"Listen; you are a scholar, schooled in the paleface lore: 'Tis said a dying saint may sometimes see the shining shore; That closing eyes peer far beyond the realm of mortal sight,-- Who knows but that a dying race may read the road aright?
"A dying race! We know it; the land is ours no more, No more we roam the prairies as in the days of yore; The brave, free spirit that was ours is crushed and passed away, And bodies without spirits are predestined to decay.
"No matter. In the summertime the flowers bloom in the grass, The startled insects flood the fields and chirrup as you pass, The birds sing in the bushes; but before the wintry blast The flowers and the insects and the little birds are past.
"Yet once again the spring will come, the flowers will bloom again, And insects chirrup blithely where the former ones are lain; The white snows of the wintertime will vanish in the heat, And out-door life and color will follow their defeat.
"Can the paleface read the riddle? Has he eyes to see the signs? Or thinketh he that snow will lie forever on the pines? That housed-up life can triumph for the mastery of state, Or cushioned chairs produce a race destined to dominate?
"Behold, the things your hands have done, the power your arts have won-- Behold, those things shall vanish as the snow before the sun; The snow that smothered out the red--ah, hear it if you can-- Shall leave the earth as suddenly, _and leave it brown and tan_.
"Hear ye a little lesson--surely ye know its worth-- Only an out-door nation can be master of the earth; Soon as ye seek your couches, soft with the spoils of trade-- See well to your outer trenches before the mines are laid!
"Hear ye a little lesson--can ye the truth divine? Milk ye may mix with water, and water will mix with wine; Mix as ye may on your prairies, mix in your hope, and toil, But know in all your mixing that water won't mix with oil!"
In the dingy dusk of his deerskin tent sat the chief of a dying race, And the glow of holy prophecy lit up his rugged face, And the foremost light of the setting sun fell far on an eastern land,-- _And who shall save the paleface if he will not understand?_
He is brand-new out from England and he thinks he knows it all-- (There's a bloomin' bit o' goggle in his eye) The "colonial" that crosses him is going to get a fall-- (There's a seven-pound revolver on his thigh). He's a son of Marquis Noddle, he's a nephew of an earl, In the social swim of England he's got 'em all awhirl. He's as confident as Cæsar and as pretty as a girl-- Oh, he's out in deadly earnest, do or die.