The league of the Iroquois and other legends : from the Indian muse

UAYO-WENT-HA'S DEPARTURE. 209
Like pilgrim home-returning late
With eager feet, it lightly pressed
The springing tide, as loth to wait
To bear him to his peace and rest ;
To gently bear him,
fleet and free
To faintly glimmering isles away,
Beyond the land, beyond the sea,
Beyond the fading rim of Day.
Yet where the billow lightly laves
He lingers on the pebbly strand
Amid the well-beloved braves,
Delays to take the parting hand ;
As bearing in a father's heart
The love, the grief no tongue can*tell ;
As loth to stay, as loth to part,
Delays he still the last farewell.
Or saddened at their grief and tears,
The noble warriors, true and tried !
Or tender thought the spot endears
Where she, the little maiden died ;
Or would his anguished spirit stay
Where weeping loved ones strive and mourn ?
Or yearns his heart to her away
Nyah-tah-wanta, reft and lorn ?