| |
| THE WAR-WHOOP’S 1 boding sound | |
| Rose fearfully and shrill: | |
| By echo’s thousand voices, round, | |
| Wide wafted over dale and hill, | |
| It volley’d through the distant plain, | 5 |
| That peal’d its thunders back again. | |
| The wolf aroused him from his den, | |
| Far northward, in the wildest glen | |
| On Simcoe’s dreary shore; | |
| And, high o’er Alleghany’s peak, | 10 |
| The vulture heard, and trimm’d his beak | |
| To feast on human gore. | |
| The runners, by their Chief’s command, | |
| The war-club, tinged with fearful red, | |
| Rear’d high in air, a signal dread, | 15 |
| And waved it through the land. | |
| It glanced amid the pathless wood | |
| That shadow’d Susquehannah’s flood; | |
| And down Ontario’s wilds, afar, | |
| Told proudly of the coming war: | 20 |
| On dark Missouri’s turbid stream | |
| The countless tribes beheld it gleam, | |
| And blithely, for the field array’d, | |
| Obedience to its summons paid. | |
| By its own gallant chieftains led on to the fight, | 25 |
| Each tribe musters proudly its numbers and might, | |
| And—like mountain streams rushing to mingle their foam | |
| In the dell’s troubled bosom—all darkly they come; * * * * * | |
| The line is forming, broad and bright, | |
| Like meteors on the brow of night, | 30 |
| As to the wind their light folds stream, | |
| Standards and banners o’er it gleam; | |
| And plumes and shields and helmets, glancing | |
| From mail-clad chiefs in hurried motion, | |
| Rise, sink and glow, like bubbles dancing | 35 |
| Upon the storm-vex’d face of ocean. | |
| In front, and facing to the fosse, | |
| O’er which the coming foe must cross— | |
| Their left arms bare, and round the waist | |
| Their quivers, stored with arrows, braced, | 40 |
| Ready of eye and firm of hand, | |
| The light and active archers stand; | |
| Each with his bow of ample length, | |
| Well proved for vigor and for strength, | |
| And cloth-yard shafts—that to the heart | 45 |
| May pierce, when from the string they part. | |
| Supporting these—with rearward sweep, | |
| In darkening columns, broad and deep— | |
| Fast to their posts wheel silently | |
| The close-rank’d veteran infantry, | 50 |
| The sinews of the host—who bear | |
| The tug and burden of the war, | |
| When man to man his might opposes | |
| In long and fierce and doubtful strife, | |
| And one or both must part with life | 55 |
| Before the awful contest closes. | |
| Upon the wings form, prompt and free, | |
| The light and heavy cavalry; | |
| And the snort and the neigh of each bounding steed, | |
| As his rider is curbing his headlong speed, | 60 |
| And the foam on the bit which he angrily champs, | |
| And the short, hollow moan of the ground, as he stamps | |
| And spurns it impatiently—tell to the eye | |
| And the ear, he is conscious the battle is nigh; | |
| And pants for the moment when, loose from the rein, | 65 |
| He shall rush on the flying and trample the slain. * * * * * | |
| Far down Ohio’s vale, the pilgrim sees | |
| The rank grass floating, in the grateful breeze, | |
| Above the hallow’d mould, where sleep the brave | |
| Of ages past, in the neglected grave; | 70 |
| And of the peasant, as his labors turn | |
| The whitening bones above their earthly urn, | |
| Pauses a moment, o’er his reckless share, | |
| To wonder whose sad relics moulder there: | |
| Yet, nor the peasant nor the pilgrim knows | 75 |
| The record of their fame, the story of their woes. | |
| But viewless spirits linger round the scene | |
| Where valor, worth and glory erst have been; | |
| Bidding each gale, as far its sweets are shed, | |
| Sigh nature’s requiem o’er the mighty dead: | 80 |
| While their high harps, responsive, wake again | |
| The echoes of the sadly-pleasing strain, | |
| To prompt from pity’s eye the willing tear | |
| And tell their wondrous tale in Fancy’s ear. | |
| Soothed by the sound, the native minstrel caught | 85 |
| A portion of the lay their numbers taught, | |
| And from his rustic lyre, by Freedom strung | |
| Its plaintive wild-notes fearlessly he flung. | |
| Rude is the theme he chose, and small the praise | |
| He claims, to recompense his artless lays: | 90 |
| Content, if Genius, from her boundless mines, | |
| Hath lent one gem, to deck the wreath he twines; | |
| Or taste shall find one native flowret there, | |
| Which claims her plaudits and his country’s care. | |
| To thee, my country! and to thine, belong | 95 |
| The fame, the labors of thy “sons of song:” | |
| Be thine, henceforth, the pleasing task, to give | |
| The boon which bids that fame, those labors live; | |
| Nor deem, of course, the chaplet little worth, | |
| Whose wreaths are twined from flowers of native growth. | 100 |
| Proud of their freedom, let thy children be | |
| In taste and science, as in spirit, free; | |
| So shall thy daring minstrels soon aspire | |
| With bolder sweep to wake the slumbering lyre; | |
| Till, o’er the broad Atlantic echoing round, | 105 |
| Admiring Europe hail the heavenly sound, | |
| And, roused to rapture by its magic charms, | |
| Confess thy bards as matchless as thy arms. | |
