“THE SNOW-TRACKS OF MY FRIENDS I SEE”
The following incomplete stanzas were evidently written when The Complaint of a Forsaken Indian Woman was being composed. They were all discarded, but have a biographical interest. I assign them to the year 1798.—Ed.
The snow-tracks of my friends I see,
Their foot-marks do not trouble me,
For ever left alone am I.
Then wherefore should I fear to die?
They to the last my friends did cherish 5
And to the last were good and kind,
Methinks ’tis strange I did not perish
The moment I was left behind.
Why do I watch those running deer?
And wherefore, wherefore come they here? 10
And wherefore do I seem to love
The things that live, the things that move?
Why do I look upon the sky?
I do not live for what I see.
Why open thus mine eyes? To die 15
Is all that now is left for me,
If I could smother up my heart
My life would then at once depart.
My friends, you live, and yet you seem
To me the people of a dream; 20
A dream in which there is no love,
And yet, my friends, you live and move.
When I could live without a pain,
And feel no wish to be alive,
In quiet hopelessness I sleep, 25
Alas! how quiet, and how deep!
Oh no! I do not, cannot rue,
I did not strive to follow you.
I might have dropp’d, and died alone
On unknown snows, a spot unknown. 30
This spot to me must needs be dear,
Of my dear friends I see the trace.
You saw me, friends, you laid me here,
You know where my poor bones shall be,
Then wherefore should I fear to die? 35
Alas that one beloved, forlorn,
Should lie beneath the cold starlight!
With them I think I could have borne
The journey of another night,
And with my friends now far away 40
I could have lived another day.