Yes, strange it is, this bending trunk, So withered now and grey, Stood once among the forest trees Which long have passed away: They fell in strength and beauty, Nor have they left a trace, Save my old trunk and withered limbs To show their former place. Countless and lofty once we stood; Beneath our ample shade His forest home of boughs and bark The hardy red man made. Child of the forest, here he roamed, Nor spoke nor thought of fear, As he trapped the beaver in his dam, And chased the bounding deer. No gallant ship with spreading sail Then ploughed those waters blue, Nor craft had old Ontario then, But the Indians' birch canoe; No path was through the forest, Save that the red man trod; Here, by your home, was his dwelling place, And the temple of his God. Now where the busy city stands, Hard by that graceful spire, The proud Ojibeway smoked his pipe Beside his camping fire. And there, where those marts of commerce are Extending east and west, Amid the rushes in the marsh The wild fowl had its nest. But the pale face came, our ranks were thinn'd, And the loftiest were brought low, And the forest faded far and wide, Beneath his sturdy blow; And the steamer on the quiet lake, Then ploughed its way of foam, And the red man fled from the scene of strife To find a wilder home. And many who in childhood's days Around my trunk have played, Are resting like the Indian now Beneath the cedar's shade; And I, like one bereft of friends, With winter whitened o'er, But wait the hour that I must fall, As others fell before. And still what changes wait thee, When at no distant day, The ships of far off nations, Shall anchor in your bay; When one vast chain of railroad, Stretching from shore to shore, Shall bear the wealth of India, And land it at your door. A short distance above the hop ground of which we have spoken, the Don passed immediately underneath a high sandy bluff. Where, after a long reach in its downward course, it first impinged against the steep cliff, it was very deep. Here was the only point in its route, so far as we recall, where the epithet was applicable which Milton gives to its English namesake, when he speaks of-- "Utmost Tweed, or Ouse, or _gulphy_ Don."