The sun sets in night, and the stars shun the day, But glory remains when their lights fade away. Begin, ye tormentors: your threats are in vain For the son of Alknomock can never complain. Remember the woods, where in ambush he lay, And the scalps which he bore from your nation away! Why do ye delay?--'till I shrink from my pain? Know the son of Alknomock can never complain. Remember the arrows he shot from his bow Remember your chiefs by his hatchet laid low The flame rises high, you exult in my pain? Know the son of Alknomock will never complain. I go to the land where my father is gone: His ghost shall rejoice in the fame of his son Death comes like a friend, he relieves me from pain And thy son, O Alknomock, has scorned to complain. [325] The first trace I can find of this poem is in the initial number of Matthew Carey's _American Museum_, Jan. 1, 1787, where it is placed among the selected poetry and assigned to P. Freneau. This testimony of Carey's as to its genuineness carries with it considerable weight. Knapp, who in 1829 reviewed the poem as Freneau's, doubtless had before him a copy of the _Museum_. The poem, however, is not included in any of the poet's collections and I can find no earlier newspaper appearance, although my search has not been exhaustive. The authenticity of a poem suspected to be Freneau's may always be gravely doubted if it is not found to be included in his collected works, for he hoarded his poetic product, especially in his earlier period, with miserly care. The poem appeared in 1806 among the poems of Mrs. John Hunter with the title "The Death Song, written for and adapted to, an original Indian air." Several of Mrs. Hunter's best poems had been long in circulation before she was induced to collect them. In 1822 Maria Edgeworth introduced the poem into her book "Rosamond," ascribing it to her. She added the following note: "The idea of this ballad was suggested several years ago by hearing a gentleman who resided many years among the tribe called the Cherokees, sing a wild air, which he assured me was customary for these people to chant with a barbarous jargon implying contempt for their enemies in the moments of torture and death. I have endeavored to give something of the characteristic spirit and sentiment of those brave savages." STANZAS Written at the foot of Monte Souffriere, near the Town of Basseterre, Guadaloupe[326] These Indian isles, so green and gay In summer seas by nature placed-- Art hardly told us where they lay, 'Till tyranny their charms defaced: Ambition here her efforts made, And avarice rifled every shade. Their genius wept, his sons to see By foreign arms untimely fall, And some to distant climates flee, Where later ruin met them all: He saw his sylvan offspring bleed, That envious natures might succeed.