| |
| FROM Susquehanna’s farthest springs, | |
| Where savage tribes pursue their game, | |
| (His blanket tied with yellow strings,) | |
| A shepherd of the forest came. | |
| |
| Not long before, a wandering priest | 5 |
| Express’d his wish with visage sad— | |
| “Ah, why (he cried) in Satan’s waste, | |
| Ah, why detain so fine a lad? | |
| |
| “In white man’s land there stands a town, | |
| Where learning may be purchased low— | 10 |
| Exchange his blanket for a gown, | |
| And let the lad to college go.” | |
| |
| From long debate the council rose, | |
| And viewing Shalum’s tricks with joy, | |
| To Cambridge Hall, o’er wastes of snows, | 15 |
| They sent the copper-color’d boy. | |
| |
| One generous chief a bow supplied, | |
| This gave a shaft, and that a skin; | |
| The feathers, in vermilion dyed, | |
| Himself did from a turkey win: | 20 |
| |
| Thus dress’d so gay, he took his way | |
| O’er barren hills, alone, alone! | |
| His guide a star, he wander’d far, | |
| His pillow every night a stone. | |
| |
| At last he came, with foot so lame, | 25 |
| Where learned men talk heathen Greek, | |
| And Hebrew lore is gabbled o’er, | |
| To please the muses,—twice a week. | |
| |
| Awhile he writ, awhile he read, | |
| Awhile he conn’d their grammar rules— | 30 |
| (An Indian savage so well bred | |
| Great credit promised to the schools.) | |
| |
| Some thought he would in law excel, | |
| Some said in physic he would shine; | |
| And one that knew him passing well, | 35 |
| Beheld in him a sound divine. | |
| |
| But those of more discerning eye, | |
| Even then could other prospects show, | |
| And saw him lay his Virgil by, | |
| To wander with his dearer bow. | 40 |
| |
| The tedious hours of study spent, | |
| The heavy moulded lecture done, | |
| He to the woods a hunting went, | |
| Through lonely wastes he walk’d, he run. | |
| |
| No mystic wonders fired his mind; | 45 |
| He sought to gain no learn’d degree, | |
| But only sense enough to find | |
| The squirrel in the hollow tree. | |
| |
| The shady bank, the purling stream, | |
| The woody wild his heart possess’d, | 50 |
| The dewy lawn, his morning dream | |
| In fancy’s gayest colors drest. | |
| |
| “And why,” he cried, “did I forsake | |
| My native wood for gloomy walls; | |
| The silver stream, the limpid lake | 55 |
| For musty books, and college halls. | |
| |
| “A little could my wants supply— | |
| Can wealth and honor give me more; | |
| Or, will the sylvan god deny | |
| The humble treat he gave before? | 60 |
| |
| “Let seraphs gain the bright abode, | |
| And heaven’s sublimest mansions see— | |
| I only bow to Nature’s God— | |
| The land of shades will do for me. | |
| |
| “These dreadful secrets of the sky | 65 |
| Alarm my soul with chilling fear— | |
| Do planets in their orbits fly, | |
| And is the earth, indeed, a sphere? | |
| |
| “Let planets still their course pursue, | |
| And comets to the centre run— | 70 |
| In him my faithful friend I view, | |
| The image of my God—the sun. | |
| |
| “Where nature’s ancient forests grow, | |
| And mingled laurel never fades, | |
| My heart is fix’d and I must go | 75 |
| To die among my native shades.” | |
| |
| He spoke, and to the western springs, | |
| (His gown discharged, his money spent, | |
| His blanket tied with yellow strings,) | |
| The shepherd of the forest went. | 80 |
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