a sigh for our northtrn 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 grazing 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. 



And is this all ? an earthen pot ! 

 A broken spear ! a copper pin ! 

 Earth's grandest prizes counted in, 

 A burial mound ! — the common lot ! 



Yes ! this were all but o'er the mound, 

 The stars, that fill the midnight sky, 

 Are eyes from Heaven that watch on high 

 Till domesday's thrilling life-note sound. 



