Classic Poem

What heavy-hoofed coursers the wilderness roam,
To the war-blast indignantly tramping?
Their mouths are all white, as if frosted with foam,
The steel bit impatiently champing.

'T is the hand of the mighty that grasps the rein,
Conducting the free and the fearless.
Ah! see them rush forward, with wild disdain,
Through paths unfrequented and cheerless.

From the mountains had echoed the charge of death,
Announcing that chivalrous sally;
The savage was heard, with untrembling breath,
To pour his response from the valley.

One moment, and nought but the bugle was heard,
And nought but the war-whoop given;
The next, and the sky seemed convulsively stirred,
As if by the lightning riven.

The din of the steed, and the sabred stroke,
The blood-stifled gasp of the dying,
Were screened by the curling sulphur-smoke,
That upward went wildly flying.

In the mist that hung over the field of blood,
The chief of the horsemen contended;
His rowels were bathed in purple flood,
That fast from his charger descended.

That steed reeled, and fell, in the van of the fight,
But the rider repressed not his daring,
Till met by a savage, whose rank and might
Were shown by the plume he was wearing.

The moment was fearful; a mightier foe
Had ne'er swung the battle-axe o'er him;
But hope nerved his arm for a desperate blow,
And Tecumseh fell prostrate before him.

O ne'er may the nations again be cursed
With conflict so dark and appalling! —
Foe grappled with foe, till the life-blood burst
From their agonized bosoms in falling.

Gloom, silence, and solitude rest on the spot
Where the hopes of the red man perished;
But the fame of the hero who fell shall not,
By the virtuous, cease to be cherished.

He fought, in defence of his kindred and king,
With a spirit most loving and loyal.
And long shall the Indian warrior sing
The deeds of Tecumseh the royal.

The lightning of intellect flashed from his eye,
In his arm slept the force of the thunder,
But the bolt passed the suppliant harmlessly by,
And left the freed captive to wonder.

Above, near the path of the pilgrim, he sleeps,
With a rudely built tumulus o'er him;
And the bright-bosomed Thames, in his majesty, sweeps,
By the mound where his followers bore him.