1841

Sigourney, Lydia H. "Pocahontas." Pocahontas and Other Poems. London, 1841. 13-37. (Illustrated Poems. Philadelphia, 1849. 181-209.) Sigourney significantly elaborates the story in this her second work on Pocahontas. The tone is distinctly sentimental (for instance, scenes of remembering her father while in England and with her child on her deathbed), and the frame seems to be guilt and regret over what has happened to the Indians. "I wish we had not to your mad lip prest / The fiery poison-cup, nor on you turn'd / The blood-tooth'd ban-dog, foaming, as he burn'd / To tear your flesh." The Indians have fled, only to be heard are their "exiled murmurings" from the far west. "Forgotten race, farewell!" "But thou, O forest-princess, true of heart, / When o’er our fathers waved destruction’s dart, / Shalt in their children’s loving hearts be shrined; / Pure, lonely star, o’er dark oblivion’s wave, / It is not meet thy name should moulder in the grave."
[poetry; Indian problem]
[Electronic Version]