Who can fail to
heave a sigh for our northern mound builders, and to lament the
destruction of so vast and civilized a race as the peaceful Toltecans
of Mexico, of the Mississippi, and of the Ohio, to which our
Takawgamis belonged? After all, their life must in the main, ever
remain a mystery.
THE LOST RACE
"One of our visits to the mound was at night."
Oh, silent mound! thy secret tell!
God's acre gazing toward the sky,
'Midst sombre shade 'neath angel's eye
Thou sleepest till the domesday knell.
Sweet leaflets, on the towering elms.
Oh whisper from your crested height!
Or have lost forests borne from sight
The secret to their buried realms?
Stay, babbling river, hurrying past,
Cans't thou, who saw'st the toilers build,
Not picture on thy bosom stilled,
Life-speaking shadows long since cast?
Or, echo, mocking us with sound,
Repeat the busy voice, we pray,
Of moiling thousands, now dull clay,
And waken up the gloom profound.
Pale, shimmering ghosts that flit around,
While spade and mattock death-fields glean,
Open with words from the unseen
The mysteries now in cerements bound.
No answer yet! We gaze in vain.
With lamp and lore let science come.
Now, clear eyed maiden!!--You, too, dumb!
Your light gone out!!--'tis night again.
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