How oft in those vast solitudes
A friend is sooner found than here!
It was a youth of noble blood
Who chose, in his romantic mood,
   In hunter's hut to dwell;
A gifted youth of bearing high.
A free, proud step, a glancing eye —
   His name was Claude d'Estrelle.
His heart had found him one who made
Those solitary places glad;
A hunter's orphan— left, while young,
Her Indian mother's tribe among—
Who saw him dying on the waste,
And on her fearless bosom placed
His fevered head, and touched his brow
With hands as cool and soft as snow;
And when, at his first conscious waking,
   He saw his guardian of the woods,
In whose dark eye a hope was breaking
   Like moonlight over dusky floods,
While tears of mingled joy and doubt
   Down from the heavy lashes ran,
As though her heart was flowing out
   In pity for the lonely man—
His mov'd soul vowed that maiden brave
Should own the life she tried to save.
So Leena, ere that summer fled,
The noble Claude d'Estrelle had wed.

On one of those red autumn eves—
   That gorgeous time of forest life—
Amid its wealth of changing leaves
   I first beheld my friend's young wife.
We met upon an open glade,
Whence lines of brown and purple shade
Their long, soft swelling vistas made
   Up to the evening sky.
And, while we gazed, some dim arcade
   Would kindle suddenly,
And gleaming orange grove o'er grove
Seem vying with the clouds above:
While crimson foliage, here and there,
Would deepen in the amber air,
And drops of glory fall between
On many a glistening evergreen;
The waterfall to jewels turned,
The lake like one great ruby burned
   Upon the wood's green breast;
And all that 'wildering splendour seemed
As still as something we had dreamed;
The leaf's light flutter to the ground
Became a noticeable sound,
   So silent was its rest!
And Leena's figure, lithe and tall,
   Against the glowing background stood:—
Well might her husband ask if all
The dames that tread in courtly hall
   Could match his lady of the wood;
There, wearing for her coronet
Her own rich bauds of wavy jet;
   Soft as the fawn's her eye,
A colour on the clear brown cheek
Like evening's last faint crimson streak
   Upon the twilight sky.
Long, pleasant nights with Claude I passed
In his rude dwelling on the waste,
   Beside the fire of pine:
While Leena's graceful tenderness
Wreathed round him like the light caress
   Of her own forest vine;
And love's strange magic seemed to shut
A palace in that woodland hut,
While we would stop our talk, to hear
The distant rushing of the deer,
The sound of falling water near;
And Leena, happy us a child,
Brought for us from her native wild
   The gatherings of her heart:
Soft gushes of melodious thought
Deep poetry within her wrought,
   By living long apart.
While Claude's bright smiles fell fond and fast
Upon his dear enthusiast,
And, all untrained, he loved to find
Those blossoms of the uncultured mind,
And thought not how the world might try
   The spirit of his untaught wife,
Though all who looked on Leena's eye
Might feel some destined agony
   Lay folded in her life.
Such a high power of deathless love
Did in its depths unfathomed move;
It seemed for special trials given,
The boon of a foreseeing Heaven.

That time of trial came at last,
When five delightful years had passed,
   And I had wandered wide.
A second time Claude laid to rest
His sick head on that faithful breast;
   So rested till he died.
Then she unto his brother went,
With those his dying breath had sent—
Her children twain, a welcome prize—
   The last of that proud race.
But there were none but scornful eyes
For her woe-printed face;
And back he harshly bade her go,
That those she bore might yet outgrow
   The sense of her disgrace.
What! leave them; Claude's dear legacy!
How could she let the mother die
   In such a loving heart?
But, with an uncomplaining eye,
   (Despair had taught her art,)
She begged a little while to stay,
And stole them in the night away,
   And hid them in the wood;
Seven days and nights, was sorely pressed,
And then, beside her rifled nest,
   A childless mother stood!
But when her love's strong crying still
Did too much chafe the iron will,
He gave her, with an ample bribe,
Unto a stranger Indian tribe
   A slave oppressed to be;
For there her white blood was her shame;
But woman's heart, whate'er her name,
Indian, or English, is the same—
   A mother set her free.
She tracked them to a distant state
   By many a wild and dangerous way,
And prayed the tyrant of her fate
   That she, among his slaves, might stay
Near her beloved ones, though she bore
A mother's precious name no more.
He suffered her to take her part
   Upon the slave's tear-watered soil;
So little knew the mother's heart,
   He thought to tire it out by toil.
But, stronger than the strong man's will,
Her children's love would own her still,
He felt the taint must on them lie
Till he had quenched her memory,