Indian Names
by Lydia Sigourney
“How can the Red men be forgotten, while so many of our states and territories, bays, lakes and rivers, are indelibly stamped by the names of their giving?”
YE say they all have pass’d away,
That noble race and brave,
That their light canoes have vanish’d
From off the crested wave
That mid the forests where they roam’d
There rings no hunter’s shout;
But their name is on your waters,
Ye may not wash it out.
‘Tis where Ontario’s billow
Like Ocean’s surge is curl’d;
Where strong Niagara’s thunders wake
The echo of the world;
Where red Missouri bringeth
Rich tributes from the west,
And Rappahannock sweetly sleeps
On green Virginia’s breast.
Ye say, their cone-like cabins,
That cluster’d o’er the vale,
Have fled away like wither’d leaves
Before the autumn gale:
But their memory liveth on your hills,
Their baptism on your shore;
Your everlasting rivers speak
Their dialect of yore.
Old Massachusetts wears it
Within her lordly crown,
And broad Ohio bears it
Mid all her young renown;
Connecticut hath wreathed it
Where her quiet foliage waves,
And bold Kentucky breathed it hoarse
Through all her ancient caves.
Wachuset hides its lingering voice
Within his rocky heart,
And Alleghany graves its tone
Throughout his lofty chart;
Monadnock on his forehead hoar
Doth seal the sacred trust;
Your mountains build their monument,
Though ye destroy their dust.
Public Domain Source: University of Michigan Library, Digital Collections