Into the shadow, whose illumined crest
Speaks of the world behind them where the sun
Still shines for us whose day is not yet done,
Those last dark ones go drifting. East or West,
Or North or South—it matters not; their quest
Is toward the shadow whence it was begun;
Hope in it, Ah, my brothers; there is none;
And yet—they only seek a place to rest.
So mutely, uncomplainingly, they go!
How shall it be with us when they are gone,
When they are but a mem’ry and a name?
May not those mournful eyes to phantoms grow—
When, wronged and lonely, they have drifted on
Into the voiceless shadow whence they came?
Photograph by Edward S. Curtis titled “The Vanishing Race.” 1904.
Edward Sheriff Curtis (1868-1952) was a prominent, prolific photographer of Native Americans groups. In 1904, he took this picture and titled it “The Vanishing Race,” which inspired the poem of the same title by Ella Higginson.
“The Vanishing Race” as it appears in Higginson’s The Vanishing Race, 1911.