Thus spoke Pamunky’s wily king

Thus spoke Pamunky’s wily king; The torch-light high was flickering; On Powhatan’s stern face it gleams, But from his eye shot fiercer beams, That told the fire, which vigor lit In his day of strength, was burning yet. The monarch rose in musing mood, And silent for a moment stood, Wrapp’d in himself, as though he sought To grasp some hidden, vanish’d thought, Which, rayless, vague, and undefined, Still seems to flit before the mind, A form unseen—But now a glow Of animation rose, as though That vanish’d thought in brightness broke At once upon his view; and then, Turning toward his guest again, Thus to the chief he spoke.