"Yes, yes,—I see our nation bends;
"The gods no longer are our friends;—
"But why these weak complaints and sighs?
"Are there not gardens in the west,
"Where all our far-famed Sachems rest?—
"I'll go, an unexpected guest,
"And the dark horrors of the way despise.
"Even now the thundering peals draw nigh,
"'Tis theirs to triumph, ours to die!
"But mark me, Christian, ere I go—
"Thou, too, shalt have thy share of woe;
"The time rolls on, not moving slow,
"When hostile squadrons for your blood shall come,
"And ravage all your shore!
"Your warriors and your children slay,
"And some in dismal dungeons lay,
"Or lead them captive far away
"To climes unknown, through seas untried before.
"When struggling long, at last with pain
"You break a cruel tyrant's chain,
"That never shall be joined again,
"When half your foes are homeward fled,
"And hosts on hosts in triumph led,
"And hundreds maimed and thousands dead,
"A sordid race will then succeed,
"To slight the virtues of the firmer race,
"That brought your tyrant to disgrace,
"Shall give your honours to an odious train,
"Who shunned all conflicts on the main
"And dared no battles on the bloody plain,
"Whose little souls sunk in the gloomy day
"When virtue only could support the fray
"And sunshine friends kept off—or ran away."
So spoke the chief, and raised his funeral pyre—
Around him soon the crackling flames ascend;
He smiled amid the fervours of the fire
To think his troubles were so near their end,
'Till the freed soul, her debt to nature paid,
Rose from the ashes that her prison made,
And sought the world unknown, and dark oblivion's shade.
[208] Published in the Freeman's Journal, December 11, 1782.
Tammany was an Indian chieftain of the Lenni Lennape Confederacy of New York and Pennsylvania during the early colonial era. There is a tradition that he was the first Indian to welcome William Penn to America. Some traditions locate his lodge near the present site of Princeton College and others make him end his long life near a spring in Bucks county, Pa. He figures in Cooper's novel, "The Last of the Mohicans."