LINES,
ON THE DEATH OF CAPT. M. M. DOX,
LATE OF THE UNITED STATES ARMY.
Friend of my youth! whom thoughts of other years, When life was young, and hope was new, endears— Thy solemn change, where all that live must go, Strikes on my heart a salutary woe. Oft have I known thee in the social hour, When mirth and conversation owned thy power, Or, with one heart, we lingered to explore Geneva’s woodlands, or Ontario’s shore; Oft books or men employed the leisure thought, Who wrote most happy, who most gallant fought, Or cogitating plans, left all undone, How fame is earned, or fortune may be won To read, to muse, to meditate, to sigh, We thought of all, but how with faith to die.
Long severed by the varied course of time By lands remote, by fortune, care, and clime, What once, in youth, no terrors could impart, Fate brings with sad sensations to my heart; Hope’s brittle thread is severed at a breath, And all that meets the gazing eye is death.
Arms drew thee forth, when late thy country saw Right raised on arrogance, power stampt as law; But me, erewhile, a wayward fortune drew, Long streams to traverse—boundless plains to view; While now on arts, and now on letters cast, Hope bore me lightsome on the western blast, I but return to honor, with the brave, A friend’s—a patriot’s—and a soldier’s grave.
THE CHIPPEWA GIRL.
They tell me, the men with a white-white face Belong to a purer, nobler race; But why, if they do, and it may be so, Do their tongues cry, “yes”—and their actions, “no?”
They tell me, that white is a heavenly hue, And it may be so, but the sky is blue; And the first of men—as our old men say, Had earth-brown skins, and were made of clay.
But throughout my life, I’ve heard it said, There’s nothing surpasses a tint of red; Oh, the white man’s cheeks look pale and sad, Compared to my beautiful Indian lad.