Wakâwa thought of his daughter's words
Ere the south-wind came and the piping birds—
"My Father, listen—my words are true,"
And sad was her voice as the whippowil
When she mourns her mate by the moon-lit rill,
"Wiwâstè lingers alone with you;
The rest are sleeping on yonder hill—
Save one—and he an undutiful son—
And you, my Father, will sit alone
When Sisóka[[53]] sings and the snow is gone."
His broad breast heaved on his troubled soul,
The shadow of grief o'er his visage stole
Like a cloud on the face of the setting sun.
[Illustration]
"She has followed the years that are gone," he said;
"The spirits the words of the witch fulfill;
For I saw the ghost of my father dead,
By the moon's dim light on the misty hill.
He shook the plumes on his withered head,
And the wind through his pale form whistled shrill.
And a low, sad voice on the hill I heard,
Like the mournful wail of a widowed bird."
Then lo, as he looked from his lodge afar,
He saw the glow of the Evening-star;
"And yonder," he said, "is Wiwâstè's face;
She looks from her lodge on our fading race,
Devoured by famine, and fraud, and war,
And chased and hounded by fate and woe,
As the white wolves follow the buffalo;"
And he named the planet the Virgin Star.[[54]]
"Wakâwa," he muttered, "the guilt is thine!
She was pure—she was pure as the fawn unborn.
O why did I hark to the cry of scorn,
Or the words of the lying libertine?
Wakâwa, Wakâwa, the guilt is thine!
The springs will return with the voice of birds,
But the voice of my daughter will come no more.
She wakened the woods with her musical words,
And the sky-lark, ashamed of his voice, forbore.
She called back the years that had passed, and long
I heard their voice in her happy song.
O why did the chief of the tall Hóhè
His feet from Kapóza[a/][[6]] so long delay?
For his father sat at my father's feast,
And he at Wakâwa's—an honored guest.
He is dead!—he is slain on the Bloody Plain,
By the hand of the treacherous Chippeway;
And the face shall I never behold again
Of my brave young brother—the chief Chaskè.
Death walks like a shadow among my kin;
And swift are the feet of the flying years
That cover Wakâwa with frost and tears,
And leave their tracks on his wrinkled skin.
Wakâwa, the voice of the years that are gone
Will follow thy feet like the shadow of death,
Till the paths of the forest and desert lone
Shall forget thy footsteps. O living breath,
Whence are thou, and whither so soon to fly?
And whence are the years? Shall I overtake
Their flying feet in the star-lit sky?
From his last long sleep will the warrior wake?
Will the morning break in Wakâwa's tomb,
As it breaks and glows in the eastern skies?
Is it true?—will the spirits of kinsmen come
And bid the bones of the brave arise?
Wakâwa, Wakâwa, for thee the years
Are red with blood and bitter with tears.
Gone—brothers, and daughters, and wife—all gone
That are kin to Wakâwa—but one—but one—
Wakínyan Tânka—undutiful son!
And he estranged from his father's tee,
Will never return till the chief shall die.
And what cares he for his father's grief?
He will smile at my death—it will make him chief.
Woe burns in my bosom. Ho, warriors—Ho!
Raise the song of red war; for your chief must go
To drown his grief in the blood of the foe!
I shall fall. Raise my mound on the sacred hill.
Let my warriors the wish of their chief fulfill;
For my fathers sleep in the sacred ground.
The Autumn blasts o'er Wakâwa's mound
Will chase the hair of the thistles' head,
And the bare-armed oak o'er the silent dead,
When the whirling snows from the north descend,
Will wail and moan in the midnight wind.
In the famine of winter the wolf will prowl,
And scratch the snow from the heap of stones,
And sit in the gathering storm and howl,
On the frozen mound, for Wakâwa's bones.
But the years that are gone shall return again,
As the robin returns and the whippowil,
When my warriors stand on the sacred hill
And remember the deeds of their brave chief slain."
Beneath the glow of the Virgin Star
They raised the song of the red war-dance.
At the break of dawn with the bow and lance
They followed the chief on the path of war.
To the north—to the forests of fir and pine—
Led their stealthy steps on the winding trail,
Till they saw the Lake of the Spirit[[55]] shine
Through somber pines of the dusky dale.
Then they heard the hoot of the mottled owl;[[56]]
They heard the gray wolf's dismal howl;
Then shrill and sudden the war-whoop rose
From an hundred throats of their swarthy foes,
In ambush crouched in the tangled wood.
Death shrieked in the twang of their deadly bows,
And their hissing arrows drank brave men's blood.
From rock, and thicket, and brush, and brakes,
Gleamed the burning eyes of the "forest-snakes."[[57]]
From brake, and thicket, and brush, and stone,
The bow-string hummed and the arrow hissed,
And the lance of a crouching Ojibway shone,
Or the scalp-knife gleamed in a swarthy fist.
Undaunted the braves of Wakâwa's band
Leaped into the thicket with lance and knife,
And grappled the Chippeways hand to hand;
And foe with foe, in the deadly strife,
Lay clutching the scalp of his foe and dead,
With a tomahawk sunk in his ghastly head,
Or his still heart sheathing a bloody blade.
Like a bear in the battle Wakâwa raves,
And cheers the hearts of his falling braves.
But a panther crouches along his track—
He springs with a yell on Wakâwa's back!
The tall chief, stabbed to the heart, lies low;
But his left hand clutches his deadly foe,
And his red right clinches the bloody hilt
Of his knife in the heart of the slayer dyed.
And thus was the life of Wakâwa spilt,
And slain and slayer lay side by side.
The unscalped corpse of their honored chief
His warriors snatched from the yelling pack,
And homeward fled on their forest track
With their bloody burden and load of grief.
The spirits the words of the brave fulfill—
Wakâwa sleeps on the sacred hill,
And Wakínyan Tânka, his son, is chief.
Ah soon shall the lips of men forget
Wakâwa's name, and the mound of stone
Will speak of the dead to the winds alone,
And the winds will whistle their mock regret.
The speckled cones of the scarlet berries[[58]]
Lie red and ripe in the prairie grass.
The Si-yo[[59]] clucks on the emerald prairies
To her infant brood. From the wild morass,
On the sapphire lakelet set within it,
Magâ sails forth with her wee ones daily.
They ride on the dimpling waters gaily,
Like a fleet of yachts and a man-of-war.
The piping plover, the light-winged linnet,
And the swallow sail in the sunset skies.
The whippowil from her cover hies,
And trills her song on the amber air.
Anon to her loitering mate she cries:
"Flip, O Will!—trip, O Will!—skip, O Will!"
And her merry mate from afar replies:
"Flip I will—skip I will—trip I will;"
And away on the wings of the wind he flies.
And bright from her lodge in the skies afar
Peeps the glowing face of the Virgin Star.
The fox-pups[[60]] creep from their mother's lair,
And leap in the light of the rising moon;
And loud on the luminous, moonlit lake
Shrill the bugle-notes of the lover loon;
And woods and waters and welkin break
Into jubilant song—it is joyful June.
But where is Wiwâstè? O where is she—
The virgin avenged—the queenly queen—
The womanly woman—the heroine?
Has she gone to the spirits? and can it be
That her beautiful face is the Virgin Star
Peeping out from the door of her lodge afar,
Or upward sailing the silver sea,
Star-beaconed and lit like an avenue,
In the shining stern of her gold canoe?
No tidings came—nor the brave Chaskè:
O why did the lover so long delay?
He promised to come with the robins in May
With the bridal gifts for the bridal day;
But the fair May-mornings have slipped away,
And where is the lover—the brave Chaskè?
But what of the venomous Hârpstinà—
The serpent that tempted the proud Red Cloud,
And kindled revenge in his savage soul?
He paid for his crime with his own heart's blood,
But his angry spirit has brought her dole;[[61]]
It has entered her breast and her burning head,
And she raves and burns on her fevered bed.
"He is dead! He is dead!" is her wailing cry,
"And the blame is mine—it was I—it was I!
I hated Wiwâstè, for she was fair,
And my brave was caught in her net of hair.
I turned his love to a bitter hate;
I nourished revenge, and I pricked his pride;
Till the Feast of the Virgins I bade him wait.
He had his revenge, but he died—he died!
And the blame is mine—it was I—it was I!
And his spirit burns me; I die—I die!"
Thus, alone in her lodge and her agonies,
She wails to the winds of the night, and dies.
But where is Wiwâstè? Her swift feet flew
To the somber shades of the tangled thicket.
She hid in the copse like a wary cricket,
And the fleetest hunters in vain pursue.
Seeing unseen from her hiding place,
She sees them fly on the hurried chase;
She sees their dark eyes glance and dart,
As they pass and peer for a track or trace,
And she trembles with fear in the copse apart,
Lest her nest be betrayed by her throbbing heart.