Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). An American Anthology, 1787–1900. 1900.
By PhilipFreneau6 The Indian Burying-Ground
I
I still my old opinion keep;
The posture that we give the dead
Points out the soul’s eternal sleep.
The Indian, when from life released,
Again is seated with his friends,
And shares again the joyous feast.
And venison, for a journey dressed,
Bespeak the nature of the soul,
Activity, that wants no rest.
And arrows with a head of stone,
Can only mean that life is spent,
And not the old ideas gone.
No fraud upon the dead commit,—
Observe the swelling turf, and say,
They do not lie, but here they sit.
On which the curious eye may trace
(Now wasted half by wearing rains)
The fancies of a ruder race.
Beneath whose far projecting shade
(And which the shepherd still admires)
The children of the forest played.
(Pale Shebah with her braided hair),
And many a barbarous form is seen
To chide the man that lingers there.
In habit for the chase arrayed,
The hunter still the deer pursues,
The hunter and the deer—a shade!
The painted chief, and pointed spear,
And Reason’s self shall bow the knee
To shadows and delusions here.