Alas! Poor luckless nation, thou art dead
At last! And death ne'er came 'neath brighter bows
Of flattering hope; upon thine ancient head
Hath late-time treason dealt its treacherous blows.
When out the watery chaos rose the land
And built this continent thy venturous foe
Were first to tread the new-born world; a hand
Divine had given it thee thy restful seat.
Here with thy God, without such wars as tore
The entrails out of cultured Rome and Greece,
Thou didst abide ten thousand years or more,
Thy wants by Him supplied, in halcyon peace
But then came Art, in rouge and ribbons dressed,
The scourge of woe, borne on the winged hours,
And squat upon thine own salubrious west,
Bred pestilence and rot within thy bowers.
Smit by the blast of her contagious breath
Thy children fell in armies at thy side;
And struggling in the grip of a strange death,
Exclaimed, " O white man! " closed their eyes, and died.
Came also Might, the adjutant of Art,
Wrenched off the hinges from the joints of truth,
And tore its system into shreds apart —
Repealed, in short, the moral code, forsooth.
Then first it was, that on thy peaceful plains
The roar of onset and the saber's gleam,
Began — but hold! humanity refrains,
And genius cannot paint a dying scream.
Thus rotting Pestilence, and Art, and Might,
In moonlight orgies o'er thy children's bones,
To honor civilization, hands unite
And dance the music of their dying groans
'Twas civ'lization, (said to be,) at work,
To proselyte thy sons to ways of grace;
With savage means, the rifle, sword and drink,
To slaughter night, that day might have a place
And so, indeed, they made the day to shine
Upon thy callow brood, and with the light
Awoke those works of greed that always twine
In breasts exposed to suns too strangely bright
Thy sons, touched by these strange transforming rays,
Withdrew their love; to " end the strife, "
They said, they aped the white man's heartless ways,
And tore the breast that nursed them into life.
Dear Cherokee nation, with the right to live,
Art dead and gone; thy life was meanly priced;
Thy room to civilization hadst to give,
And so did Socrates and Jesus Christ.
At last! And death ne'er came 'neath brighter bows
Of flattering hope; upon thine ancient head
Hath late-time treason dealt its treacherous blows.
When out the watery chaos rose the land
And built this continent thy venturous foe
Were first to tread the new-born world; a hand
Divine had given it thee thy restful seat.
Here with thy God, without such wars as tore
The entrails out of cultured Rome and Greece,
Thou didst abide ten thousand years or more,
Thy wants by Him supplied, in halcyon peace
But then came Art, in rouge and ribbons dressed,
The scourge of woe, borne on the winged hours,
And squat upon thine own salubrious west,
Bred pestilence and rot within thy bowers.
Smit by the blast of her contagious breath
Thy children fell in armies at thy side;
And struggling in the grip of a strange death,
Exclaimed, " O white man! " closed their eyes, and died.
Came also Might, the adjutant of Art,
Wrenched off the hinges from the joints of truth,
And tore its system into shreds apart —
Repealed, in short, the moral code, forsooth.
Then first it was, that on thy peaceful plains
The roar of onset and the saber's gleam,
Began — but hold! humanity refrains,
And genius cannot paint a dying scream.
Thus rotting Pestilence, and Art, and Might,
In moonlight orgies o'er thy children's bones,
To honor civilization, hands unite
And dance the music of their dying groans
'Twas civ'lization, (said to be,) at work,
To proselyte thy sons to ways of grace;
With savage means, the rifle, sword and drink,
To slaughter night, that day might have a place
And so, indeed, they made the day to shine
Upon thy callow brood, and with the light
Awoke those works of greed that always twine
In breasts exposed to suns too strangely bright
Thy sons, touched by these strange transforming rays,
Withdrew their love; to " end the strife, "
They said, they aped the white man's heartless ways,
And tore the breast that nursed them into life.
Dear Cherokee nation, with the right to live,
Art dead and gone; thy life was meanly priced;
Thy room to civilization hadst to give,
And so did Socrates and Jesus Christ.