when that gallant soldier returned to England, Rolfe constructed for himself a log-house in the woods, and, when not upon duty at the fort, was to be found there solitary and sad. Though the breast of Rolfe possessed not the ambition of Smith, it was infinitely more accessible to the softer emotions. He beheld with interest the tender sentiments which Pocahontas cherished for Captain Smith, and participating in her sorrow, his own heart became infected with a violent passion. He delighted in the secrecy of his solitude, where he could indulge undisturbed the emotions that Pocahontas had excited; he wandered dejected by moon-light along the banks of the river; and he who once was remarked for dressing himself with studied elegance, now walked about with his stockings ungartered. Ominia vincit amor; et nos cedamus amori. VIRG. Love, through the world, maintains resistless sway, The mind of Rolfe warmed with the ideal caresses of Pocahontas, produced often in his walks a poem to his Indian beauty. Of these effusions I have three in my possession; they rise, I think, above mediocrity; and as every thing that relates to the lover of Pocahontas will excite curiosity, I shall not withhold them from the public. They mark very strongly the climax of his passion. TO POCAHONTAS. WHY, sweet Nymph, that heart-fetch'd sigh, Which thy heaving bosom rends? Whence that pensive, down-cast eye, Whose magic glance soft transport sends ! Sure thy roving thoughts recal, A faithless Lover to thy mind; Whose heart thy charms did once enthrall, Ah! disclaim his fickle love, Take some more deserving swain ; The second poem in my little collection bears a striking similitude to a Latin Quatrain of Buchanan, whose poems were extant in the reign of James I. But whether the resemblance be studied or casual, there is no external evidence to decide. TO POCAHONTAS. HE who thy lovely face beholds, * Rolfe might have had recourse to the original Greek, In playful dalliance, from those lips, In the preceding little poem there will be found some lines unskilfully wrought; yet, so much more can we feel than imagine, and so much will truth predominate over fiction, that it will be, perhaps, recurred to without satiety, when the bundles of epic rhymes which now usurp the shelves of the bookseller, shall be transferred to their lawful claimants, the pastry-cook, and trunk-maker. The third and last poem of Mr. Rolfe, was produced on the banks of the river Powhatan. In this his epigram and spriteliness have left him. He appears to be deeply wounded; not, indeed, by the arrow of an Indian, but the bow of a child. He seems to have received a deathwound; the very pin of his heart is cleft with the but-shaft of Cupid. SONNET TO POCAHONTAS. WHERE from the shore, I oft have view'd the sail, Mount on the flood, and darken in the gale, Now wan with care, beneath the oak reclin'd, Thy form, O! Pocahontas, fills my mind. Here from my comrades, where the moon's soft beam, 286 Here the sad muse, in sympathy of woe, Here where the mocking-bird, the woods among, It was during one of these nights, when Mr. Rolfe was sitting woe-begone under an oak, sigh ́ing and groaning, and coupling love with dove, that a foot wandering among the trees disturbed his profound thoughts. It was too light to belong to a man, and his prophetic soul told him it was the step of Pocahontas. He stole to the spot. It was SHE.! It was Pocahontas strewing flowers over the imaginary grave of Captain Smith. Overcome with terror and surprize, to be thus discovered by a stranger, the powers of life were suspended, and she sunk into the arms of Rolfe. For what rapturous moments is a lover often indebted to accident! The impassioned youth clasped the Indian Maid to his beating heart, and drank from her lips the poison of delight. The breast of a woman is, perhaps, never more susceptible of a new passion than when it is agitated by the remains of a former one. When Pocahontas recovered from her confusion, a blush burnt on her cheek to find herself in the arms of a man; but when Rolfe threw himself before her on his knees, and clasping his hands to the moon, discovered the emotions that had so long filled his breast, the afflicted girl suffered him to wipe the tear from her eye that overflowed with sorrow, and no longer repulsed the ardour of his caresses. The day was now breaking on the summits of the mountains in the East; the song of the mocking-bird* was become faint, and the cry of the Muckawiss was heard only at long intervals. Pocahontas urged to go; but Rolfe still breathed in her ear the music of his vows, as he held her in his arms, or still rioted in the draught of * Of the feathered choir on the Western Continent, none is to be compared to the mocking-bird. When weary of mocking other birds, it luxuriates in an original strain; a strain characterised sometimes by merriment, and sometimes by tenderness. It delights, however, in cheerful tunes; and such is the sprightliness of the mocking-bird, that it will jump and dance to its own cadence. No writer before me has ever introduced this songster warbling either by night or by day. Brown in his thousand and one novels, lays all his scenes in his native country, and yet, never once makes mention of this bird! Oh! what a sullen ness against nature ! And the Travellers from England seem more delighted with the bellowing of the bull-frog, on whose intonations they lavish all their eloquence. In Prince William County, Virginia, I lucubrated late; and whenever the moon was visible, my feelings were always raised by the song of the mocking-bird. It generally perched within a hundred yards of my log-hut. Old Aunt Patty, the negro cook, was sitting on the threshold of the next door, smoking the stump of an old pipe. "Please God Almighty," exclaimed the old woman, "how sweet that mocking-bird sing! He never tire !" |