The Indian Burying Ground

The Indian Burying Ground

Phillip Freneau

In spite of all the learned have said

I still my old opinion keep

The posture, that we give the dead

Points out(1) the soul`s eternal sleep

Not so the ancients of these lands –

The Indian, when from life released,

Again is seated with his friends,

And shares again the joyous feast.

His imaged birds, and painted bowl,

And venison(2) for a journey dressed,

Bespeak the nature of the soul,

Activity, that knows no rest.

His bow, for action ready bent,

And arrows with a head of stone,

Can only mean that life is spent,

And not the old ideas gone.

Thou, stranger, that shalt come this way,

No fraud upon the dead commit –

Observe the swelling turf(3), and say

They do not lie, but here they sit.

Here still an aged elm aspires,

Beneath whose far-projecting shade

(And which the shepherd still admires)

The children of the forest played!

There oft a restless Indian queen

(Pale Shebah, with her braided hair)

And many a barbarous form is seen

To chide the man that lingers there.

By midnight moons, o`er moistening dews;

In habit for the chase arrayed.

The hunter still the deer pursues,

The hunter and the deer, a shade(5)!

And long shall timorous (6) fancy see

The painted chief, and pointed spear,

And Reason`s self shall bow the knee

To shadows and delusions (7) here.

1.     To point out = to indicate
2.     Venison = deer meat
3.     Turf = land
4.     Ruder = more primitive
5.     Shade = ghost
6.     Timorous fancy = frightening imaginations
7.     Delusions = hallucinations