Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Americas: Vol. XXX. 1876–79.

British America: Thames, the River, Canada

Tecumseh

By Charles A. Jones (1818?–1851)

WHERE rolls the dark and turbid Thames

His consecrated wave along,

Sleeps one, than whose, few are the names

More worthy of the lyre and song;

Yet o’er whose spot of lone repose

No pilgrim eyes are seen to weep;

And no memorial marble throws

Its shadow where his ashes sleep.

Stop, stranger! there Tecumseh lies;

Behold the lowly resting-place

Of all that of the hero dies;

The Cæsar—Tully—of his race;

Whose arm of strength and fiery tongue

Have won him an immortal name,

And from the mouths of millions wrung

Reluctant tribute to his fame.

Stop,—for ’t is glory claims thy tear!

True worth belongs to all mankind;

And he whose ashes slumber here,

Though man in form, was god in mind.

What matter he was not like thee

In race and color,—’t is the soul

That marks man’s true divinity,—

Then let not shame thy tears control.

Art thou a patriot?—so was he!

His breast was Freedom’s holiest shrine;

And as thou bendest there thy knee,

His spirit will unite with thine.

All that a man can give he gave,—

His life,—the country of his sires

From the oppressor’s grasp to save;

In vain,—quenched are his nation’s fires.

Art thou a soldier? dost thou not

O’er deeds chivalric love to muse?

Here stay thy steps,—what better spot

Couldst thou for contemplation choose?

The earth beneath is holy ground;

It holds a thousand valiant braves;

Tread lightly o’er each little mound,

For they are no ignoble graves.

Thermopylæ and Marathon,

Though classic earth, can boast no more

Of deeds heroic than yon sun

Once saw upon this lonely shore,

When in a gallant nation’s last

And deadliest struggle for its own,

Tecumseh’s fiery spirit passed

In blood, and sought its Father’s throne.

Oh, softly fall the summer dew,

The tears of heaven, upon his sod,

For he in life and death was true

Both to his country and his God;

For oh, if God to man has given,

From his bright home beyond the skies,

One feeling that ’s akin to heaven,

’T is his who for his country dies.

Rest, warrior, rest! Though not a dirge

Is thine, beside the wailing blast,

Time cannot in oblivion merge

The light thy star of glory cast;

While heave yon high hills to the sky,

While rolls yon dark and turbid river,

Thy name and fame can never die,—

Whom Freedom loves will live forever.