Expression: Talk with your teacher about these three poems, and the proper manner of reading each. Learn all that you can about their authors.
THE INDIAN[53]
Think of the country for which the Indians fought! Who can blame them? As Philip looked down from his seat on Mount Hope and beheld the lovely scene which spread beneath at a summer sunset,—the distant hilltops blazing with gold, the slanting beams streaming across the waters, the broad plains, the island groups, the majestic forests,—could he be blamed, if his heart burned within him, as he beheld it all passing, by no tardy process, from beneath his control, into the hands of the stranger?
As the river chieftains—the lords of the waterfalls and the mountains—ranged this lovely valley, can it be wondered at, if they beheld with bitterness the forest disappearing beneath the settler's ax—the fishing places disturbed by his sawmills?
Can we not imagine the feelings, with which some strong-minded savage chief, who should have ascended the summit of the Sugarloaf Mountain, in company with a friendly settler, contemplating the progress already made by the white man and marking the gigantic strides with which he was advancing into the wilderness, should fold his arms, and say:—
"White man, there is an eternal war between me and thee. I quit not the land of my fathers, but with my life. In those woods where I bent my youthful bow, I will still hunt the deer; over yonder waters I will still glide unrestrained in my bark canoe; by those dashing waterfalls I will still lay up my winter's store of food; on these fertile meadows I will still plant my corn.
"Stranger! the land is mine. I understand not these paper rights. I gave not my consent, when, as thou sayest, these broad regions were purchased, for a few baubles, of my fathers. They could sell what was theirs; they could sell no more. How could my father sell that which the Great Spirit sent me into the world to live upon? He knew not what he did.
"The stranger came, a timid suppliant; he asked to lie down on the red man's bearskin, and warm himself at the red man's fire, and have a little piece of land to raise corn for his women and children. Now he is become strong and mighty and bold, and spreads out his parchment over the whole, and says, 'It is mine!'
"Stranger, there is no room for us both. The Great Spirit has not made us to live together. There is poison in the white man's cup; the white man's dog barks at the red man's heels.