Page:Poems of Nature and Life.djvu/401

 THE OLD AND THE .YEW HERO, 391

But a column of marble towered high on the plain

O'er the grave of the chief who his thousands had slain ;

And the hand of the sculptor his story had told,

And called on the pilgrim to mourn o'er the mould

Of a chief who died young, but who fought long and well.

Nor gave o'er till the last of his enemies fell.

" Farewell," was it writ, " not forgot shalt thou sleep,

For heroes shall come o'er thy relics to weep.

While bards in sweet songs chant the deeds of the brave,

And glory illumines the gloom of the grave."

" Farewell, then ! " said I, " since thy warfare is ended ;

With the dust of these valleys thine also is blended ;

Thou mayst thank the dull stone that here guards thy repose,

That thy fame, like thy carcass, went not to the crows.

Yet lament, that the sweetness of flattery's breath

For so transient a season can save thee from death ;

For new idols shall fall, to draw tears from the eyes

Of them that ne'er wept for the good nor the wise.

So the prayer of the ignorant savage ascends

To the God whom he fears, not to him that befriends."

Sons of slaughter ! I would that your worship might cease.

That men's hands might be joined in the temples of peace.

And that heroes might herald a new age of gold

That should teach men their swords into ploughshares to mould.

And their spears into pruning hooks ! Then will be joy

In the brave who save life, not in brutes that destroy.

Ye children of bloodshed, how long must ye slay,

Ere ye sleep undisturbed and forgot in the day

When the knight and his armor, converted to stones,

Shall be dug up for show, like the mastodon's bones ?

Blest shade of the hero who tranquilly sleeps Where the sunny Potomac so joyously sweeps!

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