Now in the monarch’s quiet lodge Sleep comes its balm to bring, And o’er the young and innocent Spreads out its angel wing, And fans the trembling tear away From the closed lids at rest, And steeps in soft forgetfulness The day-dreams of the breast. XVI. Where rests Nemattanow the while? Is sleep to him as kind? And has it calm’d the passion-flame, That preys upon his mind? On his deer-skin soft, full six miles off, He has pillow’d his restless brain, And has turn’d himself from side to side, And tried to sleep in vain; For over his deep and burning thoughts His will has no control; He only thinks of Metoka, Whose beauty has fired his soul. Hour after hour he watch’d the moon Steal over his cabin floor, And the more he look’d upon its light, He thought of her the more; And if his fancy stray’d abroad In the chase o’er plain and hill, Or wander’d by the moon-lit stream, Her image met him still. He rose and left his sleepless couch, And into the woods has gone; He crosses meadow, grove, and glen, And still he wanders on; And when on Metoka’s abode First glanced the morning beam, Nemattanow was in the bower Beside the fountain stream. And round that bower and through the grove He linger’d all day long, To catch a glimpse of Metoka, Or listen to her song; And when her form glanced on his sight, Or her voice through the air rung clear, It sent a sun-light to his heart, And a joy upon his ear. But oh, how soon that sun-light fled, How quick that thrill of joy was dead, When recollection came again And whirl’d the thought across his brain, That since he brought with anxious care His choicest presents to the fair, Four suns had risen and four had set, But his gifts were not accepted yet! XVII. ’Twas now the early twilight hour, That kindly comes with soothing power To calm the day’s tumultuous strife, And smooth the stormy waves of life. Nemattanow, with thoughtful eye Fix’d on the changeful evening sky, Lean’d him against an aged tree, Whose top for many a century Had bathed in the earliest beams of day And felt the sun’s last setting ray. Out on a gentle hill-side stood This aged monarch of the wood, Whence Powhatan’s gray lodge was seen, His fields, and groves, and valleys green; And the younger trees on the sloping brow Around this old trunk seem’d to bow, As if it had a right to be The ruler of their destiny. The monarch loved this relic old Of other days; perhaps the hold It had upon his heart arose From the charm similitude bestows, For the scenes of life around it thrown Seem’d but the shadowing of his own. XVIII.