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THE BROKEN ARROW.
And repine for the Chief, ye shall witness no more,
Let the hatchet of fight still unburied remain,
Whilst we joy in the glory of him that is slain.
Yet mild as the dove, when untempted to smite,
His arm was resistless, his tomahawk true,
And his eye, like the eagle's, was lightning to view.
I heard the deep voice of the Wolf on the hill;
“And hark,” said the Chief, as it echoed below,
“Tis the voice of Menawe, the cry of my foe!
“Whilst the day-god can offer one streak of his light,
He seeks to perform what he trembles to do!
His eye glow'd as proud as his bosom was great;
I heard the flint strike on the steel, but in vain,
For I heard not the rifle re-echo again!
The remnant of life o'er the fields we have won,
But a mournful farewell to our fruit-trees
That their fruit-trees, should seem an object of regret at parting, when there were other, and more powerful motives for grief, may seem in our eyes absurd; yet I have good reason for the line. Of the Plum they are passionately fond. I have ridden for an hour under one continued orchard, that fringed the road.
They o'ershadow our fathers, they shelter the brave!
And the red-deer is found in the valley he loves;
Our hearts shall be glad in the hunt once again,
'Till the white man shall seek for the lands that remain.
This is literal; I observed to an old Chief of the Mackintosh party, on reading to him the articles of the late treaty which was received while I was in the Nation, that he would find good hunting grounds in the west—plenty of buffalo, deer, &c. “Ah!” said he, “after a momentary brightening of countenance at the intelligence; yet when we get good settled there, and the pipe smoke well, whiteman will want more land.” This needs no comment.
Still leaves a deep lustre abroad in the skies;
Where the hunter may roam and his woman may rove,
And the white man not blight, what he cannot improve.
To the Chief, o'er whose grave still his warriors must grieve;
He died as a hero, and equall'd by few,
Himself his worst foe, to the white-man too true.
Where the red-deer will bound at the glance of an eye;
Yet, lonely the song of our parting be sung,
For the arrow is broken, the bow is unstrung!
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