Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 2.djvu/437

1858.]

as of roses
 * Where rose never grew!

Great drops on the bunch-grass,
 * But not of the dew!

A taint in the sweet air
 * For wild bees to shun!

A stain that shall never
 * Bleach out in the sun!

Back, steed of the prairies!
 * Sweet song-bird, fly back!

Wheel hither, bald vulture!
 * Gray wolf, call thy pack!

The foul human vultures
 * Have feasted and fled;

The wolves of the Border
 * Have crept from the dead.

From the hearths of their cabins,
 * The fields of their corn,

Unwarned and unweaponed,
 * The victims were torn,–

By the whirlwind of murder
 * Swooped up and swept on

To the low, reedy fen-lands,
 * The Marsh of the Swan.

With a vain plea for mercy
 * No stout knee was crooked;

In the mouths of the rifles
 * Right manly they looked.

How paled the May sunshine,
 * Green Marais du Cygne,

When the death-smoke blew over
 * Thy lonely ravine!

In the homes of their rearing,
 * Yet warm with their lives,

Ye wait the dead only,
 * Poor children and wives!

Put out the red forge-fire,
 * The smith shall not come;

Unyoke the brown oxen,
 * The ploughman lies dumb.

Wind slow from the Swan's Marsh,
 * O dreary death-train,