Lyrical and other poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

Ye warriors, who gather the brave to deplore,
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.

Unbounded in soul, as unfearing in fight,
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.

Far down in the valley, when ev'ning was still,
I heard the deep voice of the Wolf

Mad Wolf—This Chief was the one who shot Mackintosh, exclaiming to him, to die by the laws he had himself made.

on the hill;
“And hark,” said the Chief, as it echoed below,
“Tis the voice of Menawe,

This was the Chief, who commanded the party, about two hundred, who went in pursuit of Mackintosh.

the cry of my foe!

“He comes not, the coward, to mingle in fight,
“Whilst the day-god can offer one streak of his light,

But in darkness that emblems his bosom's own hue,
He seeks to perform what he trembles to do!

The Chief took his rifle, unerring as fate,
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!

This is but partially true. Mackintosh did attempt a defence, but his aim, and not his rifle, was defective.

Go, sigh not away as the coward has done,
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.

we'll leave;
They o'ershadow our fathers, they shelter the brave!

Farther west! farther west! where the Buffalo roves,
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.

Farther west! farther west! where the sun as he dies
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.

One song of regret to the wilds that we leave,
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.

Farther west, Farther west, it is meet that we fly
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!

University of Virginia Library

THE BROKEN ARROW. This term is figuratively applied to the Indian Chief, Mackintosh, whose adherents were the inhabitants of a section of the Creek nation, which bears this name.

THE BROKEN ARROW.

This term is figuratively applied to the Indian Chief, Mackintosh, whose adherents were the inhabitants of a section of the Creek nation, which bears this name.