Across his path the startled deer
Bounds to its shelter green;
He enters every lonely vale
And cavernous ravine.
Too soon the murky twilight comes,
The boding night-winds moan;
Bewildered wanders Filson, lost,
Exhausted, and alone.
By lurking foes his steps are dogged,
A yell his ear appalls!
A ghastly corpse, upon the ground,
A murdered man, he falls.
The Indian, with instinctive hate,
In him a herald saw
Of coming hosts of pioneers,
The friends of light and law;
In him beheld the champion
Of industries and arts,
The founder of encroaching roads
And great commercial marts;
The spoiler of the hunting-ground,
The plougher of the sod,
The builder of the Christian school
And of the house of God.
And so the vengeful tomahawk
John Filson's blood did spill,—
The spirit of the pedagogue
No tomahawk could kill.
John Filson had no sepulchre,
Except the wildwood dim;
The mournful voices of the air
Made requiem for him.
The druid trees their waving arms
Uplifted o'er his head;
The moon a pallid veil of light
Upon his visage spread.
The rain and sun of many years
Have worn his bones away,
And what he vaguely prophesied
We realize to-day.