| |
| IN spite of all the learned have said, | |
| I still my old opinion keep; | |
| The posture that we give the dead | |
| Points out the soul’s eternal sleep. | |
| |
| Not so the ancients of these lands,— | 5 |
| The Indian, when from life released, | |
| Again is seated with his friends, | |
| And shares again the joyous feast. | |
| |
| His imaged birds, and painted bowl, | |
| And venison, for a journey dressed, | 10 |
| Bespeak the nature of the soul, | |
| Activity that knows no rest. | |
| |
| His bow, for action ready bent, | |
| And arrows, with a head of stone, | |
| Can only mean that life is spent, | 15 |
| And not the finer essence gone. | |
| |
| Thou, stranger, that shalt come this way, | |
| No fraud upon the dead commit,— | |
| Observe the swelling turf, and say | |
| They do not lie, but here they sit. | 20 |
| |
| Here still a lofty rock remains, | |
| On which the curious eye may trace | |
| (Now wasted, half, by wearing rains) | |
| The fancies of a ruder race. | |
| |
| Here still an aged elm aspires, | 25 |
| Beneath whose far-projecting shade | |
| (And which the shepherd still admires) | |
| The children of the forest played! | |
| |
| There oft a restless Indian queen | |
| (Pale Shebab, with her braided hair) | 30 |
| And many a barbarous form is seen | |
| To chide the man that lingers there. | |
| |
| By midnight moons, o’er moistening dews, | |
| In vestments for the chase arrayed, | |
| The hunter still the deer pursues, | 35 |
| The hunter and the deer, a shade! | |
| |
| And long shall timorous fancy see | |
| The painted chief and pointed spear, | |
| And Reason’s self shall bow the knee | |
| To shadows and delusions here. | 40 |
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