Samuel Kettell, ed. Specimens of American Poetry. 1829.
By Lines to the Western MummyWilliam E. Gallaudet (1795?1821)
O
These latter ages dare to break,
And call thee from beneath the ground
Ere nature did thy slumber shake!
Thy lip, too silent, might reveal!
Of tribes round whose mysterious birth
A thousand envious ages wheel!
Sunk down, their very name forgot;
But ere those fearful times begun,
Perhaps, in this sequester’d spot,
By friendship’s hand the turf was laid—
And friendship here perhaps reposed,
With moonlight vigils in the shade.
The sun look’d out and pass’d his way,
And many a season o’er the ground
Has trod where thou so softly lay.
Thy weary head, awhile to see
The later sports of earthly days,
How like what once enchanted thee?
Perhaps a queen whose feathery band
A thousand maids have sigh’d to wear,
The brightest in thy beauteous band.
Love kindled up the flame of war—
Ah me! do thus thy graces lie
A faded phantom and no more!
But o’er the earth my ashes strew,
And in some rising bud regain
The freshness that my childhood knew.
Around this mournful relict dwelt?
Or burst away with pinion strong,
And at the foot of mercy knelt?
With curious eye unsated stray’d,
And down the winding stream of time
On every changeful current play’d?
Must we thy heart extinct deplore?
Thy fancy lost in darkness, weep,
And sigh for her who feels no more?
In yonder wood-dove dost thou dwell.
And murmuring in the stranger’s ear,
Thy tender melancholy tell?
Shall from the muse a tear demand,
Who, wandering on these distant plains.
Looks fondly to a distant land.