Now when the dogwood gemmed with blossoms white,
The gorgeous grove where oak and stately pine,
Upthrew their gnarled arms of massy might,
And thus a leafy canopy did twine,
This dusky Dryad would with grace recline,
Along the mossy bank of crystal stream,
In whose smooth glass her angel beauties shine,
Beside brave Rolfe, a man of pallid gleam,
Who sighed his soul to her, and taught her love’s true dream.

Beneath the silver moon, resplendent queen,
With simple rites, these mingling souls were wed;
The happy stars looked down, with brighter sheen,
To view love’s wretched fears for ever fled;
The wild flowers trembled in their dewy bed,
And up a most enchanting fragrance sent;
The blissful Hours, unnoticed, onward sped;
And, with their gentle music sweetly blent,
The breathing winds and waters murmured their content.

Ah me! what deep, celestial transports thrill’d
These beating bosoms, in so sweet a scene: 
What tears of tender joy their visions filled,
Scanning each other’s soul-absorbing mien
And, in that bower of paradisal green,
Happy, they sighed, in accents fond and warm,
That thus enclosed Earth’s primal pair had been,
Where oft they spied bright Seraph’s glorious form,
And rose on high afar the grove’s eternal charm.

There oft the mocking bird, a songster gay,
Would soothe their souls, with multifarious song,
Singing his farewell-hymns to dying Day,
As fade his smiles the darkening glades along;
And when the frowns of night more thickly throng,
The amorous firefly led them at that hour,
O’er wooded hills, and marshes deep and long,
To their sweet rest, which sank, with grateful power,
Along their wearied nerves, in their wild, oaken bower.

As flows the stream, with calm, unruffled wave,
O’er shining sands, to kiss the glassy main,
So flowed the life their gracious Maker gave,
Nor felt the obstructive power of obvious pain;
So deep o’er them was Passion’s rapturous reign,
That mid their bower’s delicious solitude,
They dreamed their hearts might never sigh again;
By love their gentle spirits were subdued,
To the deep rapture of a heavenly seeming mood.

Alas! the race of Pocahontas flow,
As waves, away, which can return no more;
No more o’er plain and peak they bear the bow,
Or shove the skiff from yonder curving shore;
Their reign, their histories, their names are o’er;
The plow insults their sires’ indignant bones;
The very land disowns its look of yore;
Vast cities rise, and hark!  I hear the tones
Of many mingling Tongues; and boundless labour groans.

And paler nymphs are sweetly wooed and won,
Upon this soil, and they are happy too,
But of these fairer English damsels, none
Have shown devotion more divinely true,
Than thou, untutor’d maid of dusky hue;
Nor shall thy tribes from memory vanish quite,
While beauteous deeds as angels ofttimes do,
Still sway the generous mind with heavenly might,
For thine would snatch even worse from Time’s oblivious night.