The Wyandott

Where fair Ohio rolls her tide,
     To bear with chainless motion
The rills that dance on green hill side,
     Unceasing towards the ocean’;
A rugged pole, its wall of rock,
     Sublime in heaven hath lifted,
Heaved by the angry earthquake-shock,
     Rough, jagged, thunder-rifted.

Upon its summit grey and bare,
     A dusky Chief ascended,
One long, black lock of streaming hair
     Above his forehead bended.
The bravest of the brave was he,
     Among the forest rangers;
His warriors fell by treachery, 
     Before the lily strangers.
Above him was the heaven of blue.
     Spread out in calm expansion;
Around, as far as eye could view,
     Smiled many a sunny mansion:

Beneath his feet, with ceaseless flow, 
     Rolled on the chainless river;
And gaily rushing to and fro
     The light barks glided ever;
The fire canoe dashed proudly by, 
     With joyous billows playing ;
Its bot breath, on the darkening sky, 
     In folding vapor swaying.
Awhile, on heaven and earth and flood,
     The Indian's dark eye rested
As stern as when, in field of blood, 
     The battle shock he breasted.

He spoke :—and kindled fierce that eye, 
     Beneath its jetty lashes,
Like lightning on a midnight sky, 
     In quick and vivid flashes.
"The Indian's curse," he said, "be on 
     The home of the marauders;
My last, abiding mansion
     Rest heavy on their borders!
Like leaves before the kindled flame,
     Our warriors have departed,
Since first the cruel pale-face came—
     So foul and treacherous-hearted:
Our council-fires are quenched:—their smoke
     Went curling up to heaven
To feed the cloud by whose red stroke
     This land shall yet be riven:
And where our hunters chased the deer, 
     And through the thicket bounded, 
The naked hills, their summits rear, 
     By whited homes surrounded:
And where for right, in fiercest fray, 
     The warrior's life was yielded,
The children of the white man play;
     And there their homes are builded.

Oh fast, before the cruel blow, 
     Our glory fell in sunder,
Like leaves in tempest torn-laid low, 
     Before the the ‘Yengees' thunder:’
The scattered tribes, on all our hills, 
     Like savage wolves were slaughtered;
Red ran a hundred rushing rills,
     That erst the wild deer watered:
And not an arm is left to raise 
     The tomahawk in terror,
Or wing to foeman's heart, through blaze 
     Of burning homes, — the arrow.
The forest trees are shorn away;
     Our fathers' graves deserted;
The stricken deer have fallen a prey, 
     And, like our tribes, departed:
And as the blasted leaves, that on 
     The winter-oak are waving,
Our few, when all beside are gone,
     The storms of life are braving.

But oh! I may not, cannot, stay,
     Where all I knew are changing;
My spirit longs to be away,
     In some blest forest ranging:
I know there is a better land
     Where the Great Spirit dwelleth;
Where fiercely from the airy band,
     The hinter’s shouting swelleth.
The way is fark before the Chief,
     But he is brave and fearless;
His heart is strong, nor melts at grief,—
     His eye is ever tearless
Ye dwellers of that land! — I come,
     Scarred in a hundred slaughters:—
My curse is on the spoiler’s home:
     My grave, beneath the waters.”

He ceased:—Upon his lip, the while,
     A bitter smile was curling:
A fearless leap—and down that pile,
     His giant form went whirling.
One yell rang fiercely on the air,
     With sound of waters blended:—
The eddying waves alone told where
     The Wyandott descended!