Page:Pocahontas, and Other Poems.djvu/129

 ADMISSION OF MICHIGAN INTO THE UNION. 113

But where are your Indians, so feeble and few ? So fall'n from the heights where their forefathers grew ! From the forests they fade ; o'er the waters that bore The names of their baptism they venture no more. O, sooth their sad hearts, ere they vanish afar, Nor quench the faint beams of their westering star.

Those ladies who sit on their sofas so high

Are the stateliest dames of our family,

Your thirteen old sisters, don't treat them with scorn,

They were notable spinsters before you were born ;

Many stories they know, most instructive to hear;

Go, make them a curtsy, 'twill please them, my dear.

They can teach you the names of those great ones to spell, Who stood at the helm when the war-tempest fell ; They will show you the writing that gleam 'd to the sky In the year seventy-six, on the fourth of July ; When the flash of the Bunker Hill flame was red, And the blood gush'd forth from the breast of the dead.

There are some who may call them both proud and old, And say they usurp what they cannot hold : Perhaps, their bright locks have a sprinkle of grey, But then, little Michy, don't hint it, I pray ; For they'll give you a frown, or a box on the ear, Or send you to stand in the corner, I fear.

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