I.
All lonely and lone in the twilight he stood
On a cliff by the misty St. Lawrence;
And wailing thus moaned his complaint, while the flood
Rushed darkly beneath him in torrents:
II.
“O land of my fathers, no longer I view thee
In beauty primeval as once thou wert clad;
Oh where are the forests that first when I knew thee
Stretched boundless in beauty the bosom to glad?
III.
“Alas, oh how altered! what varying changes
Have saddened the scenes where in childhood I strayed,
No longer the wild deer in buoyancy ranges,
Nor tracks of the panther are seen in the glade.
IV.
“My sad eyes now scan the wide, wide devastation,
Nor friends nor fond vestages there do they meet,
For the loved of my heart with the pride of my nation
Have mingled their dust ’neath the Pale-faces’ feet.
V.
“Oppressed and down-trodden and driven to anguish!
What, what can the grief of my bosom gainsay?
Oh will they, Great Spirit, forever thus languish
Till the last of my people have withered away?
VI.
“Ah no!—they will rise on a day great in glory,
And triumph in pride o’er the dust of the foe,
And their valorous deeds in traditional story
Shall pass with the current of years as they flow.
VII.
“But where, ah! oh where are the loved and the cherished
That brightened my home near the deep woody dell?—
They are gone, by the hand of the Pale-face they’ve perished,
And coldly they sleep in their moss-covered cell.
VIII.
“Above them the drooping white willow is weeping,
And lowly the damp-breathing night-winds complain,
And the wan, silent moon her still vigil is keeping,
While their dove-spirits mourn unavenged all in vain.
IX.
“Ye Pale-face, I hate ye, I scorn ye to madness,
I loath to despair, but I cannot avenge.
All wretched I moan and ye scoff at my sadness.
Oh Spirit! Great Spirit! revenge, oh, revenge!”
X.
He paused for a moment, then from the lone height
Plunged into the dark rolling river;
And the mad foaming billows lashed loud in delight,
Then closed o’er the chieftain forever.