Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
America: Vols. XXV–XXIX. 1876–79. | | | | Western States: Marais du Cygne, Kansas | | Le Marais du Cygne | | John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892) |
| | | | The massacre of unarmed and unoffending men in Southern Kansas took place near the Marais du Cygne of the French voyageurs. |
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A BLUSH as of roses | |
| Where rose never grew! | |
| Great drops on the bunch-grass, | |
| But not of the dew! | |
| A taint in the sweet air | 5 |
| For wild bees to shun! | |
| A stain that shall never | |
| Bleach out in the sun! | |
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| Back, steed of the prairies! | |
| Sweet song-bird, fly back! | 10 |
| Wheel hither, bald vulture! | |
| Gray wolf, call thy pack! | |
| The foul human vultures | |
| Have feasted and fled; | |
| The wolves of the Border | 15 |
| Have crept from the dead. | |
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| From the hearths of their cabins, | |
| The fields of their corn, | |
| Unwarned and unweaponed, | |
| The victims were torn,— | 20 |
| By the whirlwind of murder | |
| Swooped up and swept on | |
| To the low reedy fen-lands, | |
| The Marsh of the Swan. | |
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| With a vain plea for mercy | 25 |
| No stout knee was crooked; | |
| In the mouths of the rifles | |
| Right manly they looked. | |
| How paled the May sunshine, | |
| O Marais du Cygne! | 30 |
| On death for the strong life, | |
| On red grass for green! | |
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| In the homes of their rearing, | |
| Yet warm with their lives, | |
| Ye wait the dead only, | 35 |
| Poor children and wives! | |
| Put out the red forge-fire, | |
| The smith shall not come; | |
| Unyoke the brown oxen, | |
| The ploughman lies dumb. | 40 |
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| Wind slow from the Swan’s Marsh, | |
| O dreary death-train, | |
| With pressed lips as bloodless | |
| As lips of the slain! | |
| Kiss down the young eyelids, | 45 |
| Smooth down the gray hairs; | |
| Let tears quench the curses | |
| That burn through your prayers. | |
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| Strong man of the prairies, | |
| Mourn bitter and wild! | 50 |
| Wail, desolate woman! | |
| Weep, fatherless child! | |
| But the grain of God springs up | |
| From ashes beneath, | |
| And the crown of his harvest | 55 |
| Is life out of death. | |
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| Not in vain on the dial | |
| The shade moves along, | |
| To point the great contrasts | |
| Of right and of wrong: | 60 |
| Free homes and free altars, | |
| Free prairie and flood,— | |
| The reeds of the Swan’s Marsh, | |
| Whose bloom is of blood! | |
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| On the lintels of Kansas | 65 |
| That blood shall not dry; | |
| Henceforth the Bad Angel | |
| Shall harmless go by; | |
| Henceforth to the sunset, | |
| Unchecked on her way, | 70 |
| Shall Liberty follow | |
| The march of the day. | | | |
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