Thou speakest of thy knowledge. Mine, Ill should I speak, to call divine. In forests nurtured, raised, and taught, Of simple nature is my thought— That nature which, if e’er it felt The power of love divine to melt, And purify and raise the heart, And tread the darkling maze of art, Or ever learned to think or feel, With holy, pure, ethereal zeal, Long since hath fall’n and wander’d thence, To deeds of plain, material sense; And what we touch, and know, and see, With form or life to move or be, And all that is not such, or seems, Makes up the Indian’s world of dreams. Nor, till that well remembered hour, E’er felt I aught of _other_ power, Or task’d my mind to think my fate Hung on supernal love or hate; Or when, from this frail tenement To other worlds the spirit went, Had questioned my confiding breast, The brave man’s spirit should be blest. But anxious thoughts opprest me now, I felt—what I could scarce avow— A sense of error deep and base, Both in myself and in my race, And that whate’er in former hour Had been my nation’s fame or power, Or whatsoe’er that power might be, In distant, dim futurity, We now were given o’er to feel The strong oppressor’s heavy steel, And weak and vain must be that fight, Maintain’d in fate’s and heaven’s spite. I call’d the elders—they who prest Still on the leafy couch of rest, And leaning on my staff arose, To paint our bleeding country’s woes— I spoke of losses dread and sore, By shot or brand, in field and store, And that still sorer press and great, I saw within the womb of fate; And last—upon th’ awaken’d ear, With voice and gesture strong and clear, I poured my high prophetic dream, Part after part—such as still gleam Before my mind, its features dread, With all that boding spirit said. “And oh, my people,” thus I cried, “Snatch from your breast the serpent, pride; Forsake the war-path and the strife, Throw from your hands the murd’rous knife, And bury deep, and bury free, The purple war-club; and decree, That he who digs it up in ire, The same shall expiate in fire.” I ceas’d—approving plaudits loud, Rang heart-responsive through the crowd.