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Arm, arm for deadly struggle, one and all,
While wives and babes to secret haunts retire;
The ghosts of buried fathers on ye call

To guard their ancient tombs from sacrilege, or fall!”

Dark forms rose up, and brows began to lower,
While many a savage eye destruction glared;
But one came forth in that portentous hour,
Ere shaft was aimed, or dagger fully bared,
And hushed the storm. Old Honneyawus dared
His voice upraise; and by his friendly aid
The knife was sheathed, the pioneer was spared.
Above that humane warrior of the shade
Let marble tell the tale in lines that cannot fade.

W. H. C. HOSMER

57. THE PIONEERS OF AMERICA.

OUR hardy pioneers, the men who-nursed
Amid the blooming fields of cultured lands-
Forsook the scenes of infancy, and first
With hearts of lofty daring and strong hands
Pierced old primeval groves-by hunter bands,
And beasts of carnage tenanted alone-

And lit their camp-fires on the lonely strands
Of lakes and seas, to geographer unknown,

Deserve the bard's high lay, the sculptor's proudest stone.

Noblest of human conquerors were they!

For, mighty though the bonds that bound the heart
To home and its endearments, far away

From mourning kindred and the crowded mart,

And earth for funeral uses set apart,

Where lay their honored dead in solemn rest,
They bore the precious seed of useful art
To wild, benighted regions of the West;

Since the creation-day in unpruned beauty dressed.

Let ruin lift his arm, and crush in dust
The glittering sarcophagus of kings,
And, changing crown and sceptre into rust,
Doom them to sleep among forgotten things;
Let Time o'ershadow with his dusky wings

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W. H. C. HOSMER.

Warriors who guilty eminence have gained,
And drank renown at red, polluted springs-

Sacked peaceful towns-the holy shrine profaned—

And to their chariot wheels the groaning captive chained :

But the self-exiled Britons who behind
Left transatlantic luxuries, and gave

Their parting salutations to the wind,

And, scorning the vile languor of the slave,
Rocked with the little May Flower on the wave,
To immortality have prouder claim.

Let the bright Muse of History engrave

Their names in fadeless characters of flame,
And give their wondrous tales an everlasting fame.

No empty vision of unbounded power-
No dream of wild romance-no thirst for gold
Lured them from merry England's hall and bower,
Her Sabbath chime of bells, her hamlet old :
At home religious bigotry controlled

The struggling wing of thought; a gloomy cloud,
Charged with despotic wrath, above them rolled;

And haunts they sought where man might walk unbowed,
And sacred truth might raise her warning voice aloud.

W. H. C. HoSMER

58. THE INDIAN TRIBES.

TRIBES of the Indian League! from ancient seats
Swept by the whites like Autumn leaves away
Faint are your records of heroic feats,

And few the traces of your former sway;
Loved woodland haunts, deep, shadowy, and gray,
No longer wave defiance to the roar

And rush of whirlwinds 'mid their cool retreats;

The wild beast harbors in their depths no more,

ind ploughmen turn the glebe they darkly clothed of yore.

Tribes of the Mighty! dwindled to a few,

Dejected, trampled children of despair;

And only like your ancestors in hue,

And the wild beauty of their flowing hair;

With laughter rude inquisitors lay bare
The ghastly secrets of your green old graves,
To molder, piecemeal, in dissolving air;

Forgetful of past glory, when your braves
Surrounding nations made poor, weak, dependent slaves.
Where are your hoary Magi-wrinkled seers—
Clad in their dread apparelling, who made
Rude, rocky altars, stained and mossed with years,
And held terrific orgies in the shade?
Where is the pliant oar of slender blade

That urged the birchen vessel on the stream?
Long council halls with cedar bark o'erlaid?

Gone, like the shapes that populate a dream,
Or twinkling dew, drunk up by morn's effulgent beam :
And where those whooping legions, fierce and free,
Who back the tide of French invasion bore,
Defeating warriors trained beyond the sea,
And bathing guarded Montreal in gore?
Their day of power is ended, and no more
Ring out their pæans louder than the sound
Of booming waters on an iron shore,

While captive hundreds, bleeding, faint, and bound, Expire in flame, or fall transpierced by many a wound.

Where are your thrilling orators, who caught
Their eloquence from nature, and allied
Wild powers of fancy to the glow of thought,
And grace of gesture to ancestral pride?
Their sylvan voices on the wind have died:
And your last master of the honeyed tone,
Commanding port and gesture dignified,

No longer wails an empire overthrown,
And near his couch of dust, Niagara makes moan.

W. H. C. HOSMER

59. DEATH'S MISSION.

Go, Death, to thy mission! The mandate was given,
And the echo rolled back through the chambers of heaven,
Then faint in the distance its mutterings grew,

And a being of horror came forth to my view!
He seemed one commissioned for terrible deeds,

C. W. EVEREST.

For dark was his chariot, and pale were his steeds;
One hand grasped a sceptre, the other a dart,
And the glow of his eye told the pride of his heart;
The Sun, at his glance, shed a sicklier ray,
And Nature, astonished, in fear shrunk away;
The heavens grew black at his pestilent breath,
And owned him the monarch invincible-Death!
He cast a proud glance over Earth's happy throng,
And breathed to the Nations his horrible song:

“I am lord of the Earth; I am lord of the Main;
All Nature I hold in my withering chain :
From my shadowy realm, in the chambers of night,
I will come on my pathway of mildew and blight:
The surest destruction 'tis mine to impart;

My arrow shall pierce to the manliest heart;

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I will shroud man's proud hopes in the darkness of gloom,
And bear him from all that he loves, to the tomb!

"I will visit the couch of the mother's first-born,
And the mother, despairing, shall sorrow forlorn;
I will tear the fond wife from her little-ones' clasp,
She must come at my call, she must shrink from their
The father, though dear to the group of his heart,
From his wife and his infants forever must part:
In the hall of affection my banner shall wave-
I am lord of the Earth, I am lord of the Grave!

grasp;

“I will visit the sage, when, through night's lonely hours, O'er the lore of past ages devoutly he pores;

He shall cease his pursuits, he must molder to dust—
No learning can save- -I am true to my trust!
I will come to the dungeon, an angel of peace,

And grant to the captives a joyful release;

Their chains cannot bind, they will come at my call,
And sorrow no longer shall hold them in thrall!

"I will curb mad Ambition, when wading through blood,
And mounting the throne o'er the hearts of the good;
I will call upon avarice, toiling for dust;

His treasures, forsaken, neglected shall rust:
The scoffer shall start at my coming, and quail,
And the stoutest transgressor turn suddenly pale:

"Mortal! proud mortal! prepare for my call:
Thou shalt sleep, at the last, 'neath my curtaining pall!

!

I will come-the dread herald of woe to the gay,
When the giddy and careless will think me away
I will come and the hall shall be shrouded with gloom,
And arrayed with the emblems of Death and the tomb!
Be prepared! that my summons shall cause no affright—
For my arrow is noiseless-my footstep is light!"

C. W. EVEREST

60. DEATH'S TRIUMPHS.

I WILL spare neither innocence nor truth;
The aged, the manly, nor childhood, nor youth;
The monarch will find that no sceptre can save;
The beggar must go down with me to the grave;
The sad and forlorn, with the happy and gay,
Must leave all behind them, and hasten away:
Man alike is my prey, nor shall favor be shown—
I will give each an arrow, a pall, and a stone!

I will visit the proud one, exulting in state,

Who shall spurn the poor beggar that kneels at his gate:
I will humble his might; I will sadden his hall;
And his couch shall be spread with my funeral pall!
I will come to the orphan, despised and rejected;
I will visit the widow, by false friends neglected;
And the lordlings who left them in sorrow to sigh,
By conscience affrighted, despairing shall die!

I will go where is echoed the bacchanal's song,
And enter, unseen, with the revelling throng:
Woe! woe! when the red wine by me shall be poured,
The lights shall go out round the festival board!

I will visit the gamester's low hall of despair,
And alas for the lip that shall welcome me there:
The wild curse of horror no more shall be said,

But the blood-gushing bosom be crushed 'neath my tread!
I will visit the good man, to sickness a prey,
And bid him prepare for a happier day!
He will not be affrighted, but welcome me on;
He is tired of the world, and he longs to be gone;
He knows I will calm all the woes of his breast,
And bear him away to a mansion of rest;

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