Claiming the soil for thy hunting grounds, while down-trodden millions Starve in the garrets of Europe, and cry from its caverns that they, too, Have been created heirs of the earth, and claim its division ! Back, then, back to thy woods in the regions west of the Wabash! There as a monarch thou reignest. In autumn the leaves of the maple Pave the floors of thy palace halls with gold, and in summer Pine-trees waft through its chambers the odorous breath of their branches. There thou art strong and great, a hero, a tamer of horses! There thou chasest the stately stag on the banks of the Elkhorn. Or by the roar of the Running-Water, or where the Omawhaw Calls thee, and leaps through the wild ravine like a brave of the Blackfeet! Hark! what murmurs arise from the heart of those mountainous deserts ? Is it the cry of the foxes and crows, or the mighty Behemoth, Who, unharmed, on his tusks once caught the bolts of the thunder, And now lurks in his lair to destroy the race of the red man? Far more fatal to thee and thy race than the crows and the foxes, Far more fatal to thee and thy race than the tread of Behemoth, Lo the big thunder-canoe, that steadily breasts the Missouri's Merciless current! and yonder, afar on the prairies, the campfires Gleam through the night; and the cloud of dust in the gray of the daybreak Marks not the buffalo's track, nor the Mandan's dexterous horse-race e; It is a caravan, whitening the desert where dwell the Camanches! Ha! how the breath of those Saxons and Celts, like the blast of the east-wind, Drifts evermore to the west the scanty smokes of thy wigwams! CARILLON. IN the ancient town of Bruges, Then, with deep sonorous clangour Save that footsteps here and there my But amid broken slumbers And I thought how like these chimes Are the poet's airy rhymes, All his rhymes and roundelays, Scattered downward, though in vain, Yet perchance a sleepless wight, When the dusk and hush of night Of daylight, and its toil and strife, Till he hears, or dreams he hears, Thoughts that he has cherished long; |