Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. IV. The Nineteenth Century: Wordsworth to Rossetti
Thomas Campbell (17771844)The Oneydas Death Song
H
And beautiful expression seemed to melt
With love that could not die; and still his hand
She presses to the heart no more that felt.
Ah heart! where once each fond affection dwelt,
And features yet that spoke a soul more fair.
Mute, gazing, agonizing as he knelt,—
Of them that stood encircling his despair,
He heard some friendly words;—but knew not what they were.
A faithful band. With solemn rites between,
’Twas sung, how they were lovely in their lives,
And in their deaths had not divided been.
Touch’d by the music, and the melting scene,
Was scarce one tearless eye amidst the crowd:—
Stern warriors, resting on their swords, were seen
To veil their eyes, as pass’d each much-loved shroud—
While woman’s softer soul in woe dissolved aloud.
Its farewell, o’er the grave of worth and truth;
Prone to the dust, afflicted Waldegrave hid
His face on earth;—him watched in gloomy ruth
His woodland guide; but words had none to soothe
The grief that knew not consolation’s name:
Casting his Indian mantle o’er the youth,
He watch’d, beneath its folds, each burst that came
Convulsive, ague-like across his shuddering frame!
His descant wildly thus begun;
‘But that I may not stain with grief
The death-song of my father’s son,
Or bow this head in woe;
For by my wrongs and by my wrath
To-morrow Areouski’s breath
(That fires you heav’n with storms of death)
Shall light us to the foe;
And we shall share, my Christian boy,
The foeman’s blood, the avenger’s joy!
By milder genii o’er the deep,
The spirits of the white man’s heaven
Forbid not thee to weep;
Nor will the Christian host,
Nor will thy father’s spirit grieve
To see thee, on the battle’s eve,
Lamenting, take a mournful leave
Of her who loved thee most:
She was the rainbow to thy sight!
Thy sun—thy heaven—of lost delight!—
But when the bolt of death is hurled,
Ah! whither then with thee to fly
Shall Outalissi roam the world?
Seek we thy once-loved home?—
The hand is gone that cropt its flowers,
Unheard their clock repeats its hours,
Cold is the hearth within their bowers,
And should we thither roam,
Its echoes and its empty tread
Would sound like voices from the dead.
Whose streams my kindred nation quaff’d,
And by my side, in battle true,
A thousand warriors drew the shaft?
Ah! there in desolation cold
The desert serpent dwells alone,
Where grass o’ergrows each mouldering bone,
And stones themselves to ruin grown,
Like me, are death-like old:
Then seek we not their camp—for there
The silence dwells of my despair.
In glory’s fires shalt dry thy tears:
Ev’n from the land of shadows now
My father’s awful ghost appears
Amidst the clouds that round us roll;
He bids my soul for battle thirst,
He bids me dry the last—the first—
The only tears that ever burst
From Outalissi’s soul;
Because I may not stain with grief
The death-song of an Indian chief.’