The
Brave Cherokee By John Howard Payne
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| O’ soft fills the dew on the twilight descending And night over the distant forest is bending Like the storm spirit, dark o’er the tremulous rain |
But midnight enshrouded my lone heart
in it’s dwelling
A tumult of woe in my bosom is swelling And tear unbefitting the warrior is telling That hope has abandoned the brave Cherokee |
| Can a tree that is torn from its root by the fountain The pride of the valley; green spreading and fair Can it flourish, removed to the rock of the mountain Unwarmed by the sun and unwatered by care? |
| Though vesper be kind, her sweet dews in bestowing No life giving Brook in its shadows is flowing And when the chill winds of the desert are blowing So droops the transplanted and lone Cherokee |
Sacred graves pf
my sires, and I left you forever
How melted my heart when I bade you adieu Shall joy light the face of the Indian? Ah, never While memory sad has the power to renew. |
| As flies the fleet deer when the bloodhound has started So fled the winged hope from the poor broken hearted Oh, could she have turned ere forever departing And beckons with smiles to her sad Cherokee |
| Is it the low wind through the wet willows rushing That fills with wild numbers my listening ear? Or is it some hermit rill in the solitude gushing The strange playing minstrel, whose music I hear? |
| Tis the voice
of my father, slow, solemnly stealing I see his dim form by yon meteor kneeling To the God of the White man, the Christian appealing He prays for the foe of the dark Cherokee |
| Great spirit
of good, whose abode is in Heaven, Whose wampum of peace is the bow in the sky Wilt though give to the wants of the calmorous ravens, Yet turn a deaf ear to my piteous cry? |
| O'er the ruins
of home, o'er my heart's desolation No more shalt though hear my unblest lamentation For death's dark encounter, I make preperation He hears the last groan of the wild Cherokee |
