Phenix Gazette

For the Phenix Gazette.
THE ABORIGINES.
Imagination in the moonlit hour,
Conjoin'd with silence opens to the view
A noble picture drawn in simple scenes;
And contemplation lingers on the mind
To heighten Mem'ry's sketch of former times.
Thus was it, as I on Potomac's banks
Beneath a hanging willow sat and mused.
(There nought occurred to break the silent scene,
Except at intervals the splash of oars,
As thro' the waters a gondola passed;
Or at times the shrill cry of the "whip-poor-will,"
That from the branch of some age-bending oak
Shriek'd on the breezes as they fitted by.
The moon just peeping through the orient clouds
Revealed the half of her resplendent disc,
And o'er the dimpled waters throwing far
The coruscations of her flickering beam,
Heightened the pure scene. Near me was placed
At intervals a row of aged oaks,
There too the willow hung its drooping head!
And kiss'd the waters with its weeping boughs,
The cypress monuments of times gone by.)
Methought how chang'd from what they used to be
When peopled by a pure and guileless race,
Her banks were wont to be the scene of joys,
Unknown to modern and to polish'd times.
O luckless day! when first the white man's foot
Trod on this shore and claim'd it as his own!
Ambition and the factious policy of states
Were strangers, and to o'er the 'green-eyed-monster'
Ne'er ruffl'd the bosoms of its savage lords:
Savage to modern eyes, but purer far
Than the usurpers of their native land,
And every passion that now has its sway
Ne'er rul'd their unsophisticated minds.
Here cities raise their tall and lofty heads
O'er warrior's, patriots' and o'er virgins'
graves;
And every day but adds to their disgrace.
And sinks them deeper in oblivion's gulf.
S.