Page:Poems and essays (IA poemsessays00howerich).pdf/22
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16
Acadia.
Expanding to the gentle southern gale,
He started wildly up the mountain side,
And look'd with doubting gaze along the tide,
Deeming he saw some giant sea bird's wing
Cleave the light air, and o'er the waters fling
Its feathery shadow. As the Bark drew nigh,
He thought some spirit of the deep blue sky
Had, for a time, forsook its peerless home
With the red Hunter o'er the wilds to roam;
Or that a God had left his coral cave,
To breathe the air, and skim along the wave.
Lost in amaze the lordly savage stood
Conceal'd within the foliage of the wood,
And watch'd the proud Ship, as she wing'd her way,
Till she cast anchor in the shelter'd bay.
But, when the white man landed on the shore,
His dream of Gods and Spirits soon was o'er,
He saw them rear their dwellings on the sod
Where his free fathers had for ages trod;
He saw them thoughtlessly remove the stones
His hands had gather'd o'er his parents' bones;
He saw them fell the trees which they had spared,
And war, eternal war, his soul declared.
He started wildly up the mountain side,
And look'd with doubting gaze along the tide,
Deeming he saw some giant sea bird's wing
Cleave the light air, and o'er the waters fling
Its feathery shadow. As the Bark drew nigh,
He thought some spirit of the deep blue sky
Had, for a time, forsook its peerless home
With the red Hunter o'er the wilds to roam;
Or that a God had left his coral cave,
To breathe the air, and skim along the wave.
Lost in amaze the lordly savage stood
Conceal'd within the foliage of the wood,
And watch'd the proud Ship, as she wing'd her way,
Till she cast anchor in the shelter'd bay.
But, when the white man landed on the shore,
His dream of Gods and Spirits soon was o'er,
He saw them rear their dwellings on the sod
Where his free fathers had for ages trod;
He saw them thoughtlessly remove the stones
His hands had gather'd o'er his parents' bones;
He saw them fell the trees which they had spared,
And war, eternal war, his soul declared.
PART SECOND.
As Britain's Son hangs o'er the Historic page,
Fraught with the records of a darker age,
When o'er his feeble land each wand'ring horde
Of rude Barbarians roved, with fire and sword,
Fraught with the records of a darker age,
When o'er his feeble land each wand'ring horde
Of rude Barbarians roved, with fire and sword,