Classic Poem

“James, by the grace of God,”—so ran
The charter, signed and sealed,
Whereby the realms of Powhatàn,
Forest and flood and field,

Mountain and meadow, moor and mine,
Each river in its bed,
For England's crown, by right Divine,
Were seized and forfeited.

Now by what grace reigned Powhatàn
No charter had ordained,
Sufficient for his savage plan
The simple fact—he reigned.

He questioned not of right or wrong,
Nor further cared to seek
Than that safe rule which makes the strong
The sovereign of the weak.

'T was Nature taught this primal law,
Beasts, birds, and insects all,
Throughout his wide domain he saw
The great consume the small.

Pharaoh's lean kine devoured the fat;
But Powhatàn had seen,
As by his western Nile he sat,
The fat devour the lean.

Straightway his shrewd and savage tact,
Which served in reason's place,
Applied the universal fact
To his peculiar race.

Fish preys on fish, and beast on beast,
Each conquers where it can,
Like feeds on like, then last, not least,
Mankind should prey on man.

And thus, while Old World brains grew hot
With doubts of kingly thrall,
His sharper instinct cut the knot,
And gave the strongest all.

The strongest he, self-crowned, self-throned.
He spread his conquests far,
Though thirty tribes his sceptre owned,
His Empire still was War.

In tangled brakes, on mountain walls,
He bore the battle's brunt,
Who can withstand when Nature calls
Her heroes to the front?

And when she formed, 'midst forest blooms,
Her pre-historic man,
For all a savage hero's plumes,
She fashioned Powhatàn.

His lightning glance she gave to him,
His voice her thunder spoke,
From her, his iron strength of limb,
From her, his heart of oak.

She gave the deer's fleet foot beside,
The panther's stealthy wile,
The native eagle's soaring pride,
And all the serpent's guile.

He towered like some gigantic pine,
Which thrusts the trees aside,
And seems to shout, “The hills are mine,
And mine the woodlands wide!”

Foremost where glory could be won,
All dangers prompt to woo,
What more had Alexander done,
Or could Napoleon do?

And as his widening empire grew,
Still taught in Nature's school,
She gave the craft by which he knew
Those savage tribes to rule.

Firm as her laws, which never cease,
Fixed as her planets' course,
He organized his rude police,
And myriad schemes of force.

His only code his stout war-club,
Whereby all doubts he solved,
Round which, as round a central hub,
The wheel of state revolved.

To rule each tribe, beneath his eye,
A sovereign chief he placed,
Who with the title, proud and high,
Of Werowance was graced.

Each Werowance served Powhatàn,
The creature of his breath,
Yet each o'er his inferior clan
Had power of life and death.

No chance could mar, no change perplex,
The sway this plan describes,
His foot was on their several necks,
Theirs on each several tribe's.

And thus a denser glory wrapped
His shrouded, central throne,
A summit lofty and cloud-capped,
A height unscaled, unknown.

Far off the simple savage knelt,
And owned its distant sway;
Round the rude wigwam where he dwelt
Its awful shadow lay.

He breathed the monarch's fearful name,
And trembled and obeyed.
With wampum-shells and fruits and game
His punctual tribute paid.

Thus, while to older worlds unknown.
His praise no poet sang,
And through his native hills alone,
His victor war-whoop rang,

Around the throne of Powhatàn
More stable glories lay
Than those whose rainbow colors span
The rulers of to-day.

No wire-drawn laws with spiteful checks,
No Congress to upbraid,
No fickle ballot to perplex,
No sudden barricade.

No party, out of power, to curse;
In power, to foster feuds;
No prowling Sachems, sly to nurse
Their ring-streaked, spotted broods.

No press, with censures thunder-tipped,
Or sly sardonic laugh,
Or, worse than arrows venom-dipped.
Its poisoned paragraph.

No courts in which corruption paves
A path through crooked laws,
No platforms loud with brawling braves,
Or shrill with shrieking squaws.

Thus radiant with the morning hues
Of fair primeval states,
His subjects roamed, all free to choose
Their savage loves and hates.

Their savage loves and hates they chose,
The war-path and the chase,
Faithful to friends and fierce to foes,
A wild, revengeful race.

On mountains older than the Alps,
Through valleys, torrent torn,
They sought their trophies,—warrior scalps,
And plumes by chieftains worn.

Or in the tangled forest brake
The round-horned elk they fought.
Or snared the weasel and the snake,
For idol worship sought.

Or, safe from threatening winds and floods,
They drilled the garden row,
Taught by the forest's bursting buds
What time the seed to sow.

And over all ruled Powhatàn,
What realm more rich or fair,
Where nobler rivers seaward ran,
Through balmier, fresher air?

Near the broad river's gentle flood,
Where Richmond stands to-day,
In the deep shadow of the wood
The royal wigwams lay.

Here, with his braves, the monarch came
To rest from rougher toils,
Retouch his war-paint's faded flame,
And count his gathered spoils.

Then, for a season, fight and feud
Through all the tribes would cease,
And, calm as some sweet interlude,
All nature breathed of peace.

The curling smoke, the waving corn,
The wild-flowers' blossoming,
And, jewelled with the dews of morn,
The unfolding leaf of Spring.

Fresh as the Spring's unfolding leaf,
Pure as the morning dew,
Blithe daughter of the forest chief,
Here Pocahontas grew.

By great Kanawha's rocky edge
The scattered wild-flowers grow,
On Alleghany's frowning ledge
The fairest buds will blow.

Sometimes the floweret seems to be
The offspring of the rock,
A miracle this grace to see,
From such a savage stock;

Deep in the granite's riven breast
Some genial soil has lain,
Warmed by the sunshine's noontide rest,
Wet by the early rain;

Thither the tiny, floating germ
The breath of spring has blown,
It nestles in that grasp so firm,
And thus the flower has grown.

So, by the savage chief, had sprung
This forest floweret fair,
And to his ruder nature clung,
And gently blossomed there.

And yet a life he never knew
Seemed in her soul to dwell,
Around his path the shadows drew,
On hers the sunlight fell.

A hidden life by Nature wrought,
All joyous and intense,
Her quickening breath in every thought,
Her pulse in every sense.

An Indian girl, scarce twelve years old,
With skin of dusky shade,
Of whom but little can be told,—
A simple woodland maid.

Her childhood knew no opened book,
No wide, unfolded map,
No fragrant tree of knowledge shook
Its blossoms in her lap.

Within, the wigwam walls she saw,
Where pipes and arrows hung,
The painted chief, the wrinkled squaw,
With charms and feathers strung.

Without, her fearless footsteps pressed
The secret forest trail,
Through glades which hid the red-bird's nest,
Virginia's nightingale;

Or where, in laurelled thickets lost,
It swept the silent pool,
Whose waves the floating lilies tost,
In shadows deep and cool.

Hers the fresh morning's hillside breeze,
The sheltering pines at noon,
At eve the watch, through trembling trees,
Of stars or crescent moon.

And learning, with half-conscious choice,
Of flower and breeze and bird,
We may not know what better voice
Her musing spirit heard;

Swayed by that breath Divine, whose trace
No sign in nature shows,
A tender whisper, full of grace,
And where it lists it blows!