Classic Poem

Where dost thou lie, great Nimrod of the West!
Lord of the wilderness! unhoused B OONE ?
Upon what mountain dost thou take thy rest,
The starry sky thy tent, thy lamp the Moon?
Thou wouldst not sleep with so profound a zest
If thy prophetic dreams could tell how soon
Man and his arts thy forest haunts will spoil
With farms, roads, houses, cities, strife, and toil!

And where is he, the noble savage, — one
Who, had his nation annals, should not die, —
The native orator that called the Sun
" Father of Colors, " blending Newton's eye
With Tully's pictured words? — His goal is won,
And now in hunting-grounds beyond the sky
The " Little Turtle " deer and elk pursues,
Nor dreams his fame inspires the white man's muse.

And thou, sophistic Volney! where art thou?
Whose page the Indian chief's bold figures bore
To the far Seine, where Mirabeau's scathed brow,
The Demosthenian laurel briefly wore:
To what Convention doth he thunder now?
What realms of chaos do thy steps explore?
What empires ruined — or to ruin — share
Thine eloquence and his, — if eloquence be there?

The earth we trample answers, Dust to dust!
With all before the flood, and since the fall,
Evil and good, ye sleep, — just and unjust, —
One mother's kindred breast receives us all:
For all beyond, who shall avouch man's trust?
And who refute? What bigot dare to call
For judgment on his fellow-mortal's head?
" What fool rush in where angels dare not tread " ?

Marvels, Ohio, on thy soil abound,
Fragments it puzzles Science to explain,
Of mammoth, mastodon, and Indian mound,
Temple, tomb, fortress? — still discussed in vain!
Who may the history of those bones expound?
Where do the annals of that age remain?
What spell shall call both races from the deep
Where Earth's primeval forms and secrets sleep?

Gigantic Sauri, lizards, bats, and fern,
Embalmed in rock with tortoise, bird, and shell,
Wrecks of an old creation rude and stern,
Remain the story of our globe to tell:
Much from that lesson human pride may learn,
And even Philosophy, who reasons well,
By every new discovery might be taught
How limited at last is human thought!

From Nature's fragments some few truths we wrest;
But on these mortal relics endless gloom,
Like Etna on the rebel giant's breast,
Lies, with o'erwhelming weight, a living tomb!
Theirs is a mystery as yet unguessed.
When were they raised, and wherefore? How? By whom?
Whence came the workmen? Who destroyed them? Why?
The Echo of Oblivion answers, — I!