“It was a weary, weary road
  That led thee to the pleasant coast,
Where thou, in his serene abode,
  Hast met thy father’s ghost: 
Where everlasting autumn lies
On yellow woods and sunny skies.

“Twas I the broidered mocsen made,
  That shod thee for that distant land;
’Twas I thy bow and arrows laid
  Beside thy still cold hand;
Thy bow in many a battle bent,
Thy arrows never vainly sent.

“With wampum belts I crossed thy breast,
  And wrapped thee in the bison’s hide,
And laid the food that pleased thee best,
  In plenty, by thy side,
And decked thee bravely, as became
A warrior of illustrious name.

“Thou’rt happy now, for thou hast passed
  The long dark journey of the grave,
And in the land of light, at last,
  Hast joined the good and brave;
Amid the flushed and balmy air,
The bravest and the loveliest there.

“Yet, oft to thine own Indian maid
  Even there thy thoughts will earthward stray,—­
To her who sits where thou wert laid,
  And weeps the hours away,
Yet almost can her grief forget,
To think that thou dost love her yet.

“And thou, by one of those still lakes
  That in a shining cluster lie,
On which the south wind scarcely breaks
  The image of the sky,
A bower for thee and me hast made
Beneath the many-coloured shade.

“And thou dost wait and watch to meet
  My spirit sent to join the blessed,
And, wondering what detains my feet
  From the bright land of rest,
Dost seem, in every sound, to hear
The rustling of my footsteps near.”

ODE FOR AN AGRICULTURAL CELEBRATION.

Far back in the ages,
  The plough with wreaths was crowned;
The hands of kings and sages
  Entwined the chaplet round;
Till men of spoil disdained the toil
  By which the world was nourished,
And dews of blood enriched the soil
  Where green their laurels flourished: 
—­Now the world her fault repairs—­
  The guilt that stains her story;
And weeps her crimes amid the cares
  That formed her earliest glory.

The proud throne shall crumble,
  The diadem shall wane,
The tribes of earth shall humble
  The pride of those who reign;
And War shall lay his pomp away;—­
  The fame that heroes cherish,
The glory earned in deadly fray
  Shall fade, decay, and perish. 
Honour waits, o’er all the Earth,
  Through endless generations,
The art that calls her harvests forth,
  And feeds the expectant nations.

RIZPAH.

And he delivered them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and they hanged them in the hill before the Lord; and they fell all seven together, and were put to death in the days of the harvest, in the first days, in the beginning of barley-harvest.