Classic Poem

And art thou come to this at last,
Great Sachem of the forest vast?
E'en thou, who wert so tall in stature,
And model'd in the pride of nature!
High as the deer thou bor'st thy head;
Swift as the roebuck was thy tread;
Thine eye, bright as the orb of day,
In battle a consuming ray!
Tradition links thy name with fear,
And strong men hold their breath to hear
What mighty feats by thee were done—
The battles by thy strong arm won!
The glory of thy tribe wert thou—
But where is all thy glory now?
Where are those orbs, and where that tongue
On which commanding accents hung?
Canst thou do naught but grin and stare
Through hollow sockets—the worms' lair—
And toothless gums all gaping there?
Ah! where's that heart that did imbibe
The wild traditions of thy tribe?
Oft did the song of bards inspire,
And set thy very soul on fire,
Till all thy wild and savage blood
Was rushing like a foaming flood;
And all the wrongs heap'd on thy race
Leapt up like demons in thy face,
As, rushing down upon the plain,
Thou shout'st the war-whoop once again,
And stood'st among thy heaps of slain.
What tho' to thee there did belong
A savage sense of right and wrong,
In that thou wert alike, indeed,
To those who boast a better creed;
Repaid thy wrongs with blood and gall,
And triumph'd in thy rival's fall,
Like any Christian of us all.
Like me, thou hadst thy hopes and fears;
Like me, thou hadst thy smiles and tears;
Felt'st winter's cold and summer's heat;
Didst hunger, and hadst weary feet;
Wert warm'd by kindness, chill'd by hate,
Hadst enemies, like all the great.
Tho' thou wert not in type a dove,
Yet thou hast felt the thrill of love!
Oh, thy Winona, was she fair?
And dark as midnight was her hair?
Thy wigwam, was 't a sacred place?
And dear to thee thy dusky race?
Ah, yes! thy savage imps were dear,
And they would climb thy knees to hear
And drink thy tales with greedy ear.
What tho' a wild, rude life was thine,
Thou still hadst gleams of the divine—
A sense of something undefined—
A Presence, an Almighty mind,
Which led the planets, rock'd the sea,
And through the desert guided thee.
The dark woods all around thee spread;
The leafy curtains overhead;
The great old thunder-stricken pine,
And the cathedral elms divine;
The dismal swamp, the hemlock hoar;
Niag'ra's everlasting roar;
The viewless winds, which rush'd to wake
The spirit of Ontario's lake—
Did not their mighty anthems roll
Through all the caverns of thy soul,
And thrill thee with a sense sublime,
With gleams of that eternal clime
Which stretches over Death and Time?
And oft, like me, thou'dst ask to know
Whence came we, whither do we go?
A marvel 'twas, poor soul, to thee,
As it has ever been to me.
From the unknown we issued out,
With myst'ry compast round about;
Each, with his burden on his back,
To follow in the destin'd track:
With weary feet, to toil and plod,
Through Nature, back to Nature's God.
Mine was the cultivated plain
Thine the leafy green domain;
Thine was a rude, unvarnish'd shrine,
In form thy idols were not mine;
But, ah, mine were as strange to thee
As thine, my brother, are to me!
And yet they differ'd but in name,
And were in truth the very same.
Dreams of the hunting field were thine—
What better are these dreams of mine?
Ah, my red brother, were not we
By accident compell'd to be
Christian or savage? We, indeed,
Alike inherited a creed—
We had no choice what we should be;
Race, country, creed, were forced on thee,
Red brother, as they were on me!
Then why should I have lov'd thee less,
Or closed my heart to thy distress,
Red Rover of the wilderness?
Soon must we go, as thou hast gone,
Away back to the Great Unknown,
Where, elevated above doubt,
We, too, shall find the secret out:
Then may'st thou, the uneducated,
Be found the least contaminated,
From civ'lization's trammels free,
Who knows, poor soul, but thou may'st be
Exalted higher far than we?