Gloomy and dark art thou, O chief of the mighty Omahas;
Gloomy and dark as the driving cloud, whose name thou
hast taken!
Wrapt in thy scarlet blanket, I see thee stalk through
the city’s
Narrow and populous streets, as once by the margin
of rivers
Stalked those birds unknown, that have left us only
their footprints.
What, in a few short years, will remain of thy race
but the footprints?
How canst thou walk these streets, who hast trod the
green turf of the prairies!
How canst thou breathe this air, who hast breathed
the sweet air of the mountains!
Ah! ’t is in vain that with lordly looks of
disdain thou dost challenge
Looks of disdain in return, and question these walls
and these pavements,
Claiming the soil for thy hunting-grounds, while down-trodden
millions
Starve in the garrets of Europe, and cry from its
caverns that they, too,
Have been created heirs of the earth, and claim its
division!
Back, then, back to thy woods in the regions west
of the Wabash!
There as a monarch thou reignest. In autumn
the leaves of the maple
Pave the floors of thy palace-halls with gold, and
in summer
Pine-trees waft through its chambers the odorous breath
of their branches.
There thou art strong and great, a hero, a tamer of
horses!
There thou chasest the stately stag on the banks of
the Elkhorn,
Or by the roar of the Running-Water, or where the
Omaha
Calls thee, and leaps through the wild ravine like
a brave of the
Blackfeet!
Hark! what murmurs arise from the heart of those mountainous
deserts?
Is it the cry of the Foxes and Crows, or the mighty
Behemoth,
Who, unharmed, on his tusks once caught the bolts
of the thunder,
And now lurks in his lair to destroy the race of the
red man?
Far more fatal to thee and thy race than the Crows
and the Foxes,
Far more fatal to thee and thy race than the tread
of Behemoth,
Lo! the big thunder-canoe, that steadily breasts the
Missouri’s
Merciless current! and yonder, afar on the prairies,
the camp-fires
Gleam through the night; and the cloud of dust in
the gray of the daybreak
Marks not the buffalo’s track, nor the Mandan’s
dexterous horse-race;
It is a caravan, whitening the desert where dwell
the Camanches!
Ha! how the breath of these Saxons and Celts, like
the blast of the east-wind,
Drifts evermore to the west the scanty smokes of thy
wigwams!
