Nicholas Flood Davin
From “EOS”
NOW the Fraser gleamed
Below, its benches white with apple trees
In bloom. ’Neath one an Indian stood, in hand
A tom-tom rude, on which he beat, the while
He sang in sad tones looking towards the sea.
The children of his tribe impassive sat
And smoked their deep-bowled long-stemmed pipes:
With spread wings forever
Time’s eagle careers,
His quarry old nations,
His prey the young years;
Into monuments brazen
He strikes his fierce claw,
And races are only
A sop for his maw.
The red sun is rising
Behind the dark pines,
And the mountains are marked out
In saffron lines,
The pale moon still lingers,
But past is her hour
Over mountain and river
Her silver to shower.
As yon moon disappeareth,
We pass and are past;
The Paleface o’er all things
Is potent at last.
He bores through the mountains,
He bridges the ford,
He bridles steam horses
Where Bruin was lord,
He summons the river
Her wealth to unfold,
From flint and from granite
He crushes the gold.
Those valleys of silence
Will soon be alive
With huxters who chaffer,
Prospectors who strive,
And the house of the Paleface
Will peer from the crest
Of the cliff, where the eagle
To-day builds his nest.
The Redskin he marred not
White fall on wild rill,
But to-morrow those waters
Will turn a mill;
And the streamlet which flashes
Like a young squaw’s dark eye,
Will be black with foul refuse,
Or may be run dry.
From the sea where the Father
Of waters is lost,
To the sea where all summer
The iceberg is tost,
The white hordes will swarm
And the white man will sway,
And the smoke of his engine
Make swarthy the day.
Round the mound of a brother
In sadness we pace,
How much sadder to stand
At the grave of a race!
But the good Spirit knows
What for all is the best,
And which should be chosen,
The strife or the rest.
As for me, I’m time-weary,
I await my release;
Give to others the struggle,
Grant me but the peace,—
And what peace like the peace
Which death offers the brave?
What rest like the rest
That we find in the grave?
For the doom of the hunter
There is no reprieve;
And for me, ’mid strange customs,
’Tis bitter to live.
Our part has been played
Let the white man play his;
Then he too disappears,
And goes down the abyss.
Yes! Time’s eagle will prey
On the Paleface at last,
And his doom like our own
Is to pass and be past.