Hear my words:—Thrice twenty snows Have bleach’d and chill’d these frontless brows, And sun and frost, and wind and rain, Prevail’d alternate o’er the plain, As moons revolved—since erst with joy I roved a careless hunter boy, Full free from sorrow, care, and pain, On Talladega’s sunny plain, And every year with fresh delight, Gleamed on my fond enraptured sight, And youth fled fast, and manhood came, But manhood found me still the same. I swept the woods with bended bow, And laid the deer and panther low; I sail’d the streams with net and line, And captive schools were often mine; I marched against the western foe, And laid the roving Paunee low; I sung my war-song, danced my round, Spuming with manly tread the ground; I met my peers in wood and glen, And knew no want, and fear’d no men, But look’d, and spoke, and felt, and thought, As one that lack’d and dreaded nought; And all was glorious—all was gay, A happy, bright, transcendent day. But years, that turn the young man gray, Brought silent on another day. War came:—not such as mem’ry tells Once rung through Tuscaloosa’s dells, When simple wood-craft plied her art, Club against club, and dart to dart, But grim, exterminating wrath, That heaped with dead his giant path, Embracing in one gen’ral sweep Both those; who strike and those who weep, The young and old, the weak and brave, Driv’n onward to one gen’ral grave. Upon the front of this fell storm, Rode gallant chief of martial form, Whose woodland skill, and battle ire, E’en vanquish’d warriors may admire. OSCAR. Sayest thou there was no mercy shown, No prisoner saved in battle—none? ALHALLA. Little there was—I must be brief, Yet would not play the knave or thief, By robbing foeman, chief or youth, Of one small tittle of the truth, To save this wither’d trunk the ire And rack of slow-consuming fire. When erst this cloud obdurate rose, Red with the wrath of many foes, And men and steeds promiscuous slain, Strewed Tallasatche’s fatal plain, The struggle o’er, compassion fair, Perched on the standards floating there! I, on that sanguinary day, Mixed freely in the dubious fray, And with my war-axe, lance and brand, Fought with the foremost of my band. These scars upon my arm and breast, My valor on that day attest. But vain was every warrior art, By charge or war-whoop, club or dart; The foeman pressing on our ground, With horse and bayonet wall’d us round, And with fierce courage bearing down, Swept plain and covert, host and town, And nine score warriors, whom I led, Upon that day lay cold and dead.