The writings of Robert C. Sands :: :: University of Virginia Library

Close by a couch, with mats o'erspread,
As if a pall that wrapped the dead,
Sat crouching one, who might beseem
The goblin crew of a monstrous dream;
For never did earthly creature wear
A shape like that recumbent there.
No hideous brute that starving sought
Some cavern's grisly womb, to rot,
Nor squalid want in death forlorn,
Hath e'er such haggard semblance borne.
A woman once;

The Indian women are described as peculiarly addicted to the worship of evil spirits.—Charlevoix, p. 359, 360.

—but now a thing
That seemed perverse to life to cling,
To rob the worm of tribute due;—
Her limbs no vesture covering,
No season's change, nor shame she knew.

267

Burnt on her withered breast she bore
Strange characters of savage lore;
And gathering up her bony frame,
As fiercely raged the mounting flame,
Not one proportion equal told
Of aught designed in nature's mould.
Her yellow eyeballs bright with hate,
Rolled in their sunken sockets yet,
With sickly glare, as of charnel lamps
That glimmer from sepulchral damps.