| |
| ON yonder lake I spread the sail no more! | |
| Vigor, and youth, and active days are past— | |
| Relentless demons urge me to that shore | |
| On whose black forests all the dead are cast: | |
| Ye solemn train, prepare the funeral song, | 5 |
| For I must go to shades below, | |
| Where all is strange, and all is new; | |
| Companion to the airy throng, | |
| What solitary streams, | |
| In dull and dreary dreams, | 10 |
| All melancholy, must I rove along! | |
| |
| To what strange lands must Shalum take his way? | |
| Groves of the dead departed mortals trace; | |
| No deer along those gloomy forests stray, | |
| No huntsmen there take pleasure in the chase, | 15 |
| But all are empty unsubstantial shades, | |
| That ramble through those visionary glades; | |
| No spongy fruits from verdant trees depend: | |
| But sickly orchards there | |
| Do fruits as sickly bear, | 20 |
| And apples a consumptive visage shew, | |
| And wither’d hangs the whortle-berry blue. | |
| Ah me! what mischiefs on the dead attend! | |
| Wandering a stranger to the shores below, | |
| Where shall I brook or real fountain find? | 25 |
| Lazy and sad deluding waters flow— | |
| Such is the picture in my boding mind! | |
| Fine tales indeed, they tell | |
| Of shades and purling rills, | |
| Where our dead fathers dwell | 30 |
| Beyond the western hills, | |
| But when did ghost return his state to shew; | |
| Or who can promise half the tale is true? | |
| |
| I too must be a fleeting ghost—no more— | |
| None, none but shadows to those mansions go; | 35 |
| I leave my woods, I leave the Huron shore, | |
| For emptier groves below! | |
| Ye charming solitudes, | |
| Ye tall ascending woods, | |
| Ye glassy lakes and prattling streams, | 40 |
| Whose aspect still was sweet, | |
| Whether the sun did greet, | |
| Or the pale moon embraced you with her beams— | |
| Adieu to all! | |
| To all, that charm’d me where I stray’d, | 45 |
| The winding stream, the dark sequester’d shade; | |
| Adieu all triumphs here! | |
| Adieu the mountain’s lofty swell, | |
| Adieu, thou little verdant hill, | |
| And seas, and stars, and skies—farewell, | 50 |
| For some remoter sphere! | |
| |
| Perplex’d with doubts, and tortured with despair, | |
| Why so dejected at this hopeless sleep? | |
| Nature at last these ruins may repair, | |
| When fate’s long dream is o’er, and she forgets to weep. | 55 |
| Some real world once more may be assign’d, | |
| Some new born mansion for th’ immortal mind! | |
| Farewell, sweet lake; farewell surrounding woods, | |
| To other groves, through midnight glooms, I stray, | |
| Beyond the mountains, and beyond the floods, | 60 |
| Beyond the Huron bay! | |
| Prepare the hollow tomb, and place me low, | |
| My trusty bow and arrows by my side, | |
| The cheerful bottle, and the ven’son store; | |
| For long the journey is that I must go, | 65 |
| Without a partner, and without a guide.” | |
| |
| He spoke, and bid the attending mourners weep: | |
| Then closed his eyes, and sunk to endless sleep! | |
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