“And whence—if we must acts by precepts try— Whence all the new-found ills that mar our life, The liquid fire of distillation high, That whelms our bands in most unseemly strife, And oft our maddening blood, unruled before, Stains with its purple tide our utmost lands? Is this benignly meant? say, ye who teach— Or be there few that aim to overreach? Ah, do not outward acts most eloquently preach?” Such is the race, whose deeds of scaith and strife, The muse essays in numbers to review, In that dark hour of opening peril rife, When late to arms the Southern war chiefs flew, Albeit, misguided in their warlike ires, By foreign counsels cast with cruel ken, And war, through all their borders, lit his fires, Transferring ruin to the peaceful glen, And woe to many a band of noble hunter men. ALHALLA, OR THE LORD OF TALLADEGA. CANTO I. TRADITIONARY GLEAMS OF THE CREATION. THE COUNCIL. [_Scene._ A tent on the open shores of Lake Superior—a camp-fire—canoes turned up on the beach—boatmen engaged in cooking. A conference at the tent-door. Ethwald, a traveller. Oscar, a missionary. De la Joie, a trader. Mongazid (Azid), an Indian Prophet and hunter, with his retinue. The pipe is about to be lit. Time—sun-set.] ETHWALD. HOARY hunter, stern and wild, Nature’s lone forsaken child! Wand’ring born and wand’ring bred, Forest school’d and forest fed— Turn thy quick revolving glance, O’er yon water’s bright expanse. See—along the purple sky, See the billows looming high; Not in rage as (if aright Men report the wild affright,) Oft with fear too sorely true, Thy advent’rous kinsmen view, But with long and lab’ring swells, That of lulling tempest tells; Seest thou? near the horizon dim, Shadowy form upon its brim, Dun and small—that closer scann’d, Main and margin, should be land. Tell!—for by thy lifted eye, Well I ken thou read’st the sky— Tell me!—in its shadowy forms Is there sunshine—is there storms? Seest thou there, a spirit mild, Or the fiend of waters wild, Who shall make to-morrow’s wave, Many a hapless hunter’s grave, And along the yellow strand, Raise their mounds amid the sand? Or to thy well-practised eye, Is the god of south winds nigh, With his soft, ethereal balms, Whisp’ring peace and breathing calms? Say, shall mortal blade essay, O’er yon waves a tranquil way On the morrow—spirit blest! Shall it speed toward the west, And the genii of the strand, Waft the vent’rous bark from land, With a breeze and with a smile, To yon dim-discovered isle? MONGAZID.[2]