The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems Part 27

On the somber night bugled the loon, but she heard not the song of the boatmen.

The moon waxed and waned, but the star of her hope never waned to the setting; Through her tears she beheld it afar, like a torch on the eastern horizon.

"He will come,--he is coming," she said; "he will come, for my White Eagle promised,"

And low to the bare earth the maid bent her ear for the sound of his footsteps, "He is gone, but his voice in my ear still remains like the voice of the robin; He is far, but his footsteps I hear; he is coming; my White Chief is coming!"

But the moon waxed and waned. Nevermore will the eyes of Winona behold him.

Far away on the dark, rugged sh.o.r.e of the blue _Gitchee Gumee_ he lingers.

No tidings the rising sun brings; no tidings the star of the evening; But morning and evening she sings, like a turtle-dove widowed and waiting:

Ake u, ake u, ake u; Ma cante maseeca.

Ake u, ake u, ake u; Ma cante maseca.

Come again, come again, come again; For my heart is sad.

Come again, come again, come again; For my heart is sad.

DEATH OF WINONA.

Down the broad _Ha-Ha Wak-pa_[BS]

the band took their way to the Games at _Keoza_[8]

While the swift-footed hunters by land ran the sh.o.r.es for the elk and the bison.

Like _magas_[BT] ride the birchen canoes on the breast of the dark, winding river, By the willow-fringed island they cruise, by the gra.s.sy hills green to their summits; By the lofty bluffs hooded with oaks that darken the deep with their shadows; And bright in the sun gleam the strokes of the oars in the hands of the women.

With the band went Winona.

The oar plied the maid with the skill of a hunter.

They tarried a time on the sh.o.r.e of _Remnica_-- the Lake of the Mountains.[BU]

There the fleet hunters followed the deer, and the th.o.r.n.y pahin[BV] for the women From the tees rose the smoke of good cheer, curling blue through the tops of the maples, Near the foot of a cliff that arose, like the battle-scarred walls of a castle, Up-towering, in rugged repose, to a dizzy height over the waters.

[BS] The Dakota name for the Mississippi, see note 76 in Appendix.

[BT] Wild Geese.

[BU] Lake Pepin, by Hennepin called Lake of Tears--Called by the Dakotas _Remnee-chah-Mday_--Lake of the Mountains.

[BV] Pah-hin--the porcupine--the quills of which are greatly prized for ornamental work.

But the man-wolf still followed his prey, and the step-mother ruled in the teepee; Her will must Winona obey, by the custom and law of Dakotas.

The gifts to the teepee were brought-- the blankets and beads of the White men, And Winona, the orphaned, was bought by the crafty, relentless Tamdoka.

In the Spring-time of life, in the flush of the gladsome mid-May days of Summer, When the bobolink sang and the thrush, and the red robin chirped in the branches, To the tent of the brave must she go; she must kindle the fire in his _teepee_; She must sit in the lodge of her foe, as a slave at the feet of her master.

Alas for her waiting! the wings of the East-wind have brought her no tidings; On the meadow the meadow-lark sings, but sad is her song to Winona, For the glad warbler's melody brings but the memory of voices departed.

The Day-Spirit walked in the west to his lodge in the land of the shadows; His s.h.i.+ning face gleamed on the crest of the oak-hooded hills and the mountains, And the meadow-lark hied to her nest, and the mottled owl peeped from her cover.

But hark! from the _teepees_ a cry!

Hear the shouts of the hurrying warriors!

Are the feet of the enemy nigh,-- of the crafty and cruel Ojibways?

Nay; look!--on the dizzy cliff high-- on the brink of the cliff stands Winona!

Her sad face up-turned to the sky.

Hark! I hear the wild wail of her death-song:

"My Father's Spirit, look down, look down-- From your hunting grounds in the s.h.i.+ning skies; Behold, for the light of my heart is gone; The light is gone and Winona dies.

I looked to the East, but I saw no star; The face of my White Chief was turned away.

I harked for his footsteps in vain; afar His bark sailed over the Sunrise-sea.

Long have I watched till my heart is cold; In my breast it is heavy and cold as a stone.

No more shall Winona his face behold, And the robin that sang in her heart is gone.

Shall I sit at the feet of the treacherous brave?

On his hateful couch shall Winona lie?

Shall she kindle his fire like a coward slave?

No!--a warrior's daughter can bravely die.

My Father's Spirit, look down, look down-- From your hunting-grounds in the s.h.i.+ning skies; Behold, for the light in my heart is gone; The light is gone and Winona dies."

[Ill.u.s.tration: DOWN WHIRLING AND FLUTTERING SHE FELL, AND HEADLONG PLUNGED INTO THE WATERS.]

Swift the strong hunters climbed as she sang, and the foremost of all was Tamdoka; From crag to crag upward he sprang; like a panther he leaped to the summit.

Too late!--on the brave as he crept turned the maid in her scorn and defiance; Then swift from the dizzy height leaped.

Like a brant arrow-pierced in mid-heaven.

Down whirling and fluttering she fell, and headlong plunged into the waters.

Forever she sank mid the wail, and the wild lamentation of women.

Her lone spirit evermore dwells in the depths of the Lake of the Mountains, And the lofty cliff evermore tells to the years as they pa.s.s her sad story.[BW]

In the silence of sorrow the night o'er the earth spread her wide, sable pinions; And the stars[18] hid their faces; and light on the lake fell the tears of the spirits.

As her sad sisters watched on the sh.o.r.e for her spirit to rise from the waters, They heard the swift dip of an oar, and a boat they beheld like a shadow, Gliding down through the night in the gray, gloaming mists on the face of the waters.

'Twas the bark of DuLuth on his way from the Falls to the Games at _Keoza_.

[BW] The Dakotas say that the spirit of Winona forever haunts the lake.

They say that it was many, many winters ago when Winona leaped from the rock,--that the rock was then perpendicular to the water's edge and she leaped into the lake, but now the rock has partly crumbled down and the waters have also receded, so that they do not now reach, the foot of the perpendicular rock as of old.

SPRING

_Et nunc omnis ager, mine omms parturit arbos; Nunc frondent sylvae, nunc formostssimus annus.

--Virgil._

Delightful harbinger of joys to come, Of summer's verdure and a fruitful year, Who bids thee o'er our northern snow-fields roam, And make all gladness in thy bright career?

Lo from the Indian Isle thou dost appear, And dost a thousand pleasures with thee bring: But why to us art thou so ever dear?

Bearest thou the hope--upon thy radiant wing-- Of Immortality, O soft, celestial Spring?

Yea, buds and flowers that fade not, they are thine, And youth-renewing balms; the sear and old Are young and gladsome at thy touch divine.

Thou breath'st upon the frozen earth--behold, Meadows and vales of gra.s.s and floral gold, Green-covered hills and leafy mountains grand: Young life leaps up where all was dumb and cold, As smoldering embers into flame are fanned, Or the dead came back to life at the touch of the Savior's hand.

The snow-clouds fly the canopy of heaven; The rivulets ripple with the merry tone Of wanton waters, and the breezes given To fan the budding hills are all thine own.

Returning songsters from the tropic zone Their vernal love-songs in the tree tops sing, And talk and twitter in a tongue unknown Of joys that journey on thy golden wing, And G.o.d who sends thee forth to wake the world, O Spring!

[ILl.u.s.tRATION: SPRING ADA MARY HUNTLY WILLIE]

Emblem of youth--enchanting G.o.ddess, Spring; Lo now the happy rustic wends his way O'er meadows decked with violets from thy wing, And laboring to the rhythm of song all day, Performs the task the harvest shall repay An hundredfold into the reaper's hand.

What recks the tiller of his toil in May?