His sannops were slain by their thunder's power,
And his children fell like the star-eyed flower;
His wigwams were burnt by the white man's flame,
And the home of his youth has a stranger name—
His ancestor once was our countryman's foe,
And the arrow was plac'd in the new-strung bow,
The wild deer ranged through the forest free,
While we fought with his tribe by the distant sea.
But the foe never came to the Mohawk's tent,
With his hair untied, and his bow unbent,
And found not the blood of the wild deer shed,
And the calumet lit and the bear-skin bed.
But sing ye the Death Song, and kindle the pine,
And bid its broad light like his valor to shine;
Then raise high his pile by our warriors' heaps,
And tell to his tribe that his murderer sleeps.
Alonzo Lewis.
OUR COUNTRY
On primal rocks she wrote her name;
Her towers were reared on holy graves;
The golden seed that bore her came
Swift-winged with prayer o'er ocean waves.
The Forest bowed his solemn crest,
And open flung his sylvan doors;
Meek Rivers led the appointed guest
To clasp the wide-embracing shores;
Till, fold by fold, the broidered land
To swell her virgin vestments grew,
While sages, strong in heart and hand,
Her virtue's fiery girdle drew.
O Exile of the wrath of kings!
O Pilgrim Ark of Liberty!
The refuge of divinest things,
Their record must abide in thee!