Now, now's the time: he sleeps: I hear him snore-- This hidden gold has so possessed my brain, That I, at all events, must handle it: Yet should the hermit 'wake while thus engaged, Sad mischief might ensue: his nervous arm (More than a match for our exhausted vigour) Might exercise most horrible revenge! Long practising among these rugged mountains, Pursuing goats, bounding from rock to rock, And cleaving trees to feed his evening fire, His nerves and blood are all activity: And then he is of so robust a fabrick That we should be mere children in his hands, Whirling us from the precipice at pleasure, (Thus turning on ourselves our own designs) Or catching up some fragment of a rock Grind into atoms our pale, quivering limbs; Taking full vengeance on ingratitude. _First Mariner_ Fast bound in chains of sleep, I first assail him; This knotty club shall give the unerring blow; You follow on, and boldly second me! Thus--comrades--thus!--that stroke has crushed his brain! He groans! he dies?--now bear him to the summit Of yon' tall cliff, and having thence dislodged him, Uninterrupted we shall dig his riches, Heirs to the wealth and plenty of his cave. _Second Mariner_ (_conscience struck_) 'Tis done, 'tis done--the hermit is no more:-- Say nothing of this deed, ye hills, ye trees, But let eternal silence brood upon it. O, base, base, base!!--why was I made a man, And not some prowling monster of the forest, The worst vile work of Nature's journeymen! Ye lunar shadows! no resemblance yield From craggy pointed rock, or leafy bush, That may remind me of this murdered hermit. _Third Mariner_ Deep have I fathomed in his cave, but find No glimpse of gold--we surely did mistake him: His treasures were not of that glittering kind; Dryed fruits, and one good book; his goats, his kids, These were, indeed, his riches-- Now, hermit, now I feel remorse within me: While here we stay thy shadow will torment us, From every haunted rock, or bush, projecting; And when from hence we go, that too shall follow, Crying--Perdition on these fiends from Europe, Whose bloody malice, or whose thirst for gold, Fresh from the slaughter-house of innocence Unpeoples isles, and lays the world in ruin! [362] This poem was doubtless a product of Freneau's earlier Muse, as were also the poems "The Indian Burying Ground," "The Indian Student," "The Man of Ninety," and "Alcina's Enchanted Island" which follow. They were, however, first printed in the edition of 1788 and there is no other hint as to their date. I have followed in all cases except the last the 1809 text. THE INDIAN BURYING GROUND[363] In spite of all the learned have said, I still my old opinion keep; The posture, that we give the dead, Points out the soul's eternal sleep.