Oft have I listened to his accents bland,
    And owned the magic of his silvery voice,
  In all the graces which life’s arts demand,
    Delighted by the justness of his choice. 
  Not his the stream of lavish, fervid thought,—­
  The rhetoric by passion’s magic wrought;
  Not his the massive style, the lion port,
  Which with the granite class of mind assort;
  But, in a range of excellence his own,
  With all the charms to soft persuasion known,
  Amid our busy people we admire him,—­“elegant and lone.”

  He scarce needs words:  so exquisite the skill
  Which modulates the tones to do his will,
  That the mere sound enough would charm the ear,
  And lap in its Elysium all who hear. 
  The intellectual paleness of his cheek,
    The heavy eyelids and slow, tranquil smile,
  The well-cut lips from which the graces speak,
    Pit him alike to win or to beguile;
  Then those words so well chosen, fit, though few,
  Their linked sweetness as our thoughts pursue,
  We deem them spoken pearls, or radiant diamond dew.

  And never yet did I admire the power
    Which makes so lustrous every threadbare theme,—­
  Which won for La Fayette one other hour,
    And e’en on July Fourth could cast a gleam,—­
  As now, when I behold him play the host,
  With all the dignity which red men boast,—­
  With all the courtesy the whites have lost;
  Assume the very hue of savage mind,
  Yet in rude accents show the thought refined;
  Assume the naivete of infant age,
  And in such prattle seem still more a sage;
  The golden mean with tact unerring seized,
  A courtly critic shone, a simple savage pleased. 
  The stoic of the woods his skill confessed,
  As all the father answered in his breast;
  To the sure mark the silver arrow sped,
  The “man without a tear” a tear has shed;
  And them hadst wept, hadst thou been there, to see
  How true one sentiment must ever be,
  In court or camp, the city or the wild,—­
  To rouse the father’s heart, you need but name his child.

The speech of Governor Everett on that occasion was admirable; as I think, the happiest attempt ever made to meet the Indian in his own way, and catch the tone of his mind.  It was said, in the newspapers, that Keokuck did actually shed tears when addressed as a father.  If he did not with his eyes, he well might in his heart.

Not often have they been addressed with such intelligence and tact.  The few who have not approached them with sordid rapacity, but from love to them, as men having souls to be redeemed, have most frequently been persons intellectually too narrow, too straitly bound in sects or opinions, to throw themselves into the character or position of the Indians, or impart to them anything they can make available.  The Christ shown them by these missionaries is to them but a new and more powerful Manito; the signs of the new religion, but the fetiches that have aided the conquerors.