The Downing legends : Stories in Rhyme :: :: University of Virginia Library

I am of Wampanoag race;
I come of many sagamores.
My fathers saw the white man's face.
And gave it welcome to their shores.
They welcomed it, and where are they?
Who was it trampled them to clay?

113

I bear the blood of Metacom,
The chief of Wampanoag chiefs.
He struck to save his forest home,
He struck at insolence and griefs.
Aye, who forgot his father's name,
And broke his brother's heart with shame?

He filled New England earth with graves;
He filled New England air with fire;
He slew a thousand paleface braves;
Slew child and mother with the sire;
He paid the blood-debt every whit,
And I am glad to think of it.

Where are the warriors of my clan?
They sleep as sleep the valiant dead.
There was no Wampanoag man
But fell with hatchet dripping red.
Your longknives heard their dying groans;
Your ploughshares grate among their bones.

They left to me what freemen could
Who perished for their homes in vain;
They left a heritage of blood,
Of vengeance crazing heart and brain;
A mission to avenge their fate,
A deathless heritage of hate.

114

But now my lifelong task is done,
For I have reached the further West,
The ocean of the setting sun,
Where all our homeless tribes will rest,
Will halt beside the pathless deep
And sing their funeral songs, and sleep.

Thank Heaven! the paleface cannot save!
He cannot put aside my hour.
I would not live to be a slave,
Nor even honored in his power.
I come, O Metacom, to thee,
As fits a Wampanoag, free!

She ended here her funeral chant,
And while her captor harkened still,
She rose and threw herself aslant
So quick he could not check her will—
So quick he hardly drew a breath
Before she passed the gate of death.

The Indian name of King Philip. His elder brother, imprisoned in profound peace by the settlers, died of humiliation. His wife and son were sold into slavery in the West Indies.