Page:Poems Truesdell.djvu/150

"Wake, brother! wake! the White Man's come
To drive us from our mountain home;
And soon, with fierce and bloody hand,
They'll force us from our own loved land!"
He boldly spoke, and by them stood,
Amid that deep embowering wood,
With folded arms and haughty head,
Then sternly to their leader said—

"What brings thee, pale-faced stranger! here?
To hunt with us the bounding deer?
Or dost thou think by cruel art,
We from our hunting-grounds will part?
Or 'neath the fir-tree and the pine,
Wilt traffic here with rum and wine?"
The stranger quickly gave his hand,
And thus replied in accents bland:—

"We seek not to oppress the brave,
Or drive them to a bloody grave;
And though no foot of land is ours,
We do not want your woodland bowers;