With spirit high and fearless, As by mighty wings upborne, -- I have rais'd thee from the grave-sod, By the white man's path defiled; On to the ancestral wilderness I bear thy dust, my child. I have ask'd the ancient desert To give my dead a place, Where the stately footsteps of the free Alone should leave a trace. And the tossing pines made answer -- "Go, bring us back thine own;" And the streams from all the hunter's hills Rush'd with an echoing tone. Thou shalt rest by sounding waters That yet untamed may roll; The voices of that chainless host With joy shall fill thy soul. To the forests, to the cedars, To the warrior and his bow, Back, back! -- I bore thee laughing thence, I bear thee slumbering now! I bear thee unto burial With the mighty hunters gone; I shall hear thee in the forest-breeze, Thou wilt speak of joy, my son! In the silence of the midnight I journey with the dead; But my heart is strong, my step is fleet, My father's path I tread. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A SONG TO CELIA by CHARLES SEDLEY MOST LOVELY SHADE; FOR ALICE BOUVERIE by EDITH SITWELL SILVER ANNIVERSARY by BEULAH ALLYNE BELL HIS SONG FOR HER WAKING by AMELIA JOSEPHINE BURR SONGS OF THE SEA CHILDREN: 30 by BLISS CARMAN |