Page:Scenes in my Native Land.pdf/87

When but the unshorn forest marked the glade,
And tribes of men, who like its leaves decayed,
The roving hunters' toil their food supplied,
The war their pastime, and the chase their pride.
Stern, lofty chiefs the various clans controlled,
With stony eye and brows unmoved and cold,
They raised their arm, the war-dance wheeled its round,
The unshrinking captive to the stake was bound,
Fierce torture strode, barbaric revels reigned,
And orgies dire the ear of midnight pained.


Like the wild billows on some troubled bay,
Rose the brief tribes and raged and sank away.
Though few the traits their barren history gave,
And fate ordained them for oblivion's grave,
Yet still, so deep, mid all the floods of time,
Are notched the waymarks of our earliest prime,
That by their side, life's later traces seem
The idle pageants of a passing dream.


Yes, even as yesterday, to me in thought,
Appears the change, a pale-browed race have wrought.
They came, new blossoms sprang, new fountains flowed,
O'er the blue stream the white-winged vessels rode,
To sudden birth, the frequent village strove
Like full-armed Pallas from the brain of Jove,