Page:Spouter's companion.pdf/4

4 To-morrow let us do or die!—

But when the bolt of death is hurl’d,

Ah! whither then with thee to fly,

Shall Outalissi roam the world?—

Seek we thy once-loved home?—

The hand is gone that cropp’d its flowers!

Unheard their clock repeats its hours!

Cold is the hearth within their bowers!

And should we thither, roam,

Its echoes, and its empty tread,

Would sound like voices from the dead!

Or shall we cross yon mountains blue,

Whose streams my kindred nation quaff’d,

And by my side, in battle true,

A thousand warriors drew the shaft?—

Ah! there, in desolation, cold,

The desert-serpent dwells alone,

Where grass o’ergrows each mouldering bone,

And stones themselves to ruin grown,

Like me, are death-like old!

Then seek we not their camp—for there—

The silence dwells of my despair!

But hark, the trump!—to-morrow thou

In glory’s fires shalt dry thy tears!

Even from the land of shadows now

My father’s awful ghost appears

Amidst the clouds that round us roll!

He bids my soul for battle thirst—

He bids me dry—the last!—the first!—

The only tears that ever burst

From Outalissi’s soul!

Because I may not stain with grief

The death-song of an Indian chief."