Fisher folk they were, and gentle,
Seeking not for wars of conquest;
Fishing in the purple waters
From their boats of bark or rawhide;
Wading in the limpid shallows
Seeking oysters, clams and mussels.
In the course of generations
Piles of shells of many banquets,
With the ashes of their campfires,
Formed a mound upon the bay shore.
Shell Mound Park, the people call it,
And they gather in the shadows
Of the ancient oaks for pleasure,
Roasting clams as in the old days
When the Tamals lived upon it.
Gone are now the limpid shallows;
Gone the oysters and the mussels,
And no more are grassy meadows
Dappled with the spreading oak trees;
For great factories, grim and sordid,
Sprawl in squalid blocks around it,
And the smoke of forge and furnace
Rise from stacks into the heavens.

Paleface men with concave glasses,
Learned in lore of printed pages,
Dig into the mounds and gather
Spear and arrow heads and axes,
Broken weapons and utensils
Made of flint, or bone, or seashell.