Custer, and Other Poems.
the sound Of those invisible compelling waves. Perchance they reach the low and lonely graves Where sleep brave Elliott and Hamilton, And whisper there the tale of victory won; Or do the souls of soldiers tried and true Come at the bugle call, and march in grand review?

LXII.

The pleased Commander watches in surprise This splendid pageant surge before his eyes. Not in those mighty battle days of old Did scenes like this upon his sight unfold. But now it passes. Drums and bugles cease To dash war billows on the shores of Peace. The victors smile on fair broad bosomed Sleep While in her soothing arms, the vanquished cease to weep.

BOOK THIRD.

[There is an interval of eight years between Books Second and Third.]

I.

As in the long dead days marauding hosts Of Indians came from far Siberian coasts, And drove the peaceful Aztecs from their grounds, Despoiled their homes (but left their tell-tale mounds), So has the white man with the Indians done. Now with their backs against the setting sun The remnants of a dying nation stand And view the lost domain, once their beloved land.

II.

Upon the vast Atlantic's leagues of shore The happy red man's tent is seen no more; And from the deep blue lakes which mirror heaven His bounding bark canoe was long since driven. The mighty woods, those temples where his God Spoke to his soul, are leveled to the sod; And in their place tall church spires point above, While priests proclaim the law of Christ, the King of Love.

III.

The avaricious and encroaching rail Seized the wide fields which knew the Indian's trail. Back to the reservations in the West The native owners of the land were pressed, And selfish cities, harbingers of want, Shut from their vision each accustomed haunt. Yet hungry Progress, never satisfied, Gazed on the western plains, and gazing, longed and sighed.

IV.

As some strange bullock in a pasture field Compels the herds to fear him, and to yield The juicy grass plots and the cooling shade Until, despite their greater strength, afraid, They huddle in some corner spot and cower Before the monarch's all controlling power, So has the white man driven from its place By his aggressive greed, Columbia's native race.

V.


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