Fare-thee-well:
On my soul the toll of bell
Trembles. Thou art calmly sleeping
While my weary heart is weeping:
I cannot listen to thy knell:
Fare-thee-well.
Sleep and rest:
Sorrow shall not pain thy breast,
Pangs and pains that pierce the mortal
Cannot enter at the portal
Of the Mansion of the Blest:
Sleep and rest.
Slumber sweet,
Heart that nevermore will beat
At the footsteps of thy lover;
All thy cares and fears are over.
In thy silent winding-sheet
Slumber sweet.
Fare-thee-well:
In the garden and the dell
Where thou lov'dst to stroll and meet me,
Nevermore thy kiss shall greet me,
Nevermore, O Isabel!
Fare-thee-well.
We shall meet—
Where the wings of angels beat:
When my toils and cares are over,
Thou shalt greet again thy lover—
Robed and crowned at Jesus' feet
We shall meet.
Watch and wait
At the narrow, golden gate;
Watch my coming,—wait my greeting,
For my years are few and fleeting
And my love shall not abate:
Watch and wait.
So farewell,
O my darling Isabel;
Till we meet in the supernal
Mansion and with love eternal
In the golden city dwell,
Fare-thee-well.
BYRON AND THE ANGEL
Poet:
"Why this fever—why this sighing?—
Why this restless longing—dying
For—a something—dreamy something,
Undefined, and yet defying
All the pride and power of manhood?
"O these years of sin and sorrow!
Smiling while the iron harrow
Of a keen and biting longing
Tears and quivers in the marrow
Of my being every moment—
Of my very inmost being.
"What to me the mad ambition
For men's praise and proud position—
Struggling, fighting to the summit
Of its vain and earthly mission,
To lie down on bed of ashes—
Bed of barren, bitter ashes?
"Cure this fever? I have tried it;
Smothered, drenched it and defied it
With a will of brass and iron;
Every smile and look denied it;
Yet it heeded not denying,
And it mocks at my defying
While my very soul is dying.
"Is there balm in Gilead?—tell me!
Nay—no balm to soothe and quell me?
Must I tremble in this fever?
Death, O lift thy hand and fell me;
Let me sink to rest forever
Where this burning cometh never.
"Sometimes when this restless madness
Softens down to mellow sadness,
I look back on sun-lit valleys
Where my boyish heart of gladness
Nestled without pain or longing—
Nestled softly in a vision
Full of love and hope's fruition,
Lulled by morning songs of spring-time.
"Then I ponder, and I wonder
Was some heart-chord snapped asunder
When the threads were soft and silken?
Did some fatal boyish blunder
Plant a canker in my bosom
That hath ever burned and rankled?
"O this thirsting, thirsting hanker!
O this burning, burning canker'
Driving Peace and Hope to shipwreck—
Without rudder, without anchor,
On the reef-rocks of Damnation!"
Invisible Angel:
"Jesus—Son of Virgin Mary;
Lift the burden from the weary:
Pity, Jesus, and anoint him
With the holy balm of Gilead."
Poet:
"Yea, Christ Jesus, pour thy blessings
On these terrible heart-pressings:
O I bless thee, unseen Angel;
Lead me—teach me, holy Spirit."
Angel:
"There is balm in Gilead!
There is balm in Gilead!
Peace awaits thee with caressings—
Sitting at the feet of Jesus—
At the right-hand of Jehovah—
At the blessed feet of Jesus;—Alleluia!"
CHRISTMAS EVE
I
From church and chapel and dome and tower,
Near—far and everywhere,
The merry bells chime loud and clear
Upon the frosty air.
All down the marble avenues
The lamp-lit casements glow,
And from an hundred palaces
Glad carols float and flow.
A thousand lamps from street to street
Blaze on the dusky air,
And light the way for happy feet
To carol, praise and prayer.
'Tis Christmas eve. In church and hall
The laden fir-trees bend;
Glad children throng the festival
And grandsires too attend.
Fur-wrapped and gemmed with pearls and gold,
Proud ladies rich and fair
As Egypt's splendid queen of old
In all her pomp are there.
And many a costly, golden gift
Hangs on each Christmas-tree,
While round and round the carols drift
In waves of melody.
II
In a dim and dingy attic,
Away from the pomp and glare,
A widow sits by a flickering lamp,
Bowed down by toil and care.
On her toil-worn hand her weary head,
At her feet a shoe half-bound,
On the bare, brown table a loaf of bread,
And hunger and want around.
By her side at the broken window,
With her rosy feet all bare,
Her little one carols a Christmas tune
To the chimes on the frosty air.
And the mother dreams of the by-gone years
And their merry Christmas-bells,
Till her cheeks are wet with womanly tears,
And a sob in her bosom swells.
[Illustration: AND THE MOTHER DREAMS OF THE BY GONE YEARS, AND THEIR
MERRY CHRISTMAS BELLS]
The child looked up; her innocent ears
Had caught the smothered cry;
She saw the pale face wet with tears
She fain would pacify.
"Don't cry, mama," she softly said—
"Here's a Christmas gift for you,"
And on the mother's cheek a kiss
She printed warm and true.
"God bless my child!" the mother cried
And caught her to her breast—
"O Lord, whose Son was crucified,
Thy precious gift is best.
"If toil and trouble be my lot
While on life's sea I drift,
O Lord, my soul shall murmur not,
If Thou wilt spare Thy gift."
OUT OF THE DEPTHS
And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in
adultery, and when they had set her in the midst, they said unto him
"Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act. Now Moses in
the law commanded us that such be stoned; but what sayest thou?"—[St.
John, Chap, viii; 3, 4, 5.
Reach thy hand to me, O Jesus;
Reach thy loving hand to me,
Or I sink, alas, and perish
In my sin and agony.
From the depths I cry, O Jesus,
Lifting up mine eyes to thee;
Save me from my sin and sorrow
With thy loving charity.
Pity, Jesus—blessed Savior;
I am weak, but thou art strong;
Fill my heart with prayer and praises,
Fill my soul with holy song.
Lift me up, O sacred Jesus—
Lift my bruised heart to thee;
Teach me to be pure and holy
As the holy angels be.
Scribes and Pharisees surround me:
Thou art writing in the sand:
Must I perish, Son of Mary?
Wilt thou give the stern command?
Am I saved?—for Jesus sayeth—
"Let the sinless cast a stone."
Lo the Scribes have all departed,
And the Pharisees are gone!
"Woman, where are thine accusers?"
(They have vanished one by one.)
"Hath no man condemned thee, woman?"
And she meekly answered—"None."
Then he spake His blessed answer—
Balm indeed for sinners sore—
"Neither then will I condemn thee:
Go thy way and sin no more."
FAME
Dust of the desert are thy walls
And temple-towers, O Babylon!
O'er crumbled halls the lizard crawls,
And serpents bask in blaze of sun.
In vain kings piled the Pyramids;
Their tombs were robbed by ruthless hands.
Who now shall sing their fame and deeds,
Or sift their ashes from the sands?
Deep in the drift of ages hoar
Lie nations lost and kings forgot;
Above their graves the oceans roar,
Or desert sands drift o'er the spot.
A thousand years are but a day
When reckoned on the wrinkled earth;
And who among the wise shall say
What cycle saw the primal birth
Of man, who lords on sea and land,
And builds his monuments to-day,
Like Syrian on the desert sand,
To crumble and be blown away.
Proud chiefs of pageant armies led
To fame and death their followers forth,
Ere Helen sinned and Hector bled,
Or Odin ruled the rugged North.
And poets sang immortal praise
To mortal heroes ere the fire
Of Homer blazed in Ilion lays,
Or Brage tuned the Northern lyre.
For fame men piled the Pyramids;
Their names have perished with their bones:
For fame men wrote their boasted deeds
On Babel bricks and Runic stones—
On Tyrian temples, gates of brass,
On Roman arch and Damask blades,
And perished like the desert grass
That springs to-day—to-morrow—fades.
And still for fame men delve and die
In Afric heat and Arctic cold;
For fame on flood and field they vie,
Or gather in the shining gold.
Time, like the ocean, onward rolls
Relentless, burying men and deeds;
The brightest names, the bravest souls,
Float but an hour like ocean weeds,
Then sink forever. In the slime—
Forgotten, lost forevermore,
Lies Fame from every age and clime;
Yet thousands clamor on the shore.
Immortal Fame!—O dust and death!
The centuries as they pass proclaim
That Fame is but a mortal breath,
That man must perish—name and fame.
The earth is but a grain of sand—
An atom in a shoreless sea;
A million worlds lie in God's hand—
Yea, myriad millions—what are we?
O mortal man of bone and blood!
Then is there nothing left but dust?
God made us; He is wise and good,
And we may humbly hope and trust.
WINONA.
When the meadow-lark trilled o'er the leas and the oriole piped in the maples,
From my hammock, all under the trees, by the sweet-scented field of red clover,
I harked to the hum of the bees, as they gathered the mead of the blossoms,
And caught from their low melodies the air of the song of Winona.
(In pronouncing Dakota words give "a" the sound of "ah,"—"e" the sound
of "a,"—"i" the sound of "e" and "u" the sound of "oo." Sound "ee" as
in English. The numerals refer to Notes in appendix.)
Two hundred white Winters and more have fled from the face of the Summer,
Since here on the oak-shaded shore of the dark-winding, swift Mississippi,
Where his foaming floods tumble and roar o'er the falls and the white-rolling rapids,
In the fair, fabled center of Earth, sat the Indian town of Ka-thá-ga. [86]
Far rolling away to the north, and the south, lay the emerald prairies,
All dotted with woodlands and lakes, and above them the blue bent of ether.
And here where the dark river breaks into spray and the roar of the Ha-Ha, [76]
Where gathered the bison-skin tees[F] of the chief tawny tribe of Dakotas;
For here, in the blast and the breeze, flew the flag of the chief of Isantees, [86]
Up-raised on the stem of a lance—the feathery flag of the eagle.
And here to the feast and the dance, from the prairies remote and the forests,
Oft gathered the out-lying bands, and honored the gods of the nation.
On the islands and murmuring strands they danced to the god of the waters,
Unktéhee, [69] who dwelt in the caves, deep under the flood of the Ha-Ha; [76]
And high o'er the eddies and waves hung their offerings of furs and tobacco,[G]
And here to the Master of life—Anpé-tu-wee, [70] god of the heavens,
Chief, warrior, and maiden, and wife, burned the sacred green sprigs of the cedar. [50]
And here to the Searcher-of-hearts—fierce Tá-ku Skan-skán, [51] the avenger,
Who dwells in the uppermost parts of the earth, and the blue, starry ether,
Ever watching, with all-seeing eyes, the deeds of the wives and the warriors,
As an osprey afar in the skies, sees the fish as they swim in the waters,
Oft spread they the bison-tongue feast, and singing preferred their petitions,
Till the Day-Spirit[70] rose in the East—in the red, rosy robes of the morning,
To sail o'er the sea of the skies, to his lodge in the land of the shadows,
Where the black-winged tornadoes[H] arise, rushing loud from the mouths of their caverns.
And here with a shudder they heard, flying far from his tee in the mountains,
Wa-kín-yan,[32] the huge Thunder-Bird, with the arrows of fire in his talons.
[Illustration: FALLS OF ST. ANTHONY.
FACSIMILE OF THE CUT IN CARVER'S TRAVELS, PUBLISHED AT LONDON, IN 1778,
FROM A SURVEY AND SKETCH MADE BY CAPT. J. CARVER, NOV. 17, 1766.
PERPENDICULAR FALL, 30 FEET; BREADTH NEAR 600 FEET.]
Two hundred white Winters and more have fled from the face of the Summer
Since here by the cataract's roar, in the moon of the red-blooming lilies,[71]
In the tee of Ta-té-psin[I] was born Winona—wild-rose of the prairies.
Like the summer sun peeping, at morn, o'er the hills was the face of Winona.
And here she grew up like a queen—a romping and lily-lipped laughter,
And danced on the undulant green, and played in the frolicsome waters,
Where the foaming tide tumbles and whirls o'er the murmuring rocks in the rapids;
And whiter than foam were the pearls that gleamed in the midst of her laughter.
Long and dark was her flowing hair flung like the robe of the night to the breezes;
And gay as the robin she sung, or the gold-breasted lark of the meadows.
Like the wings of the wind were her feet, and as sure as the feet of Ta-tó-ka[J]
And oft like an antelope fleet o'er the hills and the prairies she bounded,
Lightly laughing in sport as she ran, and looking back over her shoulder
At the fleet-footed maiden or man that vainly her flying feet followed.
The belle of the village was she, and the pride of the aged Ta-té-psin,
Like a sunbeam she lighted his tee, and gladdened the heart of her father.
In the golden-hued Wázu-pe-weé—the moon when the wild-rice is gathered;
When the leaves on the tall sugar-tree are as red as the breast of the robin,
And the red-oaks that border the lea are aflame with the fire of the sunset,
From the wide, waving fields of wild-rice—from the meadows of Psin-ta-wak-pá-dan,[K]
Where the geese and the mallards rejoice, and grow fat on the bountiful harvest,
Came the hunters with saddles of moose and the flesh of the bear and the bison,
And the women in birch-bark canoes well laden with rice from the meadows.
With the tall, dusky hunters, behold, came a marvelous man or a spirit,
White-faced and so wrinkled and old, and clad in the robe of the raven.
Unsteady his steps were and slow, and he walked with a staff in his right hand,
And white as the first-falling snow were the thin locks that lay on his shoulders.
Like rime-covered moss hung his beard, flowing down from his face to his girdle;
And wan was his aspect and weird, and often he chanted and mumbled
In a strange and mysterious tongue, as he bent o'er his book in devotion,
Or lifted his dim eyes and sung, in a low voice, the solemn "Te Deum,"
Or Latin, or Hebrew, or Greek—all the same were his words to the warriors,—
All the same to the maids and the meek, wide-wondering-eyed, hazel-brown children.
Father René Menard [L]—it was he, long lost to his Jesuit brothers,
Sent forth by an holy decree to carry the Cross to the heathen.
In his old age abandoned to die, in the swamps, by his timid companions,
He prayed to the Virgin on high, and she led him forth from the forest;
For angels she sent him as men—in the forms of the tawny Dakotas,
And they led his feet from the fen, from the slough of despond and the desert,
Half dead in a dismal morass, as they followed the red-deer they found him,
In the midst of the mire and the grass, and mumbling "Te Deum laudamus."
"Unktómee[72]—Ho!" muttered the braves, for they deemed him the black Spider-Spirit
That dwells in the drearisome caves, and walks on the marshes at midnight,
With a flickering torch in his hand, to decoy to his den the unwary.
His tongue could they not understand, but his torn hands all shriveled with famine
He stretched to the hunters and said: "He feedeth his chosen with manna;
And ye are the angels of God sent to save me from death in the desert."
His famished and woe-begone face, and his tones touched the hearts of the hunters;
They fed the poor father apace, and they led him away to Ka-thá-ga.
There little by little he learned the tongue of the tawny Dakotas;
And the heart of the good father yearned to lead them away from their idols—
Their giants[16] and dread Thunder-birds—their worship of stones[73] and the devil.
"Wakán-de!"[M] they answered his words, for he read from his book in the Latin,
Lest the Nazarene's holy commands by his tongue should be marred in translation;
And oft with his beads in his hands, or the cross and the crucified Jesus,
He knelt by himself on the sands, and his dim eyes uplifted to heaven.
But the braves bade him look to the East—to the silvery lodge of Han-nán-na;[N]
And to dance with the chiefs at the feast—at the feast of the Giant Heyó-ka.[16]
They frowned when the good father spurned the flesh of the dog in the kettle,
And laughed when his fingers were burned in the hot, boiling pot of the giant.
"The Black-robe" they called the poor priest, from the hue of his robe and his girdle;
And never a game or a feast but the father must grace with his presence.
His prayer-book the hunters revered,—they deemed it a marvelous spirit;
It spoke and the white father heard,—it interpreted visions and omens.
And often they bade him to pray this marvelous spirit to answer,
And tell where the sly Chippewa might be ambushed and slain in his forest.
For Menard was the first in the land, proclaiming, like John in the desert,
"The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand; repent ye, and turn from your idols."
The first of the brave brotherhood that, threading the fens and the forest,
Stood afar by the turbulent flood at the falls of the Father of Waters.
[Illustration: FATHER RENE MENARD]
In the lodge of the Stranger[O] he sat, awaiting the crown of a martyr;
His sad face compassion begat in the heart of the dark-eyed Winona.
Oft she came to the teepee and spoke; she brought him the tongue of the bison,
Sweet nuts from the hazel and oak, and flesh of the fawn and the mallard.
Soft hánpa[P] she made for his feet and leggins of velvety fawn-skin,
A blanket of beaver complete, and a hood of the hide of the otter.
And oft at his feet on the mat, deftly braiding the flags and the rushes,
Till the sun sought his teepee she sat, enchanted with what he related
Of the white-wingèd ships on the sea and the teepees far over the ocean,
Of the love and the sweet charity of the Christ and the beautiful Virgin.
She listened like one in a trance when he spoke of the brave, bearded Frenchmen,
From the green, sun-lit valleys of France to the wild Hochelága[Q] transplanted,
Oft trailing the deserts of snow in the heart of the dense Huron forests,
Or steering the dauntless canoe through the waves of the fresh-water ocean.
"Yea, stronger and braver are they," said the aged Menard to Winona,
"Than the head-chief, tall Wazi-kuté,[74] but their words are as soft as a maiden's,
Their eyes are the eyes of the swan, but their hearts are the hearts of the eagles;
And the terrible Mása Wakán[R] ever walks by their side like a spirit;
Like a Thunder-bird, roaring in wrath, flinging fire from his terrible talons,
He sends to their enemies death in the flash of the fatal Wakándee."[S]
The Autumn was past and the snow lay drifted and deep on the prairies;
From his teepee of ice came the foe—came the storm-breathing god of the winter.
Then roared in the groves, on the plains, on the ice-covered lakes and the river,
The blasts of the fierce hurricanes blown abroad from the breast of Wazíya. [3]
The bear cuddled down in his den, and the elk fled away to the forest;
The pheasant and gray prairie-hen made their beds in the heart of the snow-drift;
The bison herds huddled and stood in the hollows and under the hill-sides,
Or rooted the snow for their food in the lee of the bluffs and the timber;
And the mad winds that howled from the north, from the ice-covered seas of Wazíya,
Chased the gray wolf and silver-fox forth to their dens in the hills of the forest.
Poor Father Menard—he was ill; in his breast burned the fire of a fever;
All in vain was the magical skill of Wicásta Wakán [61] with his rattle;
Into soft, child-like slumber he fell, and awoke in the land of the blessèd—
To the holy applause of "Well-done!" and the harps in the hands of the angels.
Long he carried the cross and he won the coveted crown of a martyr.
In the land of the heathen he died, meekly following the voice of his Master,
One mourner alone by his side—Ta-té-psin's compassionate daughter.
She wailed the dead father with tears, and his bones by her kindred she buried.
Then winter followed winter. The years sprinkled frost on the head of her father;
And three weary winters she dreamed of the fearless and fair, bearded Frenchmen;
At midnight their swift paddles gleamed on the breast of the broad Mississippi,
And the eyes of the brave strangers beamed on the maid in the midst of her slumber.
She lacked not admirers; the light of the lover oft burned in her teepee—
At her couch in the midst of the night,—but she never extinguished the flambeau.
The son of Chief Wazi-kuté—a fearless and eagle-plumed warrior—
Long sighed for Winona, and he was the pride of the band of Isántees.
Three times, in the night at her bed, had the brave held the torch of the lover, [75]
And thrice had she covered her head and rejected the handsome Tamdóka. [T]
'Twas Summer. The merry-voiced birds trilled and warbled in woodland and meadow;
And abroad on the prairies the herds cropped the grass in the land of the lilies,—
And sweet was the odor of rose wide-wafted from hillside and heather;
In the leaf-shaded lap of repose lay the bright, blue-eyed babes of the summer;
And low was the murmur of brooks, and low was the laugh of the Ha-Ha; [76]
And asleep in the eddies and nooks lay the broods of magá [60]and the mallard.
'Twas the moon of Wasúnpa. [71] The band lay at rest in the tees at Ka-thá-ga,
And abroad o'er the beautiful land walked the spirits of Peace and of Plenty—
Twin sisters, with bountiful hand wide scattering wild-rice and the lilies.
An-pé-tu-wee[70] walked in the west—to his lodge in the far-away mountains,
And the war-eagle flew to her nest in the oak on the Isle of the Spirit.[U]
And now at the end of the day, by the shore of the Beautiful Island,[V]
A score of fair maidens and gay made joy in the midst of the waters.
Half-robed in their dark, flowing hair, and limbed like the fair Aphroditè,
They played in the waters, and there they dived and they swam like the beavers,
Loud-laughing like loons on the lake when the moon is a round shield of silver,
And the songs of the whippowils wake on the shore in the midst of the maples.
But hark!—on the river a song,—strange voices commingled in chorus;
On the current a boat swept along with DuLuth and his hardy companions;
To the stroke of their paddles they sung, and this the refrain that they chanted:
"Dans mon chemin j'ai rencontré
Deux cavaliers bien montés.
Lon, lon, laridon daine,
Lon, lon, laridon da."
"Deux cavaliers bien montés;
L'un à cheval, et l'autre à pied.
Lon, lon, laridon daine,
Lon, lon, laridon da."[W]
[Illustration: ARRIVAL OF DULUTH AT KATHAGA]
Like the red, dappled deer in the glade alarmed by the footsteps of hunters,
Discovered, disordered, dismayed, the nude nymphs fled forth from the waters,
And scampered away to the shade, and peered from the screen of the lindens.
A bold and adventuresome man was DuLuth, and a dauntless in danger,
And straight to Kathága he ran, and boldly advanced to the warriors,
Now gathering, a cloud on the strand, and gazing amazed on the strangers;
And straightway he offered his hand unto Wázi-kuté, the Itáncan.[X]
To the Lodge of the Stranger were led DuLuth and his hardy companions;
Robes of beaver and bison were spread, and the Peace-pipe[23] was smoked with the Frenchman.
There was dancing and feasting at night, and joy at the presents he lavished.
All the maidens were wild with delight with the flaming red robes and the ribbons,
With the beads and the trinkets untold, and the fair, bearded face of the giver;
And glad were they all to behold the friends from the Land of the Sunrise.
But one stood apart from the rest—the queenly and silent Winona,
Intently regarding the guest—hardly heeding the robes and the ribbons,
Whom the White Chief beholding admired, and straightway he spread on her shoulders
A lily-red robe and attired with necklet and ribbons the maiden.
The red lilies bloomed in her face, and her glad eyes gave thanks to the giver,
And forth from her teepee apace she brought him the robe and the missal
Of the father—poor René Menard; and related the tale of the "Black Robe."
She spoke of the sacred regard he inspired in the hearts of Dakotas;
That she buried his bones with her kin, in the mound by the Cave of the Council;
That she treasured and wrapt in the skin of the red-deer his robe and his prayer book—
"Till his brothers should come from the East—from the land of the far Hochelága,
To smoke with the braves at the feast, on the shores of the Loud-laughing Waters. [16]
For the 'Black Robe' spake much of his youth and his friends in the Land of the Sunrise;
It was then as a dream; now in truth I behold them, and not in a vision."
But more spake her blushes, I ween, and her eyes full of language unspoken,
As she turned with the grace of a queen and carried her gifts to the teepee.
Far away from his beautiful France—from his home in the city of Lyons,
A noble youth full of romance, with a Norman heart big with adventure,
In the new world a wanderer, by chance DuLuth sought the wild Huron forests.
But afar by the vale of the Rhone, the winding and musical river,
And the vine-covered hills of the Saône, the heart of the wanderer lingered,—
'Mid the vineyards and mulberry trees, and the fair fields of corn and of clover
That rippled and waved in the breeze, while the honey-bees hummed in the blossoms.
For there, where th' impetuous Rhone, leaping down from the Switzerland mountains,
And the silver-lipped, soft-flowing Saône, meeting, kiss and commingle together,
Down winding by vineyards and leas, by the orchards of fig-trees and olives,
To the island-gemmed, sapphire-blue seas of the glorious Greeks and the Romans;
Aye, there, on the vine-covered shore,'mid the mulberry-trees and the olives,
Dwelt his blue-eyed and beautiful Flore, with her hair like a wheat-field at harvest,
All rippled and tossed by the breeze, and her cheeks like the glow of the morning,
Far away o'er the emerald seas, as the sun lifts his brow from the billows,
Or the red-clover fields when the bees, singing sip the sweet cups of the blossoms.
Wherever he wandered—alone in the heart of the wild Huron forests,
Or cruising the rivers unknown to the land of the Crees or Dakotas—
His heart lingered still on the Rhone,'mid the mulberry trees and the vineyards,
Fast-fettered and bound by the zone that girdled the robes of his darling.
Till the red Harvest Moon[71] he remained in the vale of the swift Mississippi.
The esteem of the warriors he gained, and the love of the dark-eyed Winona.
He joined in the sports and the chase; with the hunters he followed the bison,
And swift were his feet in the race when the red elk they ran on the prairies.
At the Game of the Plum-stones[77] he played, and he won from the skillfulest players;
A feast to Wa'tánka[78] he made, and he danced at the feast of Heyôka.[16]
With the flash and the roar of his gun he astonished the fearless Dakotas;
They called it the "Máza Wakán"—the mighty, mysterious metal.
"'Tis a brother," they said, "of the fire in the talons of dreadful Wakinyan,'[32]
When he flaps his huge wings in his ire, and shoots his red shafts at Unktéhee."[69]
The Itáncan,[74] tall Wází-kuté, appointed a day for the races.
From the red stake that stood by his tee, on the southerly side of the Ha-ha,
O'er the crest of the hills and the dunes and the billowy breadth of the prairie,
To a stake at the Lake of the Loons[79]—a league and return—was the distance.
They gathered from near and afar, to the races and dancing and feasting;
Five hundred tall warriors were there from Kapóza[6] and far-off Keóza;[8]
Remnica[Y] too, furnished a share of the legions that thronged to the races,
And a bountiful feast was prepared by the diligent hands of the women,
And gaily the multitudes fared in the generous tees of Kathága.
The chief of the mystical clan appointed a feast to Unktéhee—
The mystic "Wacípee Wakán"[Z]—at the end of the day and the races.
A band of sworn brothers are they, and the secrets of each one are sacred,
And death to the lips that betray is the doom of the swarthy avengers,
And the son of tall Wází-kuté was the chief of the mystical order.
THE FOOT RACES.