What the American Eagle Thinks of Dacotah

The American Eagle has flown to the west,

Leaving the land that she loveth the best,

Has gone to Dacotah, to dwell in the wild,

A land on which God in his mercy ne'er smiled,

Which Missouri flows through with its river of mud,

Where no flowers ever blossom or trees ever bud,

Save the cottonwood mean, or the willow so tough,

If you've split them or burnt them you know well enough,

And there she has perched on a wild desert cliff,

To take of the air that's around her a sniff

She hears an old wolf that comes out of his den,

He switches his tail, and then burrows again,

She sees a small prairie-dog come forth to bark,

Then retire once more to his hermitage dark,

Then she spies in a thicket of cottonwood brush,

An elk through the wilderness go with a rush,

Then a buffalo herd canter by with a roar,

Shake their tails and their horns till she sees them no more,

Than an Indian at last in his skins and his paint,

Gives the air that's around her a repulsive taint,

A flock of lean buzzards wheel off in the blue,

To add to the desolate cast of the view.

The Earth is bare wherever she looks,

She sees neither fountains no clear water brooks,

Arid plains like Sahara where simoons have swept,

And hills on whose summits no dew ever wept,

"If this is the land of Dacotah," she cries,

"I pity the 1st U.S. V. at Fort Rice."

Then plumes her gay wings, and soars far from the scene,

To lands more delightful and skies more serene.

Anonymous; Captain E.G. Adams, editor. June 22, 1865. Fort Rice Frontier Scout 1(2): 2. An annotation printed in the column beneath this poetic expression said that "Every article in this paper is original, and sees the light for the first time."