An Ode Pronounced Before the Inhabitants of Boston, September the Seventeenth, 1830 | Page 3

in prayer;
Through
boundless woods he loved to roam,
And the Great Spirit worshipped
there:
But one, one fellow-throb with us he felt;
To one divinity
with us he knelt;
Freedom, the self-same freedom we adore,
Bade
him defend his violated shore;
He saw the cloud, ordained to grow,
And burst upon his hills in wo;

He saw his people withering by,
Beneath the invader's evil eye;

Strange feet were trampling on his fathers' bones;
At midnight hour he woke to gaze
Upon his happy cabin's blaze,

And listen to his children's dying groans:
He saw--and maddening at the sight,
Gave his bold bosom to the fight;

To tiger rage his soul was driven,
Mercy was not--nor sought nor
given;
The pale man from his lands must fly;
He would be free--or
he would die.

XVI.
And was this savage? say,
Ye ancient few,
Who struggled through

Young freedom's trial-day--
What first your sleeping wrath awoke?

On your own shores war's larum broke:
What turned to gall even
kindred blood?
Round your own homes the oppressor stood:
This
every warm affection chilled,
This every heart with vengeance
thrilled,
And strengthened every hand;
From mound to mound,

The word went round--
"Death for our native land!"
XVII.
Ye mothers, too, breathe ye no sigh,
For them who thus could dare to
die?
Are all your own dark hours forgot,
Of soul-sick suffering here?

Your pangs, as from yon mountain spot,
Death spoke in every
booming shot,
That knelled upon your ear?
How oft that gloomy,
glorious tale ye tell,
As round your knees your children's children
hang,
Of them, the gallant Ones, ye loved so well,
Who to the
conflict for their country sprang.
In pride, in all the pride of wo,
Ye tell of them, the brave laid low,

Who for their birthplace bled;
In pride, the pride of triumph then,

Ye tell of them, the matchless men,
From whom the invaders fled!
XVIII.
And ye, this holy place who throng,
The annual theme to hear,
And
bid the exulting song
Sound their great names from year to year;
Ye,
who invoke the chisel's breathing grace,
In marble majesty their
forms to trace;
Ye, who the sleeping rocks would raise,
To guard their dust and
speak their praise;
Ye, who, should some other band
With hostile
foot defile the land,
Feel that ye like them would wake,
Like them
the yoke of bondage break,

Nor leave a battle-blade undrawn,


Though every hill a sepulchre should yawn--
Say, have not ye one line for those,
One brother-line to spare,
Who
rose but as your Fathers rose,
And dared as ye would dare?
XIX.
Alas! for them--their day is o'er,
Their fires are out from hill and
shore;
No more for them the wild deer bounds,
The plough is on
their hunting grounds;
The pale man's axe rings through their woods,

The pale man's sail skims o'er their floods,
Their pleasant springs
are dry;
Their children--look, by power oppressed,
Beyond the
mountains of the west,
Their children go--to die.
XX.
O doubly lost! oblivion's shadows close
Around their triumphs and their woes.
On other realms, whose suns
have set,
Reflected radiance lingers yet;
There sage and bard have
shed a light
That never shall go down in night;
There time-crowned
columns stand on high,
To tell of them who cannot die;
Even we,
who then were nothing, kneel
In homage there, and join earth's
general peal.
But the doomed Indian leaves behind no trace,
To
save his own, or serve another race;
With his frail breath his power
has passed away,
His deeds, his thoughts are buried with his clay;
Nor lofty pile, nor glowing page
Shall link him to a future age,
Or
give him with the past a rank:
His heraldry is but a broken bow,
His
history but a tale of wrong and wo,
His very name must be a blank.
XXI.
Cold, with the beast he slew, he sleeps;
O'er him no filial spirit weeps;


No crowds throng round, no anthem-notes ascend,
To bless his
coming and embalm his end;
Even that he lived, is for his conqueror's
tongue,
By foes alone his death-song must be sung;
No chronicles but theirs shall tell
His mournful doom to future times;

May these upon his virtues dwell,
And in his fate forget his crimes.
XXII.
Peace to the mingling dead!
Beneath the turf we tread,
Chief,
Pilgrim, Patriot sleep--
All gone! how changed! and yet the same,

As when faith's herald bark first came
In sorrow o'er the deep.
Still
from his noonday height,
The sun looks down in light;
Along the
trackless realms of space,
The stars still run their midnight race;

The same green valleys smile, the same rough shore
Still echoes to
the same wild ocean's roar:--
But where the bristling night-wolf sprang
Upon his startled prey,

Where the fierce Indian's war-cry rang,
Through many a bloody fray;

And where the stern old Pilgrim prayed
In solitude and gloom,

Where the bold Patriot drew his blade,
And dared a patriot's doom--

Behold! in liberty's unclouded blaze,
We lift our heads, a race of
other days.
XXIII.
All gone! the wild beast's lair is trodden out;
Proud temples stand in beauty there;
Our children raise their merry
shout,
Where once the death-whoop vexed the air:
The
Pilgrim--seek yon ancient place of graves,
Beneath that chapel's holy shade;
Ask, where the breeze the long
grass waves,
Who, who within that spot are laid:
The Patriot--go, to
fame's proud mount