had frolicked in infancy, sported in boyhood, and rested after the fatigues of battle? They formed the English boat, or lined the English dwelling. Where were the holy sacrifice heaps of his people? The stones were taken to fence in the land which the intruder dared to call his own. Where was his father's grave? The stranger's road passed over it, and his cattle trampled on the ground where the mighty Mohawk slumbered. Where were his once powerful tribe? Alas! in the white man's wars they had joined with the British in the vain hope of recovering their lost privileges. Hundreds had gone to their last home; others had joined distant tribes; and some pitiful wretches, whom he scorned to call brethren, consented to live on the white man's bounty. These were corroding reflections; and well might fierce thoughts of vengeance pass through the mind of the deserted prince; but he was powerless now; and the English swarmed like vultures around the dying. "It is the work of the Great Spirit," said he. "The Englishman's God made the Indian's heart afraid; and now he is like a wounded buffalo when hungry wolves are on his trail."

When Powontonamo returned to his hut, his countenance, though severe, was composed. He spoke to the Sunny-eye with more kindness than the savage generally addresses the wife of his youth; but his look told her that she must not ask the grief which had put a woman's heart within the breast of the far-famed Mohawk Eagle.

The next day, when the young chieftain went out on a hunting expedition, he was accosted by a rough, square-built farmer. "Powow," said he, 'your squaw has been stripping a dozen of my trees, and I don't like it over much." It was a moment when the Indian could ill brook a white man's insolence. "Listen, buffalo-head!" shouted he-and as he spoke he seized the shaggy pate of the unconscious offender, and eyed him with the concentrated venom of an ambushed rattlesnake. "Listen to the Chief of the Mohawks! These broad lands are all his own. When the white man first left his cursed foot-print in the forest, the Great Bear looked down upon the big tribes of Iroquois and Abnaquis. The wigwams of the noble Delawares were thick where the soft winds dwell. The rising sun glanced on the fierce Pequods; and the Illinois, the Miames, and warlike tribes like the hairs of your head, marked his going down. Had the red man stuck you then your tribes would have been as dry grass to the lightning. Go-shall the Sunny-eye of Oneida ask the pale face for a basket?" He breathed out a quick, convulsive laugh, and his white teeth showed through his parted lips, as he shook the farmer

from him, with the strength and fury of a raging panther.

After that, his path was unmolested, for no one dared to awaken his wrath; but a smile never again visited the dark countenance of the degraded chief. The wild beasts had fled so far from the settlements that he would hunt days and days without success. Soonseetah sometimes begged him to join the remnant of the Oneidas, and persuade them to go far off, towards the setting sun. Powontonamo replied, "This is the burial-place of my fathers;" and the Sunny-eye dared say no

more.

At last their boy sickened and died, of a fever he had taken among the English. They buried him beneath a spreading oak, on the banks of the Mohawk, and heaped stones upon his grave, without a tear. "He must lie near the water," said the desolate chief, "else the white man's horses will tread on him."

The young mother did not weep; but her heart had received its death wound. The fever seized her, and she grew paler and weaker every day. One morning Powontonamo returned with some delicate food he had been seeking for her. "Will Soonseetah eat?" said he. He spoke in a tone of subdued tenderness; but she answered not. The foot which was wont to bound forward to meet him lay motionless and cold. He raised the blanket which partly concealed her face, and saw that the Sunny-eye was closed in death. One hand was pressed hard against her heart, as if her last moments had been painful. The other had grasped the beads which the young Eagle had given her in the happy days of courtship. One heart-rending shriek was wrung from the bosom of the agonised savage. He tossed his arms wildly above his head, and threw himself beside the body of her he had loved as fondly, deeply, and passionately as ever a white man loved. After the first burst of grief had subsided, ho carefully untied the necklace from her full, beautiful bosom, crossed her hands over the sacred relic, and put back the shining black hair from her smooth forchead. For hours he watched the corpse in silence. Then he arose and carried it from the wigwam. He dug a grave by the side of his lost boy; laid the head of Soonseetah towards the rising sun; heaped the earth upon it, and covered it with stones, according to the custom of his people. A little while longer he stood watching the changing heavens; and then, with reluctant step, retired to his solitary wigwam.

The next day, a tree which Soonseetah had often said was just as old as their boy, was placed near the mother and child. A wild vine was straggling among the loose stones, and Powontonamo carefully twined it round the tree. "The young oak is the Eagle of the Mohawks," he said; "and now

the Sunny-eye has her arms around him." He spoke in the wild music of his native tongue; but there was none to answer. "Yes, Powontonamo will go home," sighed he. "He will go where the sun sets in the ocean, and the white man's eyes have never looked upon it." One long, one lingering glance at the graves of his kindred, and the Eagle of the Mohawks bade farewell to the land of his fathers.

For many a returning autumn, a lone Indian was seen standing at the consecrated spot we have mentioned; but, just thirty years after the death of Soonseetah, he was noticed for the last time. His step was then firm, and his figure erect, though he seemed old and way-worn. Age had not dimmed the fire of his eye, but an expression of deep melancholy had settled on his wrinkled brow.

It was Powontonamo-he who had once been the Eagle of the Mohawks! He came to lie down and die beneath the broad oak which shadowed the grave of Sunny-eye. Alas! the white man's axe had been there! The tree he had planted was dead; and the vine, which had leaped so vigorously from branch to branch, now yellow and withering, was falling to the ground. A deep groan burst from the soul of the savage. For thirty wearisome years he had watched that oak, with its twining tendrils. They were the only things left in the wide world for him to love, and they were gone! He looked abroad. The hunting-land of his tribe was changed, like its chieftain. No light canoe now shot down the river, like a bird upon the wing. The laden boat of the white man alone broke its smooth surface. The Englishman's road wound like a serpent around the banks of the Mohawk; and iron hoofs had so beaten down the war-path, that a hawk's eye could not discover an Indian track. The last wigwam was destroyed; and the sun looked boldly down upon spots he had visited only by stealth during thousands and thousands of moons. The few remaining trees,

| clothed in the fantastic mourning of autumn; the long line of heavy clouds, melting away before the coming sun; and the distant mountain seen through the blue mist of departing twilight, alone remained as he had seen them in his boyhood. All things spoke a sad language to the heart of the desolate Indian. "Yes," said he, "the young oak and the vine are like the Eagle and the SunnyThey are cut down, torn, and trampled on. The leaves are falling, and the clouds are scattering, like my people. I wish I could once more see the trees standing thick, as they did when my mother held me to her bosom, and sung the warlike deeds of the Mohawks."

eye.

A mingled expression of grief and anger passed over his face as he watched a loaded boat in its

passage across the stream. "The white man carries food to his wife and children, and he finds them in his home," said he. "Where is the squaw and the papoose of the red man? They are here!"

As he spoke, he fixed his eye thoughtfully upon the grave. After a gloomy silence, he again looked round upon the fair scene, with a wandering and troubled gaze. "The pale face may like it," murmured he; "but an Indian cannot die here in peace." So saying, he broke his bowstring, snapped his arrows, threw them on the burial-place of his fathers, and departed for

ever.

*

*

* None ever knew where Powontonamo laid his dying head. The hunters from the west said, a red man had been among them, whose tracks were far off towards the rising sun; that he seemed like one who had lost his way, and was sick to go home to the Great Spirit. Perchance he slept his last sleep where the distant Mississippi receives its hundred streams. Alone, and unfriended, he may have laid him down to die where no man called him brother; and the wolves of the desert, long ere this, may have howled the death-song of the Mohawk Eagle.

tones are pealing

From the great voice of the organ, as I touch it once again;

And around the carven angels soft the sunset shades are stealing,

I can supplicate my music for some solace for my pain.

accustomed fingers,

If I hold the diapason just as ever at com. mand,

And the old familiar magic in the melody still lingers,

I shall fancy that the music has a heart to understand.

308

With the prelude in E minor, like a weary heart in woe;

As I bitterly look back upon the last of memory's pages,

Far the saddest of the leaflets that my life can ever know.

love me,

That no thought of shame could touch her 'neath her old ancestral trees.

Did she scorn me for my meanness, when I set my heart upon her?

There are ancient tombs engraven with the legends of her race:

Though my heart was yearning towards her, I could leave my love untold;

Till she won me into speaking by the glory of her presence,

Like a dream of Mary Mother by some masterhand of old.

ever tender-hearted,

But the roses of her loving they hung far beyond my reach.

She will mate but with her equals; men of ancient names and stately

Will have power to win her kisses, and my lowly claim must yield;

Of her gracious bearing thrill me with a spell unknown before;

And my music sounded harshly to the perfect modulation

Of the low voice that will haunt me in my dreaming evermore.

shipped, loving greatly,

Though my ancestors have fallen not upon the foughten field.

Fair the future spreads before her, will it ever bring repentance

For an honest love rejected, for a stricken heart and sore?

by day, now speeding

From the mighty strains of Handel to the passion

of Mozart;

And I told my love in music, and she heard it, all unheeding

That the lowly organ-master could possess a human heart.

sentence ?But my music makes an answer with a hopeless "Never more."

And I think on that great master who, when life was swiftly fleeting,

Wrote the sad sepulchral music ere he bowed his noble head,

throat in her singing

Took a fuller curve, and brighter shone the nimbus of her hair;

And so sang she to my playing, till the bell above us swinging

Brought my dear task to an ending with the eventime of prayer.

and kindly greeting;

And for my lost love a requiem I play, as for the dead.

And I cling unto my music for the solace man's unkindness

Has denied me, since my comrades greet my story with a smile;

above me,

And a bright tear born of music fell and glistened

on the keys,

at my blindness;

But the man who's seen the sun's face sees no other for a while.