3
To-morrow let us do or die!—
But when the bolt of death is hurl'd,
Ah! whither then with thee to fly,
Shall Outalissi roam the world?—
Seek we thy once loved home?—
The hand is gone that cropp'd its flowers!
Unheard their clock repeats its hours!
Cold is the hearth within their bowers!
And should we thither roam,
Its echoes, and its empty tread,
Would sound like voices from the dead!
Or shall we cross yon mountains blue,
Whose streams my kindred nation quaff'd,
And by my side, in battle true,
A thousand warriors drew the shaft?—
Ah there, in desolation, cold,
The desert-serpent dwells alone,
Where grass o'ergrow each mouldering bone,
And stones themselves to ruin grown,
Like me, are death-like old
Then seek we not their camp—for there—
The silence dwells of my despair!
But hark, the trump!—to morrow thou
In glory's fires shall dry thy tears!
Even from the land of shadows now
My father's awful ghost appears
Amidst the clouds that round us roll!
He bids my soul for battle thirst—
He bids me dry—the last!—the first!
The only tears that ever burst
From Outalissi s soul
Because I may not stain with grief
The death-song of an Indian chief."
