dots-menu
×

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
America: Vols. XXV–XXIX. 1876–79.

Middle States: Pittsburg, Pa.

Pittsburg

By James Kibble Paulding (1779–1860)

HERE lay dark Pittsburg, from whose site there broke

The manufacturer’s black and sparkling smoke,

Where Industry and useful Science reigned,

And man, by labor, all his wants sustained;

There, mid the howling forest dark and drear,

Roved the wild Indian, wilder than the deer,

King of the woods,—who other blessings prized,

And arts and industry alike despised:

Hunting the trade, and war the sport he loved,

Free as the winds, the dauntless chieftain roved,

Taunting, with bitter ire, the pale-faced slave,

Who toils for gold from cradle to the grave.

Extremes of habits, manners, time and space,

Brought close together, here stood face to face,

And gave at once a contrast to the view

That other lands and ages never knew.