The Mothers of our Forest-Land!
Such were their daily deeds.
Their monument!—where does it stand?
Their epitaph!—who reads?
No braver dames had Sparta,
No nobler matrons Rome,—
Yet who or lauds or honors them,
E'en in their own green home!
The Mothers of our Forest-Land!
They sleep in unknown graves:
And had they borne and nursed a band
Of ingrates, or of slaves,
They had not been more neglected!
But their graves shall yet be found,
And their monuments dot here and there
"The Dark and Bloody Ground."
William D. Gallagher.
In 1784 Virginia ceded to the national government her claim to the lands west of the mountains. New York, Massachusetts, and Connecticut soon followed suit, and the tide of emigration to the West set in with steady and ever-increasing volume.
ON THE EMIGRATION TO AMERICA AND PEOPLING THE WESTERN COUNTRY
[1784]
To western woods and lonely plains,
Palemon from the crowd departs,
Where Nature's wildest genius reigns,
To tame the soil, and plant the arts—
What wonders there shall freedom show,
What mighty states successive grow!
From Europe's proud, despotic shores
Hither the stranger takes his way,
And in our new-found world explores
A happier soil, a milder sway,
Where no proud despot holds him down,
No slaves insult him with a crown.
What charming scenes attract the eye,
On wild Ohio's savage stream!
There Nature reigns, whose works outvie
The boldest pattern art can frame;
There ages past have rolled away,
And forests bloomed but to decay.