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The Indian Girl's Burial

A wail upon the prairies,
A cry of woman's woe,
That mingleth with the autumn blast,
All fitfully and low.
It is a mother's wailing!
Hath earth another tone
Like that with which a mother mourns
Her lost, her only one?

Pale faces gather 'round her;
They mark the storm swell high
That rends and wrecks the tossing soul;
But the cold blue eyes are dry.
Pale faces gazed upon her,
As the wild winds caught her moan;
But she was an Indian mother,
So she wept those tears alone.

Long o'er that wasting idol
She watched, and toiled, and prayed,
Though every dreary dawn revealed
Some ravage death had made,
Till the fleshless sinews started,
And Hope no opiate gave,
And hoarse and hollow grew her voice—
An echo from the grave.

She was a gentle creature,
Of raven eye and tress,
And dove-like were the tones that breath'd
Her bosom's tenderness;
Save when some quick emotion
The warm blood quickly sent,
To revel in her olive cheek,
So richly eloquent.

I said consumption smote her,
And the healer's art was vain,
But she was an Indian maiden,
And none deplored her pain
None, save the widow'd mother,
Who now by her open tomb
Is writhing like the smitten wretch
Whom judgment marks for doom.

Alas! that lowly cabin,
That couch beside the wall,
That seat beneath the mantling vine,
They are lone and empty all.
What hand shall pluck the tall green corn,
That ripeneth on the plain,
Since she for whom the board was spread
Will ne'er return again!

Rest! rest then, Indian maiden!
Nor let thy murmuring shade
Grieve that those pale-browed ones with scorn
Thy burial rite surveyed.
There's many a king whose funeral
A black-robed realm shall see—
For whom no tear of grief is shed
Like that which falls for thee.

Yea, rest thee, forest maiden!
Beneath the native tree;
The proud may boast their little day—
They sink to dust like thee;
But there's many a one whose funeral
With nodding plumes may be,
Whom nature nor affection mourns
As now they mourn for thee.