Although thy tide that winds through pastures now, By fleecy flock and lowing kine is drank, A river of the wilderness wert thou, When mixed in deadly combat on thy bank The yelling Savage and impetuous Frank:[B] Thy wave lifts up no murmuring voice to tell Where the red, bubbling stream of carnage sank, When rattling gun, loud groan and fiendish yell Thy hollow murmur drowned, and gasping valor fell: And Nature, in the moss of time attired, On her green throne of forest sat, when came The host of Sullivan, with vengeance fired, To rouse upon thy shore the beast of game, And wrap the lodges of fierce tribes in flame, Fresh from unhappy Wyoming, and red With scalps of hoary age and childless dame: Gone from thy borders are the oaks that spread Their yellow, autumn palls above the martial dead. Eastward the soldiers of that campaign bore Glad tidings of unpruned but pleasant lands, Washed by thy surges, like those spies of yore Who brought ripe grapes from Eschol to the bands By Moses led across the desert sands. Regardless of the sons of Anak, soon Bold men, of dauntless hearts and iron hands, Left home, while life was in its active noon, To hear the forest wind thy flood’s deep voice attune. They fled not, like scourged vassals in the night, From dungeon, rack and chain, with footstep fleet: The halls of their nativity were bright, And fraught with recollections, fond and sweet, Of childish hours; and hearts that loved them beat Beneath their pleasant roofs: forsaking all— They roused the wood-wolf from his dim retreat, And boldly reared the gloomy cabin wall Of rude, misshapen logs, amid the forest tall. They little thought, while roving near the site Of thy proud city,[C] deafened by the sound Of waters tumbling from a fearful height, And darkened by the wilderness around, That soon its hollow roaring would be drowned, By the deep murmur of the mighty crowd, Amid thick domes, with tower and turret crowned; The din of whirling cars, and clatter loud Of mills by human art with iron lungs endowed: Nor did they dream that, in communion grand, Broad Erie’s wave, and Hudson’s mighty tide, Within a channel shaped by mortal hand, Ere half a century elapsed, would glide: That soon fair Buffalo, in queenly pride, Would spring the Carthage of our inland seas, And wave her sceptre o’er the waters wide— To shipping change the patriarchal trees, And launch a thousand barks to battle with the breeze.