The poetical works of William H. C. Hosmer

Oh! what secrets are revealed
In this ancient battle-field;
Round are scattered skull and bone,
Into light by workmen thrown
Who across this valley fair
For the train a way prepare.
Pictures brighten thick and fast
On the mirror of the past;
To poetic vision plain
Plume and banner float again—
Round are mangled bodies lying,
Some at rest, and others dying—
Thus the Swan-ne-ho-ont greet
Those who plant invading feet
On the chase-ground where their sires
Long have kindled council-fires.
Fragments of the deadly brand,
Lying in the yellow sand,
With the “fleur de lis” to tell
Of the Frank who clenched it well,
When his race encountered here
Tameless chasers of the deer;
Arrow-head and hatchet-blade,
War-club broken and decayed,

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Belts in part resolved to dust,
Gun-locks red with gnawing rust,—
While the buried years awake
Eloquent narration make.
Other sounds than pick and spade,
When this valley lay in shade,
Ringing on the summer air
Scared the panther from his lair;
Other sounds than axe and bar,
Pathway building for the car,
Buzzing saw, or hammer-stroke,
Echo wild from slumber woke,
When new France her lilies pale
Here unfolded to the gale—
Rifle-crack and musket-peal,
Whiz of shaft and clash of steel—
Painted forms from cover leaping,
Crimson swaths through foemen reaping,
While replied each savage throat
To the rallying bugle-note,
With a wolf-howl, long and loud,
That the stoutest veteran cowed,
Mingled in one fearful din
Where these graves are crumbling in.
Busy actors in the fray
Were their tenants on that day;
But each name, forgotten long,
Cannot woven be in song.
They had wives, perchance, who kept
Weary watch for them, and wept
Bitter tears at last to learn
They would never more return;
And, perchance, in hut and hall
Childless mothers mourned their fall.
In a vain attempt they died
To bring low Na-do-wa pride,

240

And extend the Bourbon's reign
O'er this broad and bright domain.
When the whirlwind of the fight
Sunk into a whisper light,
Rudely opened was the mould
For their bodies stiff and cold:
Brush and leaves were loosely piled
On their grave-couch in the wild,
That their place of rest the foe,
Drunk with blood, might never know.
When the settler for his hearth
Cleared a spot of virgin earth;
And its smoke-thread, on the breeze,
Curled above the forest trees,
Nor memorial-sign, nor mound
Told that this was burial-ground.
Since this bank received its dead,
Now unroofed to startle sight,
With its skeletons all white,
More than eight score years have fled.
Gather them with pious care,—
Let them not lie mouldering there,
Crushed beneath the grinding wheel,
And the laborer's heavy heel.
Ah! this fractured skull of man
Nursed a brain once quick to plan,
And these ribs that round me lie
Hearts enclosed that once beat high.
Here they fought, and here they fell,
Battle's roar their only knell,
And the soil that drank their gore
Should embrace the brave once more

241

TRIBES OF THE LEAGUE.

The wheat grows tall on their old, forgotten graves—
The meadows are spotted with flowers;
The dark, green corn in its bladed beauty waves
Where their fires burned bright in other hours.
Though pale men dwell in their pleasant valleys green,
And hushed is the hunter's halloo;
Now and then their bones in the furrows may be seen—
To the Tribes of the League sing adieu.
Though in dust the mighty
Long have slumbered on,
I will chant one stave for the Romans of the West,
For the Romans of the West, dead and gone.

They dance no more when the corn is in the ear,
Or the moon of the harvest is bright—
They hunt no more for the panther and the deer,
In the land that was won by their might.
Tho' crushed a race that were dauntless in the fight,
And broken their arrows so true,
Their glory fled like a shadow of the night—
To the Tribes of the League sing adieu.
Though in dust the mighty
Long have slumbered on,
I will chant one stave for the Romans of the West,
For the Romans of the West, dead and gone.

They walked as lords on the soil of hilly Maine,
And the shore of the Father of Lakes,
Red war-paths trod where the Cherokee held reign—
But the morn for them vainly awakes.

242

Their legends cling to the river and the vale,
And our hills, with their mantles of blue—
Then, Bard, fling out, like a leaf upon the gale,
To the bold Iroquois an adieu.
Though in dust the mighty
Long have slumbered on,
I will chant one stave for the Romans of the West,
For the Romans of the West, dead and gone.

243

MENOMINEE DIRGE.

We bear the dead—we bear the dead,
In robes of the otter habited,
From the quiet depths of the greenwood shade,
To her lonely couch on the hill-top made.
There, there the sun when dies the day
Flings mournfully his parting ray—
In vain the winds lift her tresses black,
Ke-ton-ee-mi-coo, Wa-was-te-nac!

When ploughs tear up the forest floor,
And hunters follow the deer no more,
When the red man's council-hearth is cold,
His glory, like a tale that's told,
Spare, white man! spare one oak to wave
Its bough above the maiden's grave,
And the dead will send a blessing back—
Ke-ton-ee-mi-coo, Wa-was-te-nac!

Another race are building fires
Above the bones of our buried sires—
Soon will the homes of our people be
Far from the bright Menominee;
But yearly to yon burial-place,
Some mourning band of our luckless race
To smooth the turf will wander back—
Ke-ton-ee-mi-coo, Wa-was-te-nac!

On the wafting winds of yesternight,
The soul of our peerless one took flight,
She heard a voice from the clime of souls,
Sweeter than lays of orioles,
Say—“Come to that bright and blissful land
Where death waves not his skeleton hand,
Where the sky with storm is never black”—
Ke-ton-ee-mi-coo, Wa-was-te-nac!

Translation—Flower, farewell.

244

LAMENT FOR SA-SA-NA.

“I dare not trust a larger lay,
But rather loosen from the lip
Short swallow-flights of song, that dip
Their wings in tears.”
Tennyson

When hearts all joy, and cheeks all bloom,
The Parcæ mark for an early doom,
And ties are clipped by their cruel shears
That bound us to the young in years—
His dirge in vain the Poet sings,
Waking the wildly-wailing strings;
For the tearless silence of despair,
Not words, can loss so dread declare.

Though sad to witness, day by day,
Our loved ones waste with slow decay,
While the features warm with a hectic glow,
More bright than Painting will ever know—
Thrice mournful is the stroke of fate,
Leaving us wholly desolate,
That falls, unheralded, to sever
An idol from our souls forever.

Though mine is not a practiced ear,
Oh! how I loved her song to hear:—
Her teachers were the tuneful rills
And airy voices from the hills;
The lay she breathed was nature's own,
Melting the soul with its liquid tone,
And caught from water-fall and bird
Were notes by the spell-bound listener heard.

245

Her large, black eye was ever bright
With flashes of electric light,
And her cheek with a glowing sunset red
Like summer twilight, overspread.
The shade of woods was in her hair,
The blue-bell's grace in her queenly air,
And the proudest, willing homage paid
To the matchless charms of the Mohawk maid.

Ah! gathered was this Rose of ours
When life was in its moon of flowers,
Ere canker soiled one tender leaf,
Or frost had done the work of grief:
She perished, like some worthless weed,
In the track of the white man's iron steed;
And strangers in the tomb have laid
The crushed remains of the Mohawk maid.

Poor, widowed mother of the dead!
Thou wilt hear no more her bounding tread,
But let one soothing thought control
The grief that rends thy tortured soul.
When sang of Heaven thy forest-child,
What transport breathed in each wood-note wild;
The path of a blameless life she trod,
And the pure in thought shall look on God.

Let velvet-moss o'er the slumberer creep
Where the bones of her red forefathers sleep,
And the spot be marked with no other sign
Than some old familiar oak, or pine:—
Better a quiet place of rest,
With the turf of home upon her breast,
Than the proudest tomb that trophied art
Could build to cover her mouldering heart.

246

RED JACKET.

WRITTEN ON BEING PRESENTED BY A LADY WITH A WILD FLOWER THAT GREW ON HIS GRAVE NEAR BUFFALO.

Thanks to the genii of the flowers
Who planted on his humble tomb,
And nursed, with sun and pleasant showers,
This herb of faded bloom!
And, lady fair, my thanks to thee,
For bringing this frail gift to me.
Although it cannot match in dye
The velvet drapery of the rose,
Or the bright tulip-cup that glows
Like summer's evening sky:

It hath a power to wake the dead—
A spell is in its dying leaf
To summon from his funeral bed
The mighty forest-chief.
Realms that his fathers ruled of yore—
Earth that their children own no more,
His melancholy glance beholds;
And tearless though his falcon eye,
His bosom heaves with agony
Beneath its blanket-folds.

Within the council-lodge again
I hear his voice the silence breaking,
Soft as the music of the main,
When not a wind is waking;
With touching pathos in his tone
He mourns for days of glory flown,

247

When lay in shade both hill and glen,
Ere, panoplied and armed for slaughter,
The big canoes brought pale-browed men
Over the blue salt water;
When deer and buffalo in droves
Ranged through interminable groves,
And the Great Spirit on his race
Smiled ever with unclouded face.
Now, with a burning tale of wrong,
He wakes to rage the painted throng
And points to violated graves,
While eloquence dilates his form,
And his lip mutters like the storm
When winds unchain the waves;
An hundred scalping-knives are bare—
An hundred hatchets swung in air,
And while the forest Cicero
Lost power portrays and present shame,
Old age forgets his palsied frame,
And grasps again the bow.

Thus, sweet, wild flower of faint perfume!
Thy magic can unlock the tomb,
And forth the gifted sagamore
Call from the shroud with vocal art
To sway the pulses of the heart,
And awe the soul once more;
For on his couch of lowly earth
Thy modest loveliness had birth,
And lightly shook thy blooming head,
When midnight summoned round the place
The kingly spectres of his race
To sorrow for the dead;
And sadly waved thy stem and leaf
When Erie tuned to strains of grief
The hollow voices of the surge,

248

And for that monarch of the shade,
By whom his shore is classic made,
Raised a low, mournful dirge.

The pilgrim from Ausonian clime,
Rich in remains of olden time,
Brings marble relics o'er the deep—
Memorials of deathless mind,
Of hallowed ground where, grandly shrined,
Sage, bard, and warrior sleep;
And precious though such wrecks of yore,
I prize thy gift, sweet lady, more—
Plucked with a reverential hand;
For the old chief, above whose tomb
Its bud gave out a faint perfume,
Was son of my own forest-land,
And with bright records of her fame
Is linked, immortally, his name.

249

THE OLD INDIAN ORCHARD.

I wandered alone on the banks of the river,
And far to my right stretched the meadows away;
Happy birds were in tune, warbling thanks to the Giver
Of every good gift for the bounties of May.
An old Indian Orchard, unpruned and neglected,
Bright blossoms dropped round me in odorous showers;
It flourished before the first settler erected
His cabin of logs in the valley of flowers.

Thick moss, pale adorner of ruin, was clinging
To trunks by the winds of a century bowed,
And tongues not of earth in the branches were singing
Of times ere one furrow by white-man was ploughed.
My limbs were aweary, for far had I rambled,
And rest on the turf of the meadow I found,
While near in the sunshine the gray squirrel gambolled,
And stole forth the fox from his den in the ground.

Composed by the murmur of waves gently flowing,
A slumber stole over me, haunted by dreams;
I thought that around me the forest was growing,
Its floor by the sunlight touched only in gleams;
With organ-like tones its dark canopy trembled,
While timing to low, mournful measures their tread,
The sachems of old in their war-dress assembled,
A shadowy throng from the land of the dead.

“How bitter,” they chanted, “our deep desolation!
The trails that we loved are erased by the plough!
How changed are the wide hunting-grounds of our nation,
The herds of the stranger range over them now!

250

Gone hence are the children to whom we transmitted
Traditions that match the gray mountains in age,
And by, like a vision of midnight, hath flitted
The glory of warrior, sachem and sage.

“We longed, in a land where the leaves never wither,
To visit our ancient and kingly domain,
And, sunset's red portal unfolding, came hither
To look on the scenes of our childhood again.
The river that freshens this valley hath shifted
Its channel, and rolls where it rolled not of yore,
And fallen are dark, solemn oaks that uplifted,
Like sentinels tall, their plumed tops on the shore.

“Old burial-places, once sacred, are plundered,
And thickly with bones is the fallow-field strown;
The bond of confederate tribes has been sundered,
The long council-hall of the brave overthrown.
The Mohawk and Seneca bowmen no longer
Preserve at the door-posts unslumbering guard:
We fought, but the pale-browed invaders were stronger,
Our knife-blades too blunt, and their bosoms too hard.

“Alas! for the heart-broken remnant surviving!
The deeds of their fathers arouse them no more!
His team o'er their hearth-stones the farmer is driving,
Unroofed are their wigwams on Erie's green shore.
Not long round the graves of the dead will they ponder,
A cloud is above them they cannot dispel—
Lo! westward, far westward the homeless must wander,
And land-robbers laugh while they sob out farewell!”

I woke when their lay had the sagamores chanted,
And traced on my tablets each musical word;
Long after that vision my memory haunted;
Long after those wild wailing numbers I heard:
And oft, when the cares of existence oppress me,
To visit the old Indian Orchard I stroll;
The balm-breathing winds there more gently caress me,
With murmur more solemn the dark waters roll.

251

THE SENECA'S RETURN.

“Thy waves, dark rolling Genesee!
Still lave the flowery shore;
To look upon thy rippling tide
I have returned once more;
Thy glassy bosom pictures yet
The sunbeam and the cloud,
Though aged oaks that fringed thy bank,
The ringing axe hath bowed.

“The sun smiles on the meadow green
Once shadowed by the wood,
And domes of beauty crown the hill
Where our rude cabins stood:
Where rang the hunter's call of yore,
And blazed the Council Fire,
The ploughman's whistle shrill is heard,
And skyward points the spire.

“The moss of age has over-crept
Our hallowed altar-stone,
And traces of our former sway
Are gone—forever gone.
The dusky pilot guides no more
His dancing bark-canoe,
And bows of strength are snapped in twam,
From which our arrows flew.

“I visited the burial-place
Where my dead sires reposed;
But, ah! the secrets of the Past
The plough-share had disclosed;

252

And when I saw their naked bones
Lie bleaching on the plain,
The long-sealed fountain of my grief
Gushed forth like summer rain.

“Our dark-eyed maids will nevermore
In pensive twilight hours,
To strew upon their grassy mounds,
Bring emblematic flowers;
Their knives and hatches long ago
Were eaten by the rust,
And strangers tread with careless feet
On their dishonored dust.

“The pale-face long since offered us
The cup with poisoned brim;
Our hearts grew weak with craven throbs—
Our falcon eyes grew dim.
The birthright of our fathers brave
We sold in our despair,
And vanished is their old renown
Like smoke in empty air.

“The waterfall that faintly sends
Its murmur to mine ear,
In solemn language telleth me
The angry dead are near;
And when the winds lift mournfully
The sere, autumnal leaves,
Methinks for his degraded son
My father's spirit grieves.

“To seek the radiant Land of Souls,
It is a fitting hour—
Farewell! old chase-ground of my tribe—
Lost home, and ruined bower!”
One parting glance—a sullen plunge—
The chief was seen no more,
And the dark river glided on
As calmly as before.

253

GRAVE OF THE SACHEM.

On yonder hill, on yonder hill
The Red Chief long ago was laid;
Those hoary oaks, remaining still,
Their boughs above the sleeper braid.
Although no marble rears its head,
Erected by some filial hand,
Like mourners, round his narrow bed
The giants of the forest stand.

When May gives softness to the sky,
And gently waves her locks of gold,
The shadows of the thicket lie
Upon the dark, entombing mould.
When greenest are the twinkling leaves
Anear his silent couch of rest,
The Ji-a-yaik is heard, and weaves
Of velvet moss her little nest.

The oak and maple on his grave
Rich palls of gold and crimson cast,
When solemnly their branches wave,
And tremble in the autumn blast.
When frozen is each crystal spring,
And nature wears a brow of gloom,
The pinions of the tempest fling
Pale snow-wreaths on his lonely tomb.

Ah! where the trophy of the chase,
And hut of bark are lying low,
Rank thistles nod in breezy grace,
And weeds of desolation grow.

254

The Panther of his Tribe again
Will never aim the feathered shaft,
Nor, in the forest conflict, stain
His knife in slaughter to the haft.

In summer, when the world is still,
And twilight clouds are growing dim,
The Gwa-go-ne on yonder hill
Chants oftentimes a fitful hymn;
The nimble chaser of the deer
Lies, darkly blended with the dust;
Beneath the shaded turf his spear,
And dreaded hatchet idly rust.

He sleeps alone!—the light canoe
Is rotting by the weedy shore,
And Indian girls with blossoms strew
The damp, sepulchral clod no more.
Ere long the Bard will seek in vain
Yon mound beneath those mossy trees;
The share of some unthinking swain
Will give its secrets to the breeze.

Seneca for Robin.

Seneca for Whippowil.

255

THUNSERA'S LAMENT.

Here, broken-hearted,
Thunsera makes moan—
All have departed,
She lingers alone.
Fast fall her tears, and warm,
On their old graves—
Round her the beating storm
Fitfully raves.

The scenes of her childhood
How altered are they!
Red sons of the wild wood
Have vanished away.
Oh! once they were stronger
Than pines on the hill—
Their hearts beat no longer,
Their war-shout is still.

Where dome and high steeple
Of pale men are seen,
The oaks of my people
Stood pillar'd and green.
A few, with tops blighted,
Like mourners remain,
From those disunited
Who come not again.

No camp-fire is burning,
The hearth-stone is cold,
And ploughs are upturning
White bones of the bold.

256

Like mist from the river,
When red is the dawn,
Bow, arrow, and quiver,
And hunter are gone.

A bright Isle is lying
Far in the south-west—
The round sun when dying,
Illumines its breast:—
There flowers never wither
Rude winds never blow,
And thither, oh, thither,
Thunsera must go!

257

THE WHITE MAN'S DRUM.

FROM THE INDIAN.

Warriors, with their banners, come—
Hark! I hear the white man's drum;
Oh! it is a sound to make
Fear a coward's heart forsake,
And the Indian loves it well
Though it is his country's knell:
Warriors, with their banners, come—
Hark! I hear the white man's drum.

Thought awakes to pitch sublime,
Though an enemy beats time,
And the music's stormy roll
Rouses daring in my soul—
A wild wish to barter life
For the maddening joy of strife;
Warriors, with their banners, come—
Hark! I hear the white man's drum.

I have heard old ocean's roar
When upheaved were rocks on shore,
Trumpet by the tempest blown
When gray winter ruled alone;
But those sounds could not impart
Joy like this that floods my heart;
Warriors, with their banners, come—
Hark! I hear the white man's drum.

258

SEMINOLE WAR-SONGS.

I.

Our women leave in fear
Their lodges in the shade,
And the dread notes of fray go up
From swamp and everglade.
From ancient coverts scared
Fly doe and bleating fawn,
While the pale robber beats his drum—
On, to the conflict, on!

Shall tomahawk and spear
Be dark with peaceful rust,
While blood is on the funeral mound
That holds ancestral dust?
No!—fiercely from its sheath
Let the keen knife be drawn,
And the dread rifle charged with death!—
On, to the conflict, on!

The ground our fathers trod,
Free as the wind, is ours;
And the red cloud of war shall soak
The land with crimson showers.
Upon our tribe enslaved,
Bright Morn shall never dawn
While arm can strike, or weapon pierce!—
On, to the conflict, on!

259

II.

Fire, famine, and slaughter,
Have wasted our band—
Our life-blood like water
Has moistened the land;
But truly our rifles
The bullet will speed,
While an arm can be lifted—
One bosom can bleed.

The raven is croaking
A dirge for the slain—
Our cabins lie smoking
On prairie and plain;
But paths we will follow
To carnage that lead,
While an arm can be lifted—
One bosom can bleed.

Our old men lie mangled
By wild wolf and bear;
Our babes we have strangled—
Dread act of despair;
And Vengeance will nerve us
To desperate deed,
While an arm can be lifted—
One bosom can bleed.

Pale robbers are swarming
In hammock and vale—
Their squadrons are forming
With flags on the gale:
We dread not their footmen,
Armed rider and steed,
While an arm can be lifted—
One bosom can bleed.

260

BLACK-HAWK'S ADDRESS TO HIS WARRIORS.

Where forest-boughs a shelter made,
Gathered a warlike band,
The moonbeams played on the shining blade
Each carried in his hand.
Though moonbeams played on the shining blade,
No banner flapped its fold,
But the painted streak on each swarthy cheek
Was fearful to behold.

Their chieftain, mutely standing by,
Seemed born to be obeyed,
And his heart beat high, as his flashing eye
The wild, fierce band survey'd.
His heart beat high, fierce flashed his eye,
When thus he them addressed—
The deep tones stirr'd, as soon as heard,
Revenge in every breast.

“Our wildwood fathers, where are they—
Can echo answer make?
Like ocean's spray, they have passed away—
Awake, then, warriors, wake!
My sires, like spray, have passed away,
Their bones are tombless now;
Exposed are they to the light of day,
By the white man's plough.

“The whites our tribe a falsehood told,
Each belted warrior knows:
For we never sold, for paltry gold,
Earth where our dead repose;

261

For paltry gold, we have never sold
The loved land of our birth;
Our grain they waste, where the hut was placed
Remains the roofless hearth.

“Arm, warriors, for the fearful strife,
For hoarded vengeance due;
And let the knife, with the tide of life,
Be dyed of a crimson hue!
Unsheath the knife for deadly strife,
Unused and dull too long,
While round the post a gathering host
Keep time to our battle-song.

“Chiefs! we are summon'd to the fight
By voices from the dead:
When the fall of night shuts out the light,
They rise from their dreamless bed:
When the fall of night shut out the light,
I was afraid, appalled,
For spirits pass'd on the viewless blast,
And for vengeance call'd.

“With blazing homes the night illume,
Sweet is revenge, ye know;
And my sable plume will throw a gloom
Upon the boldest foe:
My raven plume will throw a gloom
When in the breeze it shakes,
And foes must die, while our battle-cry
The infant's slumber breaks.

“Our fathers trod the earth we tread,
Lords of these fertile plains—
No trace is seen that they have been,
But tombless, white remains.
List! for a spirit's voice I hear,

262

The dead upon us call,
To stain the knife, with the tide of life,
To conquer, or to fall.”

The chieftain spoke:—his tameless eye
Around with triumph gazed,
As the painted band, with axe in hand,
The yell of battle raised:
The painted band, with axe in hand,
Prepared for deadly strife,
And each warrior felt, in his beaded belt,
For his keen-edged knife.

University of Virginia Library

INDIAN TRADITIONS AND SONGS.

THE BATTLE-GROUND OF DENONVILLE.