Page:Poetical works of William Cullen Bryant (IA poeticalworksof00brya).pdf/83

 Then came the hunter tribes, and thou didst look,
  For ages, on their deeds in the hard chase,
 And well-fought wars; green sod and silver brook
  Took the first stain of blood; before thy face
The warrior generations came and passed,
And glory was laid up for many an age to last.

 Now they are gone, gone as thy setting blaze
  Goes down the west, while night is pressing on,
 And with them the old tale of better days,
  And trophies of remembered power, are gone.
Yon field that gives the harvest, where the plough
Strikes the white bone, is all that tells their story now.

 I stand upon their ashes in thy beam,
  The offspring of another race, I stand,
 Beside a stream they loved, this valley-stream;
  And where the night-fire of the quivered band
Showed the gray oak by fits, and war-song rung,
I teach the quiet shades the strains of this new tongue.

 Farewell! but thou shalt come again—thy light
  Must shine on other changes, and behold
 The place of the thronged city still as night—
  States fallen—new empires built upon the old—
But never shall thou see these realms again
Darkened by boundless groves, and roamed by savage men.