wildly around, cried, "Oh! the bird! the bird! the eagle! the eagle has carried off my bonnie wee Walter is there nane to pursue?" A neighbor put her baby to her breast, and, shutting her eyes, and smiting her forehead, the sorely bewildered creature said, in a low voice, "Am I wauken? oh! tell me if I'am wauken? or if a' this be the wark o' a fever, and the delirium o' a dream?" 1. 2. 3. Dim, cheerless is the scene my path around; With vigorous talons tclinch'd, and bright eyes shut, Preserving yet, in look, thy tameless mood, As if, though still'd by death, thy heart were unsubdued. How cam'st thou to thy death? Did +lapsing years o'ercome, and leave thee weak, Dash thee against the precipice's peak? 'Mid rack and floating cloud, Did scythe-wing'd lightning flash tathwart thy brain, Down whirling, lifeless, to the dim-seen plain? Lifeless thou liest, outstretch'd beside the desert stone. A proud life hath been thine: High on the herbless rock, thou 'wok'st to birth, Warm round thy heart, when first thy wings +essay'd, And, far receding down, the dim, material world! 4. 5. 6. 7. How fast, how far, how long, Thine hath it been, from cloud-vail'd taerie high To swoop, and still the woodlark's +lyric song, The +leveret's gambols, and the lambkin's cry? The terror-stricken dove +Cower'd down amid the oak-wood's tcentral shade, While +ferny glens below, and cliffs above, To thy fierce shriek, tresponsive echo made, Carrying the wild alarm from vale to vale, That thou, the forest king, wert out upon the gale! When wooded glens were dark, And o'er moist earth, glow'd morning's rosy star, High o'er the scarce +ting'd clouds, 't was thine to mark The orient chariot of the sun afar: And oh! how grand to soar Beneath the full moon, on full pinion driven; To pierce the regions of gray cloud-land o'er, And drift amid the star-isl'd seas of heaven! Even like a courier, sent from earth to hold With +space-dissever'd worlds, unaw'd, communion bold. Dead king-bird of the waste! And is thy +curbless span of freedom o'er? No more shall thine ascending form be trac'd? And shall the hunter of the hills no more Hark to thy regal cry, While soaring o'er the +stream-girt vales, thy form, Lessening, +commingles with the azure sky, Glimps'd 'mid the masses of the gathering storm, As if it were thy proud resolve to see, Betwixt thee and dim earth, the zig-zag lightnings flee? A child of freedom thou, Thy birth-right the tall cliff and sky beyond: Thy feet were fetterless; thy fearless brow, The slave and freeman must alike obey: Pride reels; and Power, that kept a world in awe, The dreadful summons hears; and where are they? Vanish'd, like night-dreams, from the sleeper's mind, Dust, 'mid dissolving day, or clouds before the wind! 1. Nor many generations ago, where you now sit, tencircled with all that exalts and tembellishes civilized life, the rank thistle nodded in the wind, and the wild fox dug his hole unscared. Here, lived and loved another race of beings. Beneath the same sun that rolls over your head, the Indian hunter pursued the panting deer; gazing on the same moon that smiles for you, the Indian lover wooed his +dusky mate. Here, the wigwam-blaze beamed on the tender and helpless, and the council-fire glared on the wise and daring. Now, they dipped their noble limbs in your +sedgy lakes, and now, they paddled the light canoe along your rocky shores. Here, they warred; the echoing whoop, the bloody grapple, the defying death-song, all were here; and when the tiger-strife was over, here, curled the smoke of peace. 2. Here, too, they worshiped; and from many a dark bosom went up a fervent prayer to the Great Spirit. He had not written his laws for them on tables of stone, but he had traced them on the tables of their hearts. The poor child of Nature knew not the God of Revelation, but the God of the +universe he acknowledged in every thing around. He beheld him in the star that sank in beauty behind his lonely dwelling; in the sacred orb that flamed on him from his mid-day throne; in the flower that snapped in the morning breeze; in the lofty pine that defied a thousand whirl-winds; in the timid +warbler that never left its native grove; in the fearless eagle, whose untired +pinion was wet in clouds; in the worm that crawled at his feet; and in his own matchless form, glowing with a spark of that light, to whose mysterious source he bent in humble, though blind adoration. 3. And all this has passed away. Across the ocean came a +pilgrim bark, bearing the seeds of life and death. The former were sown for you; the latter sprang up in the path of the simple native. Two hundred years have changed the character of a great continent, and blotted forever from its face, a whole, peculiar people. Art has usurped the bowers of nature, and the anointed children of education have been too powerful for the tribes of the ignorant. Here and there, a stricken few remain; but how unlike their bold, untamable *progenitors. The Indian of +falcon glance and lion bearing, the theme of the touching ballad, the hero of the pathetic tale, is gone! and his degraded offspring crawls upon the soil, where he walked in majesty, to remind us how miserable is man, when the foot of the conquerer is on his neck. 4. As a race, they have withered from the land. Their arrows are broken, their springs are dried up, their cabins are in the dust. Their council-fire has long since gone out on the shore, and their war-cry is fast fading to the untrodden west. Slowly and sadly they climb the distant mountains, and read their doom in the setting sun. They are shrinking before the mighty tide which is pressing them away; they must soon hear the roar of the last wave, which will settle over them forever. Ages hence, the inquisitive white man, as he stands by some growing city, will ponder on the structure of their disturbed remains, and wonder to what manner of persons they belonged. They will live only in the songs and tchronicles of their texterminators. Let these be faithful to their rude virtues, as men, and pay due tribute to their unhappy fate, as a people. CXII. - RED JACKET, THE INDIAN CHIEF. FITZ GREENE HALLECK is a native of Connecticut, but resides in New York. He has written little, but stands very high as an American poet. ROB ROY and ROBIN HOOD. These were celebrated outlaws, the one of Tell not the planting of thy parent tree, 2. Thy name is princely, though no poet's +magic 3. Yet it is music in the language spoken Of thine own land; and on her herald-roll, As nobly fought for, and as proud a token As 1CŒUR DE LION'S, of a warrior's soul. 4. Thy +garb-though Austria's bosom stars would frighten 5. Yet 't is a brave one, scorning wind and weather, As Rob Roy's tartan for the Highland +heather, 6 Is strength a monarch's merit? (like a whaler's?) 7. Is eloquence? Her spell is thine, that reaches The heart, and makes the wisest heads its sport; 8. Is beauty? Thine has with thy youth departed; Of winning, fettering, tmoldering, twielding, bending, 10. Thou hast it. At thy bidding, men have crowded, And minstrel-minds, without a blush, have +shrouded, 11. Who will believe-not I-for in deceiving Lies the dear charm of life's delightful dream; That all things beautiful are what they seem: 12. Who would believe, that, with a smile whose blessing Would, like the +patriarch's, soothe a dying hour; With voice as low, as gentle, as +caressing, As e'er won maiden's lip in moonlight bower; 1 Cœur de Lion, (pro. Keur de Lee-on,) lion-hearted, a name given to Richard I, of England. |