Page:Poems Sigourney, 1834.pdf/152

And thought that they heard the dying scream,
And saw the blood of slaughter stream
    Afresh through the village glade.

Then they sat in council, those chieftains old,
    And a mighty pit was made,
Where the lake with its silver waters rolled
They buried that bell 'neath the verdant mould,
    And crossed themselves and prayed.

And there till a stately powow came
    It slept in its tomb forgot,
With a mantle of fur, and a brow of flame
    He stood on that burial spot:

They wheeled the dance with its mystic round
    At the stormy midnight hour,
And a dead man's hand on his breast he bound,
And invoked, ere he broke that awful ground,
    The demons of pride and power.

Then he raised the bell, with a nameless rite,
    Which none but himself might tell,
In blanket and bear-skin he bound it tight,
And it journeyed in silence both day and night,
    So strong was that magic spell.

It spake no more, till St. Regis' tower
    In northern skies appeared,
And their legends extol that powow's power
Which lulled that knell like the poppy flower,
As conscience now slumbereth a little hour
    In the cell of a heart that 's seared.