here
His battle-hymn once filled the air--
Where blazed the lurid council fire,
The village church erects its spire;
And where the mystic war-dance rang,
With its confused, discordant clang,
While stern, fierce lips, with many a cry
For blood and vengeance, filled the sky,
Mild Mercy, gentle as the dove,
Proclaims her rule of peace and love.
And of his true and faithful clan,
Of child and matron, maid and man,
Of all he loved, survives but one--
His earliest, and his only son!
That son's sole heritage his fame,
His strength, his likeness, and his name.

III.

And thus from varying year to year,
The youthful chief has lingered here;
Chief!--why is he so nobly named?
How many warriors at his call,
By Arcouski's breath inflamed,
Would with him fight, and for him fall?
Of all his father's warrior throng,
Remains not one whose lip could now
Rehearse with him the battle song,
Whose hand could bend the hostile bow.
And yet, no weak, complaining word,
From his stern lip is ever heard;
And his bright eye, so black and clear,
Is never moistened by a tear;
Of quiet mien, and mournful mood,
He lives, a stoic of the wood;
Gliding about from place to place,
With noiseless step, and steady pace,
Haunting each fountain, glen, and grot,
Like the lone Genius of the spot.

IV.

And this was he who, standing there,
Seemed as an image of Despair,
Which agony's convulsive strife,
Had quickened into breathing life.
The writhing lip, the brow all wet
With Pain's cold, clammy, deathlike sweat;
The hand, that with unconscious clasp,
Strained his keen dagger in its grasp;
The eye, that lightened with the blaze
Of frenzied Passion's maniac gaze;
The nervous, shuddering thrill, which came
At intervals along his frame;
The tremulously heaving breast,--
These signs the inward storm confessed:
Yet, through those signs of wo, there broke
Flashes of fearless thought, which spoke
A soul within, whose haughty will
Would wrestle with immortal ill,
And only quit the strife, when fate
Its being should annihilate.
Silent he stood, until the breeze
Bore from his lips some words like these.

V.

"The words I speak are no compl