So the sad rite was clos'd.-The sculptor gave As warriors are for fight, but calmly laid In slumber on his shield.-Then all was done, All still, around the dead.-His name was heard Perchance when wine cups flow'd, and hearts were stirr'd By some old song, or tale of battle won, Told round the hearth: but in his father's breast Forgotten? not of all!-the sunny smile Glancing in play o'er that proud lip erewhile, And the dark locks whose breezy waving threw For years, those gorgeous coronals renew'd, And brightly clasping marble spear and helm, With a strange smile, a glow of summer's realm. One spring-morn rose, And found, within that tomb's proud shadow laid— Oh! not as 'midst the vineyards, to repose From the fierce noon-a dark hair'd peasant Who could reveal her story?-That still face maid: Had once been fair, for on the clear arch'd brow, And the curv'd lip, there linger'd yet such grace As sculpture gives its dreams; and long and low The deep black lashes, o'er the half-shut eyeFor death was on its lids-fell mournfully. But the cold cheek was sunk, the raven hair Dimm'd, the slight form all wasted, as by care. Whence came that early blight?-Her kindred's place, Was not amidst the high De Couci race; Yet there her shrine had been !-She grasp'd a wreath The tomb's last garland!-This was love in death! INDIAN WOMAN'S DEATH-SONG. An Indian woman, driven to despair by her husband's desertion of her for another wife, entered a canoe with her children, and rowed it down the Mississippi towards a cataract. Her voice was heard from the shore singing a mournful deathsong, until overpowered by the sound of the waters in which she perished. The tale is related in Long's Expedition to the Source of St Peter's River. |