This poem, which Sprague recited publicly in 1830, celebrates the spirit of the early settlers while also expressing empathy for the plight of Native Americans. The finished, published version of the stanza shown goes like this:

Alas! for them—their day is o’er, 

Their fires are out from hill and shore; 

No more for them the wild deer bounds; 
The plough is on their hunting grounds; 

The pale man’s axe rings through their
   woods, 

The pale man’s sail skims o’er their floods,
     Their pleasant springs are dry; 

Their children—look, by power
   oppressed, 

Beyond the mountains of the west,
     Their children go—to die.

Here’s how these lines appear in the handwritten, in-process draft on display:

Alas! for them—their day is o’er, 

Their fires are out from/on hill and shore;
No more for them the wild deer bounds; 

The plough is on their hunting grounds; 

The pale man’s axe rings through their woods, 

The pale man’s sail skims o’er their floods,
     Their pleasant springs are dry; 

Their children—look where all unblessed,
Beyond/Far o’er the mountains of the west,
     Their children go—to die.

We can see the poet at work here, deciding to go with “from,” rather than “on” in line 2 and with “Beyond” rather than “Far o’er” in line 9. But much more interesting: we can see the progressive, enlightened Bostonian at work in the revision of line 8. After all, anyone who suffers can be seen as “unblessed,” but the phrase “by power oppressed” insists that the expulsion and extermination of the Native Americans was an abuse of power, that is, a political and military act.

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