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SUMMER ON THE LAKES.
| If the Great Spirit their morale has slighted, |
| And wigwam smoke their mental culture blighted, |
| Yet the physique, at least, perfection reaches, |
| In wilds where neither Combe nor Spursheim teaches; |
| Where whispering trees invite man to the chase, |
| And bounding deer allure him to the race. |
| Would thou hadst seen it! That dark, stately band, |
| Whose ancestors enjoyed all this fair land, |
| Whence they, by force or fraud, were made to flee, |
| Are brought, the white man's victory to see. |
| Can kind emotions in their proud hearts glow, |
| As through these realms, now decked by Art, they go? |
| The church, the school, the railroad and the mart — |
| Can these a pleasure to their minds impart? |
| All once was theirs — earth, ocean, forest, sky — |
| How can they joy in what now meets the eye ? |
| Not yet Religion has unlocked the soul, |
| Nor Each has learned to glory in the Whole! |
| Must they not think, so strange and sad their lot, |
| That they by the Great Spirit are forgot? |
| From the far border to which they are driven, |
| They might look up in trust to the clear heaven; |
| But here — what tales doth every object tell |
| Where Massasoit sleeps — where Philip fell! |
| We take our turn, and the Philosopher |
| Sees through the clouds a hand which cannot err, |
| An unimproving race, with all their graces |
| And all their vices, must resign their places; |
| And Human Culture rolls its onward flood |
| Over the broad plains steeped in Indian blood. |
