The Indian Burying Ground (1788)
1 In spite of all
the learned have said,
2 I still my old
opinion keep;
3 The posture, that
we give the dead,
4 Points out the
soul’s eternal sleep.
5 Not so the
ancients of these lands --
6 The Indian, when
from life released,
7 Again is seated
with his friends,
8 And shares again
the joyous feast.
9 His imaged birds,
and painted bowl,
10 And venison, for
a journey dressed,
11 Bespeak the
nature of the soul,
12 Activity, that knows no rest.
13 His bow, for
action ready bent,
14 And arrows, with
a head of stone,
15 Can only mean
that life is spent,
16 And not the old
ideas gone.
17 Thou, stranger,
that shalt come this way,
18 No fraud upon the
dead commit --
19 Observe
the swelling turf, and say
20 They do not lie,
but here they sit.
21 Here still a
lofty rock remains,
22 On which the
curious eye may trace
23 (Now
wasted, half, by wearing rains)
24 The fancies of a
ruder race.
25 Here still an
aged elm aspires,
26 Beneath whose
far-projecting shade
27 (And which the shepherd
still admires)
28 The children of
the forest played!
29 There oft a
restless Indian queen
30 (Pale Shebah, with her braided hair)
31 And many a
barbarous form is seen
32 To chide the man
that lingers there.
33 By midnight
moons, o’er moistening dews;
34 In habit for the
chase arrayed,
35 The hunter still
the deer pursues,
36 The hunter and
the deer, a shade!
37 And long shall
timorous fancy see
38 The painted chief, and pointed spear,
39 And Reason’s self
shall bow the knee
40 To shadows and
delusions here.