THE WOOD SPIRITS AND THE MAIDEN.
BY MRS. MARY EASTMAN.
Those who have lived among the Indians are accustomed to their faith in the protecting power of the Spirits of Nature. Especially powerful is the god of the woods and forests.
Day with its gorgeous light passes away,
Shadows of coming night darken the way.
Who is the wanderer
With the long braided hair?
'Mid the tall evergreens,
She like a fairy seems;
Know ye the maiden young,
Wood Spirits, say?
Know we the maiden young—mark well her form,
Like the tall pine tree, when rages the storm.
How like the dark bird's wing
Glistens her braided hair.
When watching o'er her birth,
Sang we a song of earth,
We were her guardians made,
She was our child.
Soon o'er her body cold, chaunt we her funeral hymn,
Wild branches, torn and old, timing the requiem.
Why does she wander here,
With the long braided hair?
Why is the maiden pale—
Why does her breathing fail?
Now, by the moonbeams fair,
See her dimmed eye.
She loved as maiden loves, she wept as woman weeps.
Soon will her restless frame sleep where her lover sleeps.
Then to our far-off groves
Will we her spirit hear.
When heaves her parting sigh,
When closed her lustrous eye,
We will her guardians be,—
She is our child.