Wearied arm and broken sword Wage in vain the desperate fight: Round him press a countless horde, He is but a single knight. Hark! a cry of triumph shrill Through the wilderness resounds, As, with twenty bleeding wounds, Sinks the warrior, fighting still.
Now they heap the fatal pyre, And the torch of death they light: Ah! 'tis hard to die of fire! Who will shield the captive knight? Round the stake with fiendish cry Wheel and dance the savage crowd, Cold the victim's mien, and proud. And his breast is bared to die.
Who will shield the fearless heart? Who avert the murderous blade? From the throng, with sudden start, See there springs an Indian maid. Quick she stands before the knight, "Loose the chain, unbind the ring, I am daughter of the king, And I claim the Indian right!"
Dauntlessly aside she flings Lifted axe and thirsty knife; Fondly to his heart she clings, And her bosom guards his life! In the woods of Powhattan, Still 'tis told by Indian fires, How a daughter of their sires Saved the captive Englishman.
Returning from the cruel fight How pale and faint appears my knight! He sees me anxious at his side; "Why seek, my love, your wounds to hide? Or deem your English girl afraid To emulate the Indian maid?"
Be mine my husband's grief to cheer In peril to be ever near; Whate'er of ill or woe betide, To bear it clinging at his side; The poisoned stroke of fate to ward, His bosom with my own to guard: Ah! could it spare a pang to his, It could not know a purer bliss! 'Twould gladden as it felt the smart, And thank the hand that flung the dart!
Winter and summer, night and morn, I languish at this table dark; My office window has a corn- er looks into St. James's Park. I hear the foot-guards' bugle-horn, Their tramp upon parade I mark; I am a gentleman forlorn, I am a Foreign-Office Clerk.
My toils, my pleasures, every one, I find are stale, and dull, and slow; And yesterday, when work was done, I felt myself so sad and low, I could have seized a sentry's gun My wearied brains out out to blow. What is it makes my blood to run? What makes my heart to beat and glow?
My notes of hand are burnt, perhaps? Some one has paid my tailor's bill? No: every morn the tailor raps; My I O U's are extant still. I still am prey of debt and dun; My elder brother's stout and well. What is it makes my blood to run? What makes my heart to glow and swell?