Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 1.djvu/137

126 freely than the good. Freneau proved his merit by an experience unique in history. He was twice robbed by the greatest English poets of his day. Among his many slight verses were some pleasing lines called "The Indian Burying Ground":—


 * "His bow for action ready bent,
 * And arrows with a head of stone,
 * Can only mean that life is spent,
 * And not the finer essence gone.


 * "By midnight moons, o'er moistening dews,
 * In vestments for the chase arrayed,
 * The hunter still the deer pursues,
 * The hunter and the deer,—a shade."

The last line was taken by the British poet Campbell for his own poem called "O'Connor's Child," and Freneau could afford to forgive the theft which thus called attention to the simple grace of his melody but although one such compliment might fall to the lot of a common man, only merit could explain a second accident of the same kind. Freneau saw a greater genius than Campbell borrow from his modest capital. No one complained of Walter Scott for tak­ing whatever he liked wherever he chose, to supply that flame of genius which quickened the world; but Freneau had the right to claim that Scott paid him the highest compliment one poet could pay to another. In the Introduction to the third canto of " Marmion" stood and still stands a line taken directly from the verse in Freneau's poem on the Heroes of Eutaw:—


 * "They took the spear—but left the shield."