d beast's lair,
And lift his rifle with a hurried joy
If chance he spied the Indian lurking there:
And should they bear him prisoner from the fight,
While they are sleeping in the dead midnight,
He slips the thongs that bind him to the tree,
And leaving death with them, bounds home right happily.[4]
XXIII.
Before the mother, bursting through the door,
The redman rushes where her infants rest;
Oh God! he hurls them on the cabin floor!
While she, down kneeling, clasps them to her breast.
How he exults and revels in her woe,
And lifts the weapon, yet delays the blow:
Ha! that report! behold! he reels! he dies!
And quickly to her arms the husband--father--flies.
XXIV.
In the long winter eve, their cabin fast,
The big logs blazing in the chimney wide--
They'd hear the Indian howling, or the blast,
And deem themselves in castellated pride:
Then would the fearless forester disclose
Most str
