Árdís - 01.01.1947, Page 38

“Go; rise and strike no matter what the cost.”
Then her loyalty to the British rises uppermost in her heart.
“Yet stay. Revolt not at the Union Jack,
Nor raise thy hand agains this stripling pack
Of white faced warriors, marching West to quell
Our fallen tribe that rises to rebel.
They all are young and beautiful and good;
Curse to the war that drinks their harmless blood.
Curse to the fate that brought them from the East
To be our chiefs—to make our nation least
That breathes the air of this vast continent.
Still their new rule and council is well meant.”
But she finds it hard to justify the British.
“They but forget we Indians owned the land
From ocean unto ocean; that they stand
Upon a soil that centuries agone
Was our sole kingdom and right alone.
They never think how they would feel today,
Wresting their country from their hapless braves,
If some great nation came from far away,
Giving what they gave us—but wars and graves.”
Again in the poem the conflict between these two loyalties is seen—
“take your tomahawk and go.
My heart may break and bum into its core,
But I am strong to bid you go to war.
Yet stay, my heart is not the only one
That grieves the loss of husband and of son;
Think of the mothers o’er the inland seas;
Think of the pale faced maiden on her knees;
One pleads her God to guard some sweet faced child
That marches on toward the North-West wild.
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