POEMS OF JAMES RYDER RANDALL
THE UNBOUGHT SEMINOLE
After the defection of many of the Seminole chiefs in 1857, Arpeik was approached by the United States Commissioners, and tendered money and lands if he would cease hostilities and consent to deportation. Though not less than one hundred and fourteen years old, blind and decrepit, his intellect survived the wreck of the body and his soul retained its ancient heat. His reply was worthy of any age: “Wagon loads of gold shall never buy me!” A few months afterward, he died and was buried among the Thousand Islands in a remote corner of the land which gave him birth, which he had fought to possess and which he never relinguished utterly.
An old, old man, in thicker shades
Than brood upon the brows of Night,
Hath lit the ghastly Everglades
With an imperishable light;
A light more brilliant in its flame
From the dusk soul from whence it came,
Amid the war-cloud’s clashing fame—
[ 142 ]
