Classic Poem

Like the shadows in the stream;
Like the evanescent gleam,
Of the twilight's failing blaze;
Like the fleeting years, and days,
Like all things that soon decay,
Pass the Indian Tribes away.

Indian Son! and Indian Sire!
Lo! the embers of your fire,
On the wigwam hearth burn low;
Never to revive its glow.
And the Indian's heart, is ailing,
And the Indian's blood is failing.

Now the hunter's bow's unbent
And his arrows are all spent!
Like a very little child,
Is the Red Man of the Wild!
To his day there 'll dawn no morrow —
Therefore, he is full of sorow.

From his hills the stag is fled,
And the fallow-deer are dead;
And the wild beasts of the chase
Are a lost and perished race;
And the birds have left the mountain.
And the fishes, the clear fountain.

Indian woman! to thy breast,
Closer let thy babe be prest,
For thy garb is thin, and old;
And the winter wind is cold,
On thy homeless head it dashes,
Round thee the grim lightning flashes.

We! the rightful lords of yore
Are the rightful lords, no more;
Like the silver mist we fail,
Like the red leaves, in the gale,
Fail like shadows, when the dawning
Waves the bright flag of the Morning.

By the river's lonely marge
Rotting is the Indian barge;
And his hut is ruined now,
On the rocky mountain brow:
And no more the Indian's story
Shall be one of War and Glory!

Therefore, Indian People! flee
To the farthest Western Sea,
Let us yield our pleasant land,
To the Stranger's stronger hand;
We, and our broad lands must sever,
We forsake them, — and forever!