“But as the fox beneath the nobler hound, So died their warriors by our battle-brand; And from the tree we, with her child, unbound A lonely mother of the Christian land:— Her lord—the captain of the British band— Amidst the slaughter of his soldiers lay. Scarce knew the widow our delivering hand; Upon her child she sobbed, and swooned away, Or shrieked unto the God to whom the Christians pray. XIX. “Our virgins fed her with their kindly bowls Of fever-balm and sweet sagamité:[37] But she was journeying to the land of souls, And lifted up her dying head to pray That we should bid an ancient friend convey Her orphan to his home of England’s shore;— And take, she said, this token far away, To one that will remember us of yore, When he beholds the ring that Waldegrave’s Julia wore. XX. “And I, the eagle of my tribe,[38] have rushed With this lorn dove.”—A sage’s self-command Had quelled the tears from Albert’s heart that gushed; But yet his cheek—his agitated hand— That showered upon the stranger of the land No common boon, in grief but ill beguiled A soul that was not wont to be unmanned; “And stay,” he cried, “dear pilgrim of the wild, Preserver of my old, my boon companion’s child!— XXI. “Child of a race whose name my bosom warms, On earth’s remotest bounds how welcome here? Whose mother oft, a child, has filled these arms, Young as thyself, and innocently dear, Whose grandsire was my early life’s compeer. Ah, happiest home of England’s happy clime! How beautiful e’en now thy scenes appear, As in the noon and sunshine of my prime! How gone like yesterday these thrice ten years of time! XXII. “And, Julia! when thou wert like Gertrude now, Can I forget thee, favourite child of yore? Or thought I, in thy father’s house, when thou Wert lightest hearted on his festive floor, And first of all at his hospitable door To meet and kiss me at my journey’s end? But where was I when Waldegrave was no more? And thou didst pale thy gentle head extend In woes, that e’en the tribe of deserts was thy friend?” XXIII. He said—and strained unto his heart the boy;— Far differently, the mute Oneyda took[39] His calumet of peace, and cup of joy;[40] As monumental bronze unchanged his look; A soul that pity touched, but never shook; Trained from his tree-rocked cradle[41] to his bier The fierce extremes of good and ill to brook Impassive[39]—fearing but the shame of fear— A stoic of the woods—a man without a tear. XXIV. Yet deem not goodness on the savage stock Of Outalissi’s heart disdained to grow; As lives the oak unwithered on the rock By storms above, and barrenness below; He scorned his own, who felt another’s woe: And ere the wolf-skin on his back he flung, Or laced his moccasins,[42] in act to go, A song of parting to the boy he sung, Who slept on Albert’s couch, nor heard his friendly tongue. XXV.