SEVEN OAKS

    Ho-ho! List you now to a tale of truth
      Which I, Pierre, the rhymester, proudly sing,
    Of the _Bois-Brules_, whose deeds dismay
      The hearts of the soldiers serving the king!

    Swift o'er the plain rode our warriors brave
      To meet the gay voyageurs come from the sea.
    Out came the bold band that had pillaged our land,
      And we taught them the plain is the home of the free.

    We were passing along to the landing-place,
      Three hostile whites we bound on the trail.
    The enemy came with a shout of acclaim,
      We flung back their taunts with the shriek of a gale.

    "They have come to attack us," our people cry.
      Our cohorts spread out in a crescent horn,
    Their path we bar in a steel scimitar,
      And their empty threats we flout with scorn.

    They halt in the face of a dauntless foe,
      They spit out their venom of baffled rage!
    Honor, our breath to the very death!
      So we proffer them peace, or a battle-gage.

    The governor shouts to his soldiers, "Draw!"
      'Tis the enemy strikes the first, fateful blow!
    Our men break from line, for the battle-wine
      Of a fighting race has a fiery glow.

    The governor thought himself mighty in power.
      The shock of his strength--Ha-ha!--should be known
    From the land of the sea to the prairie free
      And all free men should be overthrown![B]

    But naked and dead on the plain lies he,
      Where the carrion hawk, and the sly coyote
    Greedily feast on the great and the least,
      Without respect for a lord of note.

    The governor thought himself mighty in power.
      He thought to enslave the _Bois-Brules_,
    "Ha-ha," laughed the hawk. Ho-ho! Let him mock.
      "Plain rangers ride forth to slay, to slay."

    Whose cry outpierces the night-bird's note?
      Whose voice mourns sadly through sighing trees?
    What spirits wail to the prairie gale?
      Who tells his woes to the evening breeze?

    Ha-ha! We know, though we tell it not.
      We fought with them till none remained.
    The coyote knew, and his hungry crew
      Licked clean the grass where the turf was stained.

    Ho-ho! List you all to my tale of truth.
      'Tis I, Pierre, the rhymester, this glory tell
    Of freedom saved and brave hands laved
      In the blood of tyrants who fought and fell!