And painted, plumed, and quivered for the strife,
Rushed from their trackless lairs to burn—despoil—
Butcher the cradled babe, the pleading wife;
Then swept the nodding harvest from the soil,
And scattered on the wind the fruits of patient toil.
When the green, shrouding moss of time o’ercrept
Mounds in the vale and on the mountain-side,
Where the stern founders of our empire slept,
Improvement, moving with gigantic stride,
Still hurried onward:—patient Labor plied