19. FALL OF THE INDIAN HEROES.
"THEY come! they come! the paleface come!"
The chieftain shouted, where he stood
Sharp-watching at the margin wood,
And gave the war-whoop's treble yell,
That like a knell on fair hearts fell,
Far watching from their rocky home.
No nodding plumes and banners fair
Unfurled or fretted in the air;
No screaming fife or rolling drum
Did challenge brave of soul to come:
But, silent, sinew-bows were strung,
And, sudden, heavy quivers hung,
And swiftly to the battle sprung
Tall, painted braves, with tufted hair,
Like death-like banners in the air.
And long they fought, and firm and well,
And silent fought, and silent fell,
Save when they gave the fearful yell
Of death, defiance, or of hate.
But what were feathered flints to fate?
And what were yells to seething lead?
And what the few and feeble feet
To troops that came with martial tread,
And stood by wood and hill and stream
As thick as people in a street,
As strong as spirits in a dream?
From pine and poplar, here and there,
A cloud, a crash, a flash, a thud,
A warrior's garments rolled in blood,
A yell, that rent the mountain air,
Of fierce defiance and despair
Did tell who fell, and when, and where:
Then tighter drew the coils around,
And closer grew the battle-ground,
And fewer feathered arrows fell,
And fainter grew the battle-yell,
Until upon the hill was heard
The short, sharp whistle of the bird.
The calm that cometh after all,
Looked sweetly down at shut of day,
Where friend and foe commingling lay
Like leaves of forest as they fall.
The mighty chief at last was down,
The broken breast of brass and pride:
The hair all dust, the brow a-frown,
And proud mute lips compressed with hate
To foes, yet all content with fate;
While circled round him thick the foe,
Had folded hands in dust, and died.
His tomahawk lay at his side,
All blood, beside his broken bow;
One arm stretched out as over-bold,
One hand, half-doubled, hid in dust,
And clutched the earth, as if to hold
His hunting-grounds still in his trust.
Here tall grass bowed its tasselled head,
In dewy tears above the dead;
And there they lay in crooked fern,
That waved and wept above by turn;
And further on, by sombre trees,
They lay, wild heroes of wildest deeds,
In shrouds alone of weeping weeds,
Bound in a never-to-be-broken peace.
20. THE DYING TRUMPETER.1
UPON the field of battle the dying trumpeter lay,
And from his side the life-blood was streaming fast away.
His deadly wound is burning, and yet he cannot die
Till his company, returning, brings news of victory.
Hark! as he rises, reeling upon the bloody ground,
Hark! o'er the field is pealing a well-known trumpet sound.
It gives him life and vigor; he grasps his horse's mane;
He mounts, and lifts his trumpet to his dying lips again.
And all his strength he gathers, to hold it in his hand,
Then pours, in notes of thunder, "Victoria!" o'er the land.
"Victoria!" sounds the trumpet: "Victoria!" all around;
"Victoria!" like the thunder, it rolls along the ground.
And in that blast so thrilling the trumpeter's spirit fled;
He breathed his last breath in it, and from his steed fell dead.
The company, returning,
Stood silent round their friend;
"That," said the old field-marshal,
"That was a happy end!"
THE bloody skirmish with the British at Alamance, North Carolina, was prior to that at Lexington, Mass., - viz., May 7, 1771; and John Ashe, Speaker of the Assembly, headed the people in armed resistance to the issuing of government stamps. six years earlier than the encounter still honored by the people of the " Old North State " as the Battle of Alamance.
No stately column marks the hallowed place
Where silent sleeps, un-urned, their sacred dust: The first free martyrs of a glorious race,
Their fame a people's wealth, a nation's trust.
1 Translated by Epes Sargent.
The rustic ploughman at the early morn
The yielding furrow turns with heedless tread,
Or tends with frugal care the springing corn,
Where tyrants conquered and where heroes bled.
Above their rest the golden harvest waves,
The glorious stars stand sentinels on high,
While in sad requiem, near their turfless graves,
The winding river murmurs, mourning, by.
No stern ambition waved them to the deed:
In Freedom's cause they nobly dared to die.
The first to conquer, or the first to bleed,
"God and their country's right" their battle-cry.
But holier watchers here their vigils keep
Than storied urn or monumental stone;
For Law and Justice guard their dreamless sleep,
And Plenty smiles above their bloody home.
Immortal youth shall crown their deathless fame;
And as their country's glories shall advance,
Shall brighter blaze, o'er all the earth, thy name,
Thou first-fought field of Freedom, - Alamance.
SEYMOUR W. WHITING.
22. THE DEATH OF OSCEOLA.
OSCEOLA, a principal chief of the Seminole Indians of Florida, was captured while bearing a flag of truce, and died in prison, after seven years of war with the whites in defence of his home and people.
In a dark and dungeon room
Is stretched a tawny form,
And it shakes in its dread agony
Like a leaf in the autumn storm.
No pillared palmetto hangs
Its tufts in the clear, bright air,
But a sorrowing group, and the narrow wall,
And a smouldering fire is there.
For his own green forest home
He had struggled long and well;
But the soul that breasted a nation's arms,
At the touch of a fetter fell.
He had worn wild Freedom's crown
On his bright unconquered brow,
Since he first saw the light of his beautiful skies: It was gone forever, now.
But in his last dread hour,
Did not bright visions come,
Bright visions that shed a golden gleam
On the darkness of his doom?
They calmed his throbbing pulse,
And they hung on his muttering breath:
The
spray thrown up from life's frenzied flood,
Plunging on to the gulf of death.
The close walls shrunk away:
Above was the stainless sky,
And the lakes with their fluttering isles of flowers,
Spread glittering to his eye.
O'er his hut the live oak spread
Its branching, gigantic shade,
With its dots of leaves, and its robes of moss,
Broad blackening on the glade.
But a sterner sight is found:
Battle's wild torrent is there;
The tomahawk gleams, and the red blood streams, And the war-whoops rend the air.
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