RED JACKET, A CHIEF OF THE INDIAN TRIBES, THE TUSCARORAS. COOPER, whose name is with his country's woven, A wanderer now in other climes, has proven And throned her in the Senate Hall of Nations, Robed like the deluge rainbow, heaven-wrought, Magnificent as his own mind's creations, And beautiful as its green world of thought. And faithful to the Act of Congress, quoted That all our week is happy as a Sunday In Paris, full of song and dance and laugh; And that, from Orleans to the Bay of Fundy, There's not a bailiff, nor an epitaph. And furthermore-in fifty years or sooner, And our brave fleet, eight frigates and a schooner, If he were with me, King of Tuscarora, In all its medalled, fringed, and beaded glory, Its brow, half martial, and half diplomatic, For thou wert monarch born. Tradition's pages Tell not the planting of thy parent tree, But that the forest tribes have bent for ages, To thee, and to thy sires, the subject knee. Thy name is princely.-Though no poet's magic Could make RED JACKET grace an English rhyme, Unless he had a genius for the tragic, And introduced it in a pantomime; Yet it is music in the language spoken Of thine own land; and on her herald-roll, Thy garb-though Austria's bosom-star would frighten Yet 'tis a brave one, scorning wind and weather, Is Strength a monarch's merit? (like a whaler's) Is Eloquence? Her spell is thine that reaches Is Beauty? Thine has with thy youth departed, The Monarch Mind-the mystery of commanding, Thou hast it. At thy bidding men have crowded And minstrel minds, without a blush, have shrouded Who will believe-not I-for in deceiving, That all things beautiful are what they seem. Who will believe that, with a smile whose blessing Would, like the Patriarch's, sooth a dying hour; With voice as low, as gentle, and caressing, As e'er won maiden's lip in moonlight bower; With look, like patient Job's, eschewing evil; That in thy veins there springs a poison fountain, Deadlier than that which bathes the Upas tree; And in thy wrath, a nursing Cat o' Mountain Is calm as her babe's sleep, compared with thee? And underneath that face like summer's ocean's, Its lip as moveless, and its cheek as clear, Slumbers a whirlwind of the heart's emotions, Love, hatred, pride, hope, sorrow-all, save fear. |