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(From Centennial Ode)
WE call them savage. Oh, be just! | |
| Their outraged feelings scan; | |
| A voice comes forth,—’t is from the dust,— | |
| The savage was a man! | |
| Think ye he loved not? Who stood by, | 5 |
| And in his toils took part? | |
| Woman was there to bless his eye,— | |
| The savage had a heart! | |
| Think ye he prayed not? When on high | |
| He heard the thunders roll, | 10 |
| What bade him look beyond the sky? | |
| The savage had a soul! | |
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| I venerate the Pilgrim’s cause, | |
| Yet for the red man dare to plead. | |
| We bow to Heaven’s recorded laws; | 15 |
| He turned to Nature for a creed. | |
| Beneath the pillared dome | |
| We seek our God in prayer; | |
| Through boundless woods he loved to roam, | |
| And the Great Spirit worshipped there. | 20 |
| But one, one fellow-throb with us he felt; | |
| To one divinity with us he knelt; | |
| Freedom—the selfsame freedom we adore— | |
| Bade him defend his violated shore. | |
| He saw the cloud, ordained to grow | 25 |
| And burst upon his hills in woe; | |
| He saw his people withering by, | |
| Beneath the invader’s evil eye; | |
| Strange feet were trampling on his fathers’ bones; | |
| At midnight hour he woke to gaze | 30 |
| Upon his happy cabin’s blaze, | |
| And listen to his children’s dying groans. | |
| He saw, and, maddening at the sight, | |
| Gave his bold bosom to the fight; | |
| To tiger-rage his soul was driven; | 35 |
| Mercy was not or sought or given; | |
| The pale man from his lands must fly,— | |
| He would be free or he would die. * * * * * | |
| Alas for them!—their day is o’er, | |
| Their fires are out from hill and shore; | 40 |
| No more for them the wild deer bounds; | |
| The plough is on their hunting-grounds; | |
| The pale man’s axe rings through their woods; | |
| The pale man’s sail skims o’er their floods; | |
| Their pleasant springs are dry; | 45 |
| Their children,—look! by power oppressed, | |
| Beyond the mountains of the west | |
| Their children go—to die! | |
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