And long they fought and freely bled, And heaped their valleys with the dead; For plain, defile, or wild retreat, Still brought disaster and defeat, And every hallowed wood and shore, Was soiled with war-hoof, axe, or gore. I mixed again amid the strife, Light estimating limb or life, And for a season strove to guide And stem the furious battle tide. But why repeat the bitter tale? I saw each manly effort fail; We fought, as if against a spell, And, foiled, with Tuscaloosa fell.[6] The poor Muscogee race may say, They yet shall see a happier day; That happier day I ne’er shall see, I deem none happy if not free: And with that war—so fates conspire— Went out the brave Muscogee fire. I, scorning on that soil to be No longer honor’d, lov’d, or free! Resolved to leave those sunny strands, For distant woods and stranger’s lands, And bending far, still onward hied, By vale and torrent, rock and tide, With purpose high, and aim severe, To close a life of suff’ring here. Here in my house, which nature made Without the white man’s skill or aid, A few short years shall close my eyes, And leave my bones in northern skies, And not a trace be left to show Alhalla’s fate—Alhalla’s woe. [6] The fall of Tuscaloosa, or the Black Warrior, is here symbolically fixed on as the fall of the nation. This noted chief was not, however, killed in battle; he came voluntarily to Gen. Jackson’s camp and surrendered himself. He had disguised himself in mean clothes to prevent his being shot down by the soldiers, as a price had been set on his head. Hence the nobility of his declaration, on entering the General’s tent—“I am Tuscaloosa.” CANTO VI. THE RE-UNION. [_Scene._ The Cave; Alhalla, Ethwald, Oscar, Mongazid, Ednee, Clewalla, De la Joie; with their separate retinues and attendants. Time, Evening.] As spoke the chief of waning fate, And foeman’s ire, and spirit’s hate, And hurried on through martial feats, And routs, and battles, and defeats, No tremor weak, or muscle’s throe, Betoken’d mark of inward woe, Or, aught the scanning eye could see, That stoic warrior should not be.