Classic Poem

We stand not where our fathers stood, —
The land they trod is ours no more;
And not a drop of kindred blood
Is flowing on our native shore:
Where'er our vagrant footsteps roam,
We're aliens in a desert home!

In vain may memory dare to trace
The glories of the days of old;
The ancient dwellings of our race,
By which the eternal rivers rolled;
All that our fathers held in fee, —
All that our sons may never see:

The blue majestic hills, that rose
Like thrones for gods to sit upon;
The plains that spread beneath their snows,
Bequeathed from hoary sire to son;
Given, back through countless ages fled,
By nature to the mighty dead:

The forests, lofty as the hills,
And gray beneath a thousand years;
The vales, that gushed with crystal rills,
The fields that glowed with golden ears;
And, dearer than a monarch's throne,
The rude, rude huts that were our own:

The paths, o'er which our bounding feet
Outstripped the deer in headlong race,
The noontide covert's cool retreat,
Familiar as a brother's face, —
Oh, who can love another earth
Like the bright spot that gave him birth?

Ay, the old trees stand tall and gray,
Beneath whose unforgotten shade
The youthful warrior brought his prey,
At evening to his dark-eyed maid;
And every flower that decked her hair
Still blooms in summer beauty there.

But there no more shall chieftain hurl
The shaft of war or sportive lance,
And there no more shall Indian girl
Beneath those verdant arches dance,
Or pluck the flowers, or in the shade
Her feathery chaplet ever braid.

Our fathers held their sires in awe,
But we must bend and sue and seek;
For this, they say, is christian law,
To grind the poor and daunt the weak!
Oh, forest-free the red-bird roams,
But we are slaves in foreign homes.

Not this the tale our sires have told!
And is the eagle spirit fled?
Gone with the fiery hearts of old
To slumber with the mighty dead?
Gone, like the morning's misty breath, —
Gone, with the white man's broken faith?

Oh, better far than thus to go,
Withering and dwindling, day by day,
To venture all upon one blow,
Before our spirits melt away, —
Scorn this dull life of lingering slaves,
And die around our-fathers' graves!