The roar of battle die away,

And no returning band appeared.

"No more their burning hamlets gleam
Along the narrow heath,

Nor, stretching o'er the midnight stream,
Reflect the fire of death.

"No more their little fort around,

The warriors of Wyoming throng, They sleep beneath the frozen ground, Where the wind howls loud and long.

“And there the pausing traveller finds No grave-stone rising nigh,

'

Where the tall grass bends, and the hollow winds May eddy round and sigh.

"O, when shall their silent home

ર

Its mournful glory gain!

The volleyed roar and muffled drum,
In honor of the warrior slain?

"O, when shall rise, with chiselled head,

The tall stone o'er their burial-place,

Where the winds may sigh for the gallant dead, And the dry grass rustle round its base?"

INDIAN ELOQUENCE.

A FEW Suns more, and the Indian will live only in history. A few centuries, and that history will be colored with the mellow, romantic light in which Time robes the past, and, contrasted with the then present wealth and splendor of America, may seem so improbable, as to elicit from the historian a philosophic doubt of its authenticity. The period may even arrive, when the same uncertainty which hangs over the heroic days of every people may attend its records, and the stirring deeds of the battle-field and council-fire may be regarded as attractive fictions, or at the best as beautiful exaggerations.

This is but in the nature of things. Actions always lose their reality and distinctness in the perspective of ages; time is their charnel-house. And no memorials are so likely to be lost or forgotten, as those of a conquered nation. Of the Angles and Saxons little more than a name has survived, and the Indian may meet no better fate. Even though our own history is so enveloped in theirs, it is somewhat to be feared that,

from neglect, the valuable cover will be suffered to decay, and care be bestowed only on the more precious contents. "Be it so," exclaim some; "what pleasure or profit is to be derived from the remembrance? Let the wild legend be forgotten. They are but exhibitions of savage life, teeming with disgusting excess and brutal passion. They portray man in no interesting light, for, with every redeeming trait, there rises up some revolting characteristic in horrid contrast. Was he grateful?--So was his revenge bloody and eternal. Was he brave?-So was he treacherous. Was he generous?—So was he crafty and cruel."

But a more philosophic mind would say, "No! he presents a part of the panorama of humanity, and his extermination is an embodiment of a great principlethe same retreat of the children of the wilderness before the wave of civilization; hence arises a deep interest in his fortune, which should induce us to preserve, carefully and faithfully, the most trifling record of his greatness or his degradation." At a time when barbarous nations elsewhere had lost their primitive. purity, we find him the only true child of nature—the best specimen of man in his native simplicity. We should remember him as a (6 study of human nature as an instance of a strange mixture of good and evil passions. We perceive in him fine emotions of feeling and delicacy, and unrestrained, systematic cruelty,

grandeur of spirit and hypocritical cunning, genuine courage and fiendish treachery. He was like some beautiful spar, part of which is regular, clear, and sparkling, while a portion, impregnated with clay, is dark and forbidding.

But above all, as being an engrossing subject to an American, as coming to us the only relic of the literature of the aborigines, and the most perfect emblem of their character, their glory, and their intellect, we should dearly cherish the remains of their oratory. In these we see developed the motives which animated their actions, and the light and shadows of their very soul. The iron encasement of apparent apathy in which the savage had fortified himself, impenetrable at ordinary moments, is laid aside in the council-room. The genius of eloquence bursts the swathing-bands of custom, and the Indian stands forth accessible, natural, and legible. We commune with him, listen to his complaints, understand, appreciate, and even feel his injuries.

As Indian eloquence is a key to the character, so is it a noble monument of their literature. Oratory seldom finds a more auspicious field. A wild people, and region of thought, forbade feebleness; uncultivated, but intelligent and sensitive, a purity of idea, chastely combined with energy of expression, ready fluency, and imagery now exquisitely delicate, now soaring to

the sublime, all united to rival the efforts of any ancient or modern orator.*

What can be imagined more impressive, than a warrior rising in the council-room to address those who bore the same scarred marks of their title to fame and

to chieftainship? The dignified stature-the easy repose of limbs--the graceful gesture, the dark speaking eye, excite equal admiration and expectation. We would anticipate eloquence from an Indian. He has animating remembrances-a poverty of language, which exacts rich and apposite metaphorical allusions, even for ordinary conversation—a mind which, like his body, has never been trammelled and mechanized by the formalities of society, and passions which, from the very outward restraint imposed upon them, burn more fiercely within. There is a mine of truth in the reply of Red Jacket, when called a warrior: "A warrior !” said he; "I am an orator—I was born an orator."

There are not many speeches remaining on record, but even in this small number there is such a rich yet varied vein of all the characteristics of true eloquence, that we even rise from their perusal with regret that so few have been preserved. No where can be found a poetic thought clothed in more captivating simplicity of

*An unqualified opinion to this effect has been expressed by JEFFERSON and CLINTON.