The Chair of the Indian King

THE monarch sat on his rocky throne, Before him, the waters lay ; His guards, were shapeless columns of stone, Their lofty helmets with moss o'ergrown, And their spears of the braken grey.

His lamps were the fickle stars that beamed Through the veil of their midnight shroud, And the reddening flashes that fitfully gleamed When the distant fires of the war-dance streamed Where his foes in frantic revel screamed 'Neath their canopy of cloud.

Say! why was his glance so restless and keen As it fell on the waveless tide? And why, mid the gloom of that silent scene Did the sigh heave his warlike bosom's screen And bow that front of pride?

Behind him his leagured forces lay Withering in famine's blight, And he knew, with the blush of the morning ray, That Philip would summon his fierce array On the core of the warrior's heart to prey, And quench a nation's light.

It comes! it comes!—that misty speck Which over the waters moves! It boasts no sail, nor mast, nor deck, Yet dearer to him was that nameless Than the maid to him who loves.

It bears to the warrior's nerveless arm The might of a victor's aim— Its freight is a spell, whose mystic charm Shall protect the tottering sire from harm, And the ire-doomed babe, whose life-blood warm Was to hiss in the wigwam's flame.

The eye of the king with that rapture blazed Which the soul in its rapture sends; His prayer to the spirit of good he raisrd, And the shades of his buried fathers praised As toward his fort he wends.

That king hath gone to his lowly grave! He slumbers in dark decay; And like the crest of the tossing wave, Like the rush of the blast, from the mountain cave, Like the groan of the murdered, with none to save, His people have past away.

The monarch hath gone, but his rocky throne Still rests on its frowning base; Its motionless guards, rise in phalanx lone, And nought save the winds through their helmets that moan, And none, but those bosoms and hearts of stone, Sigh over the fallen race.