High would their pulses beat no more

When banner waved and blade was drawn ! All-all had died save leader gray,

A pinioned captive borne away,

Reserved for torture at the stake

By tribesmen, filled with rage and grief, That glad the wandering ghost would make Of Can ne-hoot, their fallen Chief.

XLI.

Galled by the sting of wounded pride—

By dark disaster mortified,

The baffled Marquis offered gold

For Iroquois scalps in vain ;

Cowed were his allies to behold,

Their couch the swamp's defiling mould,
Hacked forms of Frenchmen slain :—
Boughs bending o'er them, sad of hue,
As if old elms around that grew

Dropped down a melancholy pall,

And mourned, though mute, their timeless fall.

END OF CANTO SIXTH.

LYONNONDIO.

CANTO SEVENTH.

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THE REVELATION.

They bound him to the fatal stake, and high
Destruction's fagots round the warrior piled:
There was unwonted moisture in his eye,

For prayed he, in that moment, for his child;
A torch was thrown, by hand with blood defiled,
On the dark death-pyre:-whence, oh whence the

shriek

That, rising shrill above the tumult wild,

Tinged with a wanner shade the victim's cheek,

While parted his blanched lips in vain essay to speak!

I.

Retreating from the fatal spot

Where Valor died but yielded not,

Thickly the Senecas o'erspread,

With hiding brush and leaves, their dead :For sorrowing would warrior go, Dishonored by the knife of foe,

To lands the setting sun below.

When reached the river's willowed side
Pirogues they launched upon the tide,
And, landing on the western shore,
A moment looked the landscape o'er.
The matted forest-depths were mute;
Heard was no larum on the gale,
Announcing Frank in close pursuit,
Or hated Huron on the trail.
Checked by the Romans of the West,
Invader paused, with drooping crest,
To scoop for brethren where they fell
In earth a rude receptacle:
Knowing that scream of carrion-bird
Another day would there be heard,
While snarling monster of the wold
Snuffed tainted air, and pawed the mould.

II.

Thou phantom, Military Fame !
How long will Genius laud thy name,
And curtain features from the sight
More foul than those Khorassen's seer
Hid behind veil of silver bright,
Tempting his victim to draw near!

How long will thy misleading lamp,
Through regions wrapped in smoke and fire,
To slaughter's cavern, red and damp,
Guide beardless boy and gray-haired sire?
Up, fearless battlers for the right,
And flood old groaning earth with light!
Bid nations ponder well and pause
When blade corrupt ambition draws—
Oh! teach the world that conquest wears
A darker brand than felon bears;
Prolific fount, from earliest time,

Of murder, orphanage and crime !

III.

Obtained, at last, returning band
A view of fortress, rudely plann'd,
Fenced by huge palisadoes round,
And wanting bastion, trench and mound.
Its anxious inmates, wild of face,
Rushed in a body from the place,

While rose, from forest edge, a cry,
Now plaintive, low-now shrill and high-

Each repetition of the call

Announcing an invader's fall.

News thus, to children of the shade,

By marked, expressive sound conveyed,

Telling of victory achieved,

All, with a frantic joy, received;

Q2

And hurried on to meet, the while,
Plumed martial forms in Indian file,
Advancing :-slow and dignified

Their march across the clearing wide.

IV.

Red pole in front a savage bore,

On which hung scalps begrimmed with gore; Behind him came the captive knight, Wounded, and stripped of armor brightHis figure of heroic mould.

Fixing regard of young and old,

Who augured, from his dauntless air,
That torture he would bravely bear,

And, as beseemed a warrior, die
Giving no groan of agony.

Changed was wild ecstacy to grief,
When, looking vainly for their chief,
Ran glances of the troubled throng,
From man to man, the line along.
A melancholy wail and low
Told of a leader's overthrow;

To hollow dirge notes for the dead
The long procession timed its tread,
For lord had Can-ne-wa-gus lost,

And mourning tribe, from child to seer,