The Chieftain's Daughter

A Ballad

George P. Morris

George P. Morris was an editor and author of popular poems, songs, and hymns. His most famous piece was “Woodsman, Spare That Tree.” The following 1840 ballad, said to have been the most popular poem about Pocahontas in the nineteenth century, was put to music by Henry Russell, an English composer.

Upon the barren sand

A single captive stood,

Around him came, with bow and brand,

The red men of the wood.

5

Like him of old, his doom he hears,

Rock-bound on ocean’s rim:—

The chieftain’s daughter knelt in tears,

And breathed a prayer for him.

Above his head in air,

10

The savage war-club swung,

The frantic girl, in wild despair,

Her arms about him flung.

Then shook the warriors of the shade,

Like leaves on aspen limb,

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Subdued by that heroic maid

Who breathed a prayer for him.

“Unbind him?” gasp’d the chief,

“Obey your king’s decree!”

He kiss’d away her tears of grief,

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And set the captive free.

’Tis ever thus, when in life’s storm,

Hope’s star to man grows dim,

An angel kneels in woman’s form,

And breathes a prayer for him.

(1840)