The time and place of our unhappy fight,

To you at large were needless to recite;

When in the wood our fierce, inhuman foes,

With piercing yell from circling ambush rose:

A sudden volley rends the vaulted sky;

Their painted bodies hideous to the eye;

They rush like hellish furies on our bands,

Their slaughter weapons brandished in their hands.

Ere Phœbus gained his full meridian height;

Nor ceased the horrors of the bloody fray,

Till he had journeyed half his evening way.

With bayonet, tomahawk, sword, and scalping-knife;

No more remote the work of death we ply,

And thick as hail the showering bullets fly:

Full many a hardy warrior sinks supine,

Yell, shrieks, groans, shouts, and thundering volleys join;

The dismal din the ringing forest fills,

The sounding echo roars along the hills.

Our friends and foes like struggling in their blood,

An undistinguished carnage strews the wood;

And every streamlet drinks the crimson flood.

True valor, stubbornness, and fury here,

There full revenge, despair, and spite appear;

Long raged surrounding death, and no deliverance near;

While mangled friends, not fated yet to die,

Implore our aid in vain with feeble cry.

Wild savage natives lead the first of those;

Their almost naked frames, of various dyes,

And rings of black and red surround their eyes.

On one side they present a shaven head,

The naked half of the vermilion red;

In spots the party-colored face they drew,

Beyond description horrible to view;

Their ebon locks in braid, with paint overspread;

The silvered ears depending from the head;

Their gaudery my descriptive power exceeds,

In plumes of feathers, glittering plates and beads.

Assist the ravage of their parent land;

With equal dress, and arms, and savage arts,

But more than savage rancor in their hearts.

And most sustain the fury of the fight,

Their rule of warfare, devastation dire,

By undistinguished plunder, death, and fire;

They torture man and beast with barbarous rage,

Nor tender infant spare, nor reverend sage.

Whose inauspicious birth disgraced our land;

By malice urged to every barbarous art;

Of cruel temper, but of coward heart.

Who arm and dress as Christian nations do,

Led by a chief who bore the first command;

A bold invader of his native land.

Our smaller force returned them blow for blow,

By turns successfully their forced defied,

And conquest wavering seemed from sided to side.

They to their native wilds had sped their flight:

Those that remained a long encampment made,

And rising fires illumined all the shade;

In vengeance for their numerous brothers slain,

For torture sundry prisoners they retain;

And three fell monsters, horrible to view,

A fellow-prisoner from the sentries drew;

The guards before received their chief’s command,

To not withhold us from the slaughtering band;

But now the sufferer’s fate they sympathize,

And for him supplicate with earnest cries.

The sergeant on his knees, with tearful eye,

Implored the guards might wrest him from their hands,

Since now the troops could awe their lessened bands.

With lifted cane the General thus replies,

(While indignation sparkles from his eyes,)

"Go, sirrah! mind your orders given before,

And for infernal rebels plead no more!"

For help the wretched victim vainly cries,

With supplicating voice and ardent eyes;

With horror chilled, I turn away my face,

While instantly they bear him from the place.

Dread scene! with anguish stung I inly groan,

To think the next hard lot may be my own;

And now I poring sit, now sudden start,

Through anxious agitation of my heart;

In every bush the coming foe appear,

Their sound in every breeze I seem to hear.

The planets faintly glimmer from on high;

When through the grove the flaming fires arise,

And loud resound the tortured prisoners’ cries;

Still as their pangs are more or less extreme,

The bitter groan is heard, or sudden scream;

But when their natures failed, and death drew near,

Their screeches faintly sounded in the ear.

I beg for death, in anguish of despair;

No gleam of hope, no rest my soul could find;

Approaching torture gnawing on my mind;

Until Aurora purpled o’er the skies,

Then gentle slumber sealed awhile my eyes;

But troubled dreams arising in my head,

My fancy to the scene of battle led.

The fatal wood my weeping eyes survey,

Where pale in death my slaughtered neighbors lay;

A long adieu, I cried, my brethren slain;

No more to joy my longing soul again!

Who shall protect your wives with guardian care,

And babes abandoned to the rage of war?

Decrepit parents, with the feeble groan,

Shall wail your fate, their country’s, and their own;

While, lost to all, you here unburied lay,

To feast the ravens and the beasts of prey;

Yet, by your slaughter, safe arrived on shore,

The storms of war shall break you peace no more;

Each honest soul your memory shall revere,

And pay the tribute of a tender team.

Oh! had I too partook your calm repose,

In safe retreat, beyond the power of foes,

I had avoided, by a milder fate,

Dread horrors past, and tortures that await.

Now did the dreadful morn at length arise,

And Sol through mists reluctant climbed the skies,

When savages, for horrid sport prepared,

Demand another prisoner from the guard.

We saw their feared approach with mortal fright,

Their scalping-knives they sharpened in our sight;

Beside the guard they sat them on the ground,

And viewed, with piercing eyes, the prisoners round.

As when a panther grim, with furious eye,

Surveys the tender lad he dooms to die;

The lad beholds him, shivering with affright,

Sees all resistance vain, despairs of flight;

So they on me their glaring eyelids roll,

And such the feelings of my suddering soul.

At length one, rising, seized me by the hand;

By him drawn forth, on trembling knees I stand;

I bid my fellow all a long adieu;

With answering grief my wretched case they view.

Far in the gloomy bosom of the wood;

There (horrid sight!) a prisoner roasted lay,

The carving-knife had cut his flesh away.

Against a tree erect I there was bound,

While they regaled themselves upon the ground;

Their shell of spirits went from hand to hand,

Their friends collecting still, a numerous band.

I supplicate for instant death in vain.

I think upon this breach of nature’s laws,

My family, my friends, my country’s cause;

Around me still collect my bloody foes,

Still in my mind approaching torture rose;

The skeleton in open prospect lay,

Chaos of woful thought employed my wretched day.

Where underneath the rapid waters roar,

There, round a fire, their heaps of fuel rise,

Nocturnal shadows thickening in the skies.

Beside the fire I tremble at the stake;

The numerous herd a spacious circle make;

And as the flames, advancing, rise in air,

Within the ring my torturers repair;

With whoop and dance they tune the deathful song,

Along the margin crown the sportive throng;

When lo! the failing bank, beneath the load,

Broke short and plunged us headlong in the flood.

In transport down the stream my course I made;

With dismal cries resounds the gloomy shade;

The floating stake adhering by a thong,

With nose above the stream I steal along.

And fearful howling rung along the shade.

When to the camp again their way they steer,

Their distant clamor murmuring in my ear,

Far down the stream, where lies a naked strand,

With shivering limbs, I softly crept to land.

The stake upon the shore I trailed along;

Then joyfully unbound each fettering thong,

And for the neighboring road in haste depart,

The hope of freedom dawning in my heart.

Through gloomy thickets, far, I grope my way,

And briery heaths, where pines extended lay;

Now thoughts of home my ravished soul delight,

Now distant, savage yells my mind affright;

Still I may way with all my power pursued,

Still did the road my anxious search elude.

Long time I groped the rough, uncertain way;

Through erring course, I wandered far astray;

Nor moon, nor star, would lend a friendly ray;

Then laid me down, dejected and forlorn,

To rest my weary limbs, and wait the morn;

Ere long my leafy couch I there had pressed,

Exhausted nature sunk to quiet rest.

Next morning they convene both young and old.

The band, equipped in all their war parade,

Into the town a formal entry made;

They led me up, triumphing with delight,

With all their spoils and trophies of the fight,

Except the scalps; for these they had their pay,

From British agents ere they came away,

A numerous crown of every age was seen;

The hoary parent bowing down with years,

The mother with her tender train appears;

The youthful archer bends his little bow,

And sportive striplings gambol in the row;

Warriors and hunters tricked in best array,

And youthful maids their tawny charms display,

With scarlet cloth, rings, beads, and ribbons gay.

The stake and flames arising in my thought;

But soon my guard, approaching to my ear,

Bid me confide in him, and nothing fear.

Two lengthy rows with sticks and weapons stand;

Then stripped I was to pass between the rows,

And each inflict at pleasure wounds and blows;

My keeper gently struck, then urged my flight;

Between the ranks I fled with all my might.

His crop of buckwheat thrashes in the field,

The men and boys with flail in hand around,

Clap after clap loud constant clatterings sound,

The straw all crushed in broken pieces lie,

The grains around the thrashers’ faces fly;

So, as with naked frame I pass along,

Resound the strokes of all the furious throng;

So by their blows my mangled skin is broke,

And so the sputtering blood pursues the stroke.

Their brother slain in fight, my death intend;

Enraged, they maul with clubs my bleeding head,

And doubtless would erelong have laid me dead;

But quickly did their father interpose,

And then my keeper fended off their blows.

I blessed the thought that once his death withstood,

And checked my hand, when raised to shed his blood.

The aged sire adopts me for his son;

Rejoiced, I put the savage habit on;

With honorary paint, in blanket dressed,

I stand installed and Indian with the rest.

The sire in gayest fashion shaved my head,

Then to his home, rejoicing I was led.

But deeper wounds within remain concealed;

My wife, my country, friends, and blooming child;

Exchanged for captive bands in regions wild;

These thoughts incessant did my bosom rend,

And often did the painful tear descend.