Читать книгу Alhalla, or the Lord of Talladega: A Tale of the Creek War - Henry Rowe Schoolcraft - Страница 4

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Stretched on his couch, the Indian warrior lay, His bow and quiver prostrate at his side, Revolving all his fate in still dismay, Dominion lost, skill baffled, power defied. “Shades of my fathers!” thus his reverie ran, “And shall the Red Man thus, in clouds decline, With no memorial of his name or clan, Or only left to point the poet’s line, And tell to other years, the tale of his decline?”

“Oh, is it thus, the noble woodswise race, Shall steal away to an unhonored tomb, Who once were lords of the ascendant chase, And swept the forests in their pristine bloom? Brave were their hearts, and strong in sinewy strength They drew the shaft that fell’d the stately deer, Or spread the craven foeman at his length, And triumphed in the battle’s wild career, A wanderer of the woods—lord of the bow and spear.”

“Ah tell me, Spirit of the Golden West! Say, is it want of knowledge dooms my race? Or the wild passions of an untamed breast, That leaves nor peace nor virtue there a place? Can raging tumults of the mortal soul Prejudge its fate, and lead the wayward mind Through seas of want and poverty to roll, Till in a gloom of fixed despair it find Life’s path without a friend, and even death unkind?”

“Doth human rectitude, in mind and heart, The inward purposes of right and wrong In human acts—so great a boon impart, Or lead, by their neglect, to thraldom strong? And can it be, ye messengers of air! Who know the great high Spirit’s sov’reign will, So vast a detriment he can prepare For those who follow nature’s dictates still, And worship Manitoes on every breezy hill?”

“ ’Tis wondrous all, and yet there are, I ween, Some inward inklings of the Indian soul That whisper to his mind of things unclean, That taint his rites, and all his life control, Leading the mind—whenever he would do An evil act, or e’en the purpose form, To that High Excellence beyond the view, Who guides the sun and regulates the storm, Dispensing winter winds, or summer breezes warm.”

“And is this conscience? So the white man tells, Pointing to letters as the star-light kind, That man’s own heart to man himself reveals, And warms and renovates the wandering mind, Impels the hand to drop the bloody blade, And seek support from art’s more kindly cares, Where genial fields invite the plough and spade, And industry her golden wreath prepares, And peace and joy and health, the household circle shares.”

“But why—and here my doubts and fears arise— Why are kind precepts of such angel forms All bleared by acts that sunder friendship’s ties, And overcast our atmosphere with storms; Our lands despoiled by arts, we know not how, Erst in the solemn council we convene, But ere we note the hour, the white man’s plough, Driven reckless through each quiet hamlet scene, While steel-armed horsemen, stand as guards between?”

“And whence—if we must acts by precepts try— Whence all the new-found ills that mar our life, The liquid fire of distillation high, That whelms our bands in most unseemly strife, And oft our maddening blood, unruled before, Stains with its purple tide our utmost lands? Is this benignly meant? say, ye who teach— Or be there few that aim to overreach? Ah, do not outward acts most eloquently preach?”

Such is the race, whose deeds of scaith and strife, The muse essays in numbers to review, In that dark hour of opening peril rife, When late to arms the Southern war chiefs flew, Albeit, misguided in their warlike ires, By foreign counsels cast with cruel ken, And war, through all their borders, lit his fires, Transferring ruin to the peaceful glen, And woe to many a band of noble hunter men.