A TALE OF THE NORTH,
[1830.]
[In 1785, Mr. Alexander Kay, a fur-trader from Montreal, was stabbed by an Indian at Sandy Lake, on the source of the Mississippi. By the kindness and medical skill of a friendly chief, who accompanied him to Michilimackinac, the wound was healed, but suppurated soon after, on his arrival at the Lake of Two Mountains, where he died.]
I cannot tell of monarch wise,
Or fame’s loud trumpet swell;
But I can tell a simple tale,
Which on a time befell.
For long ago, for money’s sake,
As well as with us now,
Bold men would venture wood and lake,
To fill the golden vow.
And forth the voyager he went,
With goods of richest dye;
And bark that was a sight to see,
Far through the northern sky.
And lakes he past, and snows he trod,
Where wolves and panthers cry,
And nature’s poor, forsaken sons,
The Indians, live and die.
He trafficked for a few brief months,
For skin of beaver black;
And aye he thought with wealth supreme
To hie him quickly back.
But still the red man liked him not,
For he had wilful ways;
And ever, when the night returned,
Would burn with passion’s blaze.
The voyager was a drinking man,
And a man of swelling pride,
Whom fury stirr’d, and lust of rule,
And high impatience tried.
And when he had their wealth amassed,
He loathed the Indian boor;
And as with noise they vex’d his peace,
He spurned him from his door.
The Indian is a passive man,
To all observant eyes;
But he has pride, and entertains
Revenge, that never dies.
He has a soul that scorns to live
Where slave or coward be;
And all his goods are free to share,
And wish—is to be free.
Free was he born, and free will die,
And time, however long,
Can ne’er erase an injury
While he has pipe or song.
He may be kicked like any dog,
But ah, beware the day,
When he awakes from brawl, or draws
The insult to repay.
This found the lordly voyager,
Upon that fatal day,
When deep in northern woods remote
Arose the bloody fray.
And first, in peaceful words began
The deep dissembled plot,
And “give me drink!” the hunter cried—
“Off, villain! from my cot.”
He pointed to the door, with air
And gesture of a lord;
Then turned him back within his tent,
With haughty look and word.
Instant the Indian drew his knife,
And in that twinkling frame
He dealt a blow upon his neck,
But dealt with erring aim.
The voyager he had a friend
Among the Indian band,
Who lay and slept, while Christian blood
Thus dyed the yellow sand.
He started up, and drew a knife,
With vengeance in his eye,
And seiz’d the murd’rer by his hair,
And, “Dog!” he utter’d, “die!”
And with these words, he smote with might,
And pierced the Indian dread,
Who prayed for life, and gasped for breath,
Then sank to earth and bled.
On, on they rushed, a furious throng,
For wild disorder reigned;
And drinking, yelling, noise, and song,
The live-long day had stained.
Out furious in the wild melée,
The voyager he ran,
With streaming wound, and upraised knife,
Averse to counsel’s plan.
At once a cry of death arose,
“I’m killed,” he said, and fell:
A deep, low wound, and gushing blood,
Attest the truth I tell.
O ye who hear this living tale,
Your hearts with care berate,
Nor give the red man cause to feel
The bitter pangs of hate.
Learn that strict justice is alike,
Nor favors red, nor white;
That kindness wins—that patience charms,
E’en more than beauty bright;
That friendship’s glow, whate’er the name,
Clime, country, shade or line,
Is e’er the same, if touch’d with truth
And constancy benign.
Last—saddest, truest of my song—
Provoke nor sot, nor king;
Shun passion’s sway, and liquor’s ire,
Nor trust its poison sting.