Choice Specimens of American Literature, and Literary Reader · Chapter 251=323.= Wretchedness of Savage Life
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The human fabric early from its birth, Feels some fond influence from its parent earth; In different regions different forms we trace, Here dwells a feeble, there an iron race; Here genius lives, and wakeful fancies play, Here noiseless stupor sleeps its life away. * * * * * Chill through his trackless pines the hunter passed, His yell arose upon the howling blast; Before him fled, with all the speed of fear, His wealth—and victim, yonder helpless deer. Saw you the savage man, how fell and wild, With what grim pleasure, as he passed, he smiled? Unhappy man! a wretched wigwam's shed Is his poor shelter, some dry skins his bed; Sometimes alone upon the woodless height He strikes his fire, and spends his watchful night; His dog with howling bays the moon's red beam, And starts the wild deer in his nightly dream. Poor savage man! for him no yellow grain Waves its bright billows o'er the fruitful plain; For him no harvest yields its full supply, When winter hurls his tempest through the sky. No joys he knows but those which spring from strife, Unknown to him the charms of social life. Rage, malice, envy, all his thoughts control, And every dreadful passion burns his soul. Should culture meliorate his darksome home, And cheer those wilds where he is wont to roam; * * * * * Should fields of tillage yield their rich increase, And through his wastes walk forth the arts of peace, His sullen soul would feel a genial glow, Joy would break in upon the night of woe; Knowledge would spread her mild, reviving ray, And on his wigwam rise the dawn of day.
[Footnote 78: A Presbyterian clergyman, who died prematurely; an associate and connection of Charles Brockden Brown. Has left several poems of merit. A native of Pennsylvania.]
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=Francis S. Key, 1779-1843.= (Manual, p. 523.)