Delaware State journal and statesman., 1862-02-25
DnurMal attu @tatesnIau
ROANOKE.

Fair island by the calm, blue Sound,
Where high thy pines their branches sway,
Aud make low melodies all day
To lu the slumbers of the drowned;
Tie sea.eull screams along thy strand
TO mock the yulture and the crow,
Aud lonesomely the wreckers go
Down the long aisles Of silver sand.
There are no sails across the bar;
Where is the isherman's canoe,
Aud Nil the cunning nets he drew
Before the blightng of the war?
No more the hounds and hunters come
10 chase tn wild deer from the oak
For desolation sere and dumb,
Sits in the homes of Roanoke.
There first my pail aud sanguine race
a birthplace iouul perhaps grave -
Her father came too late to save,
He met no welcome and no trace.
And vainly rode the anguished carl
For so the sole direction ran
Across the tide to CrOatan,
And searched the groves of Albemarle.
Perhaps she loved some Indian brave,
And dusky children learned to know
Far in the land Of Manteo;
Or paced, half famished by the wave,
Where gazing YEARLY at morn,
She heard the far surf clash and croak
The requiem of the golden corn
That never came to Roanoke.
Thrice ploughed thy sand the English keel
They turned their helm through Ocracock-
They perished by the tOmahawk,
The famine hand, the fever heel.
The brave Sir Waller led The way;
lie saw the blue smoke curling go
Up from thy huts, Granganimo,
Where the red Indian children play,
And sNeIhhs aever ~ forgot
The faith be pledged the tuwny chief,
They smoked the first tobacco leaf
lu the all halowed calumet.
Alas for Christian oath and plight
His holy vow the BritOn broke,
And murdered in a single night,
The native Lords OF Roanoke.
The wild duck ilocked the Sound astir,
The bear looked out from Secotan-
They saw no living human man,
But only where the ushes were,
And never more the yellow maize
Flocked half the fields Of Curriuck-
The isle was sered by some ill-luck
Til after many weary days,
Still might the squaw and hunter dwell,-
Nor had the pale face ueed to go
Far from the sunny Pamlico,-
If but each trusted each us well.
They spurn the pleasant homes they hold;
The old, old peace they ruthly broke,
And wandered yainly after gold
Far up the stream of Roanoke.
Those savage times have waned apace,
The piney isle no rcd men trend
Their wigwams and their wives are dead,
And war has blackened all the place;
For treason left lis thousand farms,
And broke the calumet III twain
And called across the stormy main
A hoast Of loyal men at arms.
Thy pines De MOntei's death bemoan,
Thy surge brave Russell'a requiem measures
And delving for forbidden treaauree,
Thy traitors dig hut skull and bone.
Two awful days tho foemen met,
And when the third all glorious woke,
The spangled dag we worship yet,
Curle1 all its stripes DER Roanoke.
The corpse half buried in the sand,
The far of friends that wait the shock,
The raven brooliug on the rock,
The hungry sky, the lonesome land,
The blood, the tears, the sons, the sres-
Oh these too we'll the triumph note,
Though ringing from the nations throat
Acclaims that quench her funeral pyres,
We laugh and weep all uuawares
The flag above, the dead beneath,
The sabre dripping in its sheath,
And un our lips dear household prayers
See mercy in the arms of fear.
My God this curse of blood revoke,
May every loyal Northern spear
lie nerved with news from Roanoke.
GEO. ALFRED TOWNSEND.
Philadelphia, February IT,, 1862,
Virginia Dare, the first ot'pring Of English parer