul in its rapture sends;
His prayer to the Spirit of Good he raised
And the shades of his buried Fathers praised
As toward his fort he wends.
That king hath gone to his lowly grave!
He slumbers in dark decay;
And like the crest of the tossing wave,
Like the rush of the blast from the mountain cave,
Like the groan of the murder'd, with none to save,
His people have passed away.
The monarch hath gone, but his rocky throne
Still rests on its frowning base;
Its motionless guards rise in phalanx lone,
And nought save the winds through their helmets that moan,
And none but those bosoms and hearts of stone
Sigh o'er a fallen race.