Page:Summer on the lakes, in 1843.djvu/196

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186
SUMMER ON THE LAKES.
American romance is somewhat stale.
Talk of the hatchet, and the faces pale,
Wampum and calumets and forests dreary,
Once so attractive, now begins to weary.
Uncas and Magawisca please us still,
Unreal, yet idealized with skill;
But every poetaster scribbling witling,
From the majestic oak his stylus whittling,
Has helped to tire us, and to make us fear
The monotone in which so much we hear
Of “stoics of the wood,” and “men without a tear.”
 
Yet Nature, ever buoyant, ever young,
If let alone, will sing as erst she sung;
The course of circumstance gives back again
The Picturesque, erewhile pursued in vain;
Shows us the fount of Romance is not wasted —
The lights and shades of contrast not exhausted.
 
Shorn of his strength, the Samson now must sue
 For fragments from the feast his fathers gave,
The Indian dare not claim what is his due,
 But as a boon his heritage must crave;
His stately form shall soon be seen no more
Through all his father's land, th' Atlantic shore,
Beneath the sun, to us so kind, they melt,
More heavily each day our rule is felt;
The tale is old, — we do as mortals must:
Might makes right here, but God and Time are just.
 
So near the drama hastens to its close,
On this last scene awhile your eyes repose;
The polished Greek and Scythian meet again,
The ancient life is lived by modern men —