Page:Pocahontas and Other Poems (NY).pdf/14



of the West! that, slumbering long and deep, Beneath thy misty mountains' solemn shade, And, lull'd by melancholy winds that sweep The unshorn forest and untrodden glade, Heard not the cry when mighty empires died, Nor caught one echo from oblivion's tide, While age on age its stormy voyage made: See! Europe, watching from her sea-girt shore, Extends the sceptred hand, and bids thee dream no more.

Say, was it sweet, in cradled rest to lie, And 'scape the ills that older regions know? Prolong the vision'd trance of infancy, And hide from manhood's toil, mischance and wo? Sweet, by the margin of thy sounding streams Freely to rove, and nurse illusive dreams, Nor taste the fruits on thorny trees that grow? The evil, and the sorrow, and the crime, That make the harass'd earth grow old before her time?

Clime of the West! that to the hunter's bow, And roving hordes of savage men, wert sold, Their cone-roof'd wigwams pierced the wintry snow, Their tassel'd corn crept sparsely through the mould,