I stand on hallowed ground--the sacred sod Which once an ill-starred people bravely trod In native freedom, ere the wanderer crost The broad Atlantic waters and love lost The fair reward of labor, ill repaid By base desertion--country--friends betrayed-- Misery and exile from a native land, Ending in death upon a foreign strand. * * * * * My spirit falls into a deeper mood And thought goes darkly forth to gather food For bitter contemplation;--for I trace Some record of the spoilers of that race Most gallant, wheresoe'er I turn mine eyes,-- While of the exiled--neath their native skies Is scarce a token left--save what belongs To a sad history of unnumbered wrongs. Methinks the very sun's departing rays With melancholy meaning seem to gaze Upon the hostile monuments of yore,-- Yon ruined arch with ivy overgrown-- Those shattered tombs of moss-discolored stone-- That slowly moulder by the silent shore. * * * * * Might I the Genius of Old Time invoke, This were the hour--the place--where many an oak Tosses its arms and points to ancient graves Beside the aisleless tower, which o'er the waves Shall no more send its voice upon the air, To call to matin or to vesper prayer. Alone, it stands, like some grim sentinel And in stern silence bids the world farewell! * * * * * Lift we the veil of vanished centuries-- Beneath the shade and shelter of these trees The careless Indian smoked his calumet-- (The CHRISTIAN had not crost the ocean yet)-- Without a thought to mar his musing, save To strand his light canoe beyond the wave Or fasten it with sedgy rope secure, Lest the next tide should steal it from the shore. But lo! one evening as he lay beside The margin where his native waters glide, A sight of wonder on his vision broke; And the deep voice of flame in thunder spoke The doom of wo to him and all his race. Yet fear, which might have blanched a paler face, Quenched not the flashings of his dauntless eye, Nor for an instant quelled that bearing high Which best became the warrior of the wild-- The Hunter bold--the Forests' lordly child! Ay! tho' the evil spirit of his sky, For such well might his inexperienced eye Have deemed it, lurked within the snow-white mist That brooded o'er the silent river's breast, And spoke in accents of the dark storm-cloud, From out the folding of its gleaming shroud, He stood prepared to meet the worst--like one Who hath no fear of aught beneath the sun. Methinks I see him watching by the shore, With strained eye, intently gazing o'er The river's course. Well may he clasp his brow In doubt and wonder--is he dreaming now?-- The cloud seems gathering up its folds of snow, And straight spars glitter in the sunset glow, Far loftier than the loftiest pine that rears