John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892). The Poetical Works in Four Volumes. 1892.

Songs of Labor and Reform

On the Big Horn

In the disastrous battle on the Big Horn River, in which General Custer and his entire force were slain, the chief Rain-in-the-Face was one of the fiercest leaders of the Indians. In Longfellow’s poem on the massacre, these lines will be remembered:—

“Revenge!” cried Rain-in-the-Face,

“Revenge upon all the race

Of the White Chief with yellow hair!”

And the mountains dark and high

From their crags reëchoed the cry

Of his anger and despair.

He is now a man of peace; and the agent at Standing Rock, Dakota, writes, September 28, 1886: “Rain-in-the-Face is very anxious to go to Hampton. I fear he is too old, but he desires very much to go.” The Southern Workman, the organ of General Armstrong’s Industrial School at Hampton, Va., says in a late number:—

“Rain-in-the-Face has applied before to come to Hampton, but his age would exclude him from the school as an ordinary student. He has shown himself very much in earnest about it, and is anxious, all say, to learn the better ways of life. It is as unusual as it is striking to see a man of his age, and one who has had such an experience, willing to give up the old way, and put himself in the position of a boy and a student.”

THE YEARS are but half a score,

And the war-whoop sounds no more

With the blast of bugles, where

Straight into a slaughter pen,

With his doomed three hundred men,

Rode the chief with the yellow hair.

O Hampton, down by the sea!

What voice is beseeching thee

For the scholar’s lowliest place?

Can this be the voice of him

Who fought on the Big Horn’s rim?

Can this be Rain-in-the-Face?

His war-paint is washed away,

His hands have forgotten to slay;

He seeks for himself and his race

The arts of peace and the lore

That give to the skilled hand more

Than the spoils of war and chase.

O chief of the Christ-like school!

Can the zeal of thy heart grow cool

When the victor scarred with fight

Like a child for thy guidance craves,

And the faces of hunters and braves

Are turning to thee for light?

The hatchet lies overgrown

With grass by the Yellowstone,

Wind River and Paw of Bear;

And, in sign that foes are friends,

Each lodge like a peace-pipe sends

Its smoke in the quiet air.

The hands that have done the wrong

To right the wronged are strong,

And the voice of a nation saith:

“Enough of the war of swords,

Enough of the lying words

And shame of a broken faith!”

The hills that have watched afar

The valleys ablaze with war

Shall look on the tasselled corn;

And the dust of the grinded grain,

Instead of the blood of the slain,

Shall sprinkle thy banks, Big Horn!

The Ute and the wandering Crow

Shall know as the white men know,

And fare as the white men fare;

The pale and the red shall be brothers,

One’s rights shall be as another’s,

Home, School, and House of Prayer!

O mountains that climb to snow,

O river winding below,

Through meadows by war once trod,

O wild, waste lands that await

The harvest exceeding great,

Break forth into praise of God!

1887.

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