PARADISE LOST

I've just finished reading a novel entitled Days Without End by Sebastian Barry, a novelist, poet and playwright of astonishing range and power. 
It's set in America in the 19th Century and addresses the systematic genocide of the native population by European settlers. 
Days Without End is an enthralling, if harrowing, read and it put me in mind of a poem I wrote a few years ago, Song of the Sioux, which you'll find below.

SONG OF THE SIOUX

Once there were men and buffalo
that nourished us, that fed the tribe.
The land and all it could bestow
was ours. The Elders now describe
it as a Paradise on earth,
harmonious, our place of birth,
before the white men came to kill
our buffalo then break our will.

We dwelt in tribes, our rivalry
divided us: such was our plight
when faced with well-armed cavalry
our indecision, like a blight,
unmanned us, so our young men died,
our old men raged, our women cried,
while they, that force none could withstand,
came, massacred, then stole our land.

In retrospect, I see it clear,
we lived in childlike ignorance.
The world had changed but we, I fear,
refused to see the evidence
while, all the time, approaching fast,
the railroad with its piercing blast:
the Future coming, smokey-haired,
to catch us only half prepared.