O mighty Sowanna!
Thy gateways unfold,
From thy wigwams of sunset
Lift curtains of gold!
Take home the poor Spirit whose journey is o'er,—
Mat wonck kunna-monee!—We see her no more!"
There are two minor Indian poems by Whittier that have the true ring; namely, the "Truce of Piscataqua" and "Funeral Tree of the Sokokis." The latter well-known poem is pitched in as high and solemn a key as Platen's "Grab im Busento," a poem similar in theme to Whittier's:—
"They heave the stubborn trunk aside,
The firm roots from the earth divide,—
The rent beneath yawns dark and wide.
And there the fallen chief is laid,
In tasselled garbs of skins arrayed,
And girded with his wampum-braid."
Whittier.
"In der wogenleeren Höhlung wühlten sie empor die Erde,
Senkten tief hinein den Leichnam, mit der Rüstung auf dem Pferde.
Deckten dann mit Erde wieder ihn und seine stolze Habe."
Platen.
In the empty river-bottom hurriedly they dug the death-pit,
Deep therein they sank the hero with his armor and his war-steed,
Covered then with earth and darkness him and all his splendid trappings.
When the reader, who has worked gloomily along through Whittier's anti-slavery and miscellaneous poems, reaches the "Songs of Labor," he feels at once the breath of a fresher spirit,—as a traveller who has been toiling for weary leagues through sandy deserts bares his brow with delight to the coolness and shade of a green forest through whose thick roof of leaves the garish sunlight scarcely sifts. We feel that in these poems a new departure has been made. The wrath of the reformer has expended itself, and the poet now returns, with mind elevated and more tensely keyed by his moral warfare, to the study of the beautiful in native themes and in homely life. "The Shipbuilders," "The Shoemakers," "The Fishermen," and "The Huskers" are genuine songs; and more shame to the craftsmen celebrated if they do not get them set to music, and sing them while at their work. One cannot help feeling that Walt Whitman's call for some one to make songs for American laborers had already been met in a goodly degree by these spirited "Songs of Labor." What workman would not be glad to carol such stanzas as the following, if they were set to popular airs?
"Hurrah! the seaward breezes
Sweep down the bay amain;
Heave up, my lads, the anchor!
Run up the sail again!
Leave to the lubber landsmen
The rail-car and the steed:
The stars of heaven shall guide us,
The breath of heaven shall speed."