Flint and Feather: Collected Verse Part 3

Your wife? Ah, what of that, who cares for me?

Who pities my poor love and agony?

What white-robed priest prays for your safety here, As prayer is said for every volunteer That swells the ranks that Canada sends out?

Who prays for vict'ry for the Indian scout?

Who prays for our poor nation lying low?

None--therefore take your tomahawk and go.

My heart may break and burn into its core, But I am strong to bid you go to war.

Yet stay, my heart is not the only one That grieves the loss of husband and of son; Think of the mothers o'er the inland seas; Think of the pale-faced maiden on her knees; One pleads her G.o.d to guard some sweet-faced child That marches on toward the North-West wild.

The other prays to s.h.i.+eld her love from harm, To strengthen his young, proud uplifted arm.

Ah, how her white face quivers thus to think, _Your_ tomahawk his life's best blood will drink.

She never thinks of my wild aching breast, Nor prays for your dark face and eagle crest Endangered by a thousand rifle b.a.l.l.s, My heart the target if my warrior falls.

O! coward self I hesitate no more; Go forth, and win the glories of the war.

Go forth, nor bend to greed of white men's hands, By right, by birth we Indians own these lands, Though starved, crushed, plundered, lies our nation low...

Perhaps the white man's G.o.d has willed it so.

DAWENDINE

There's a spirit on the river, there's a ghost upon the sh.o.r.e, They are chanting, they are singing through the starlight evermore, As they steal amid the silence, And the shadows of the sh.o.r.e.

You can hear them when the Northern candles light the Northern sky, Those pale, uncertain candle flames, that s.h.i.+ver, dart and die, Those dead men's icy finger tips, Athwart the Northern sky.

You can hear the ringing war-cry of a long-forgotten brave Echo through the midnight forest, echo o'er the midnight wave, And the Northern lanterns tremble At the war-cry of that brave.

And you hear a voice responding, but in soft and tender song; It is Dawendine's spirit singing, singing all night long; And the whisper of the night wind Bears afar her Spirit song.

And the wailing pine trees murmur with their voice attuned to hers, Murmur when they 'rouse from slumber as the night wind through them stirs; And you listen to their legend, And their voices blend with hers.

There was feud and there was bloodshed near the river by the hill; And Dawendine listened, while her very heart stood still: Would her kinsman or her lover Be the victim by the hill?

Who would be the great unconquered? who come boasting how he dealt Death? and show his rival's scalplock fresh and bleeding at his belt.

Who would say, "O Dawendine!

Look upon the death I dealt?"

And she listens, listens, listens--till a war-cry rends the night, Cry of her victorious lover, monarch he of all the height; And his triumph wakes the horrors, Kills the silence of the night.

Heart of her! it throbs so madly, then lies freezing in her breast, For the icy hand of death has chilled the brother she loved best; And her lover dealt the death-blow; And her heart dies in her breast.

And she hears her mother saying, "Take thy belt of wampum white; Go unto yon evil savage while he glories on the height; Sing and sue for peace between us: At his feet lay wampum white.

"Lest thy kinsmen all may perish, all thy brothers and thy sire Fall before his mighty hatred as the forest falls to fire; Take thy wampum pale and peaceful, Save thy brothers, save thy sire."

And the girl arises softly, softly slips toward the sh.o.r.e; Loves she well the murdered brother, loves his hated foeman more, Loves, and longs to give the wampum; And she meets him on the sh.o.r.e.

"Peace," she sings, "O mighty victor, Peace! I bring thee wampum white.

Sheathe thy knife whose blade has tasted my young kinsman's blood to-night Ere it drink to slake its thirsting, I have brought thee wampum white."

Answers he, "O Dawendine! I will let thy kinsmen be, I accept thy belt of wampum; but my hate demands for me That they give their fairest treasure, Ere I let thy kinsmen be.

"Dawendine, for thy singing, for thy suing, war shall cease; For thy name, which speaks of dawning, _Thou_ shalt be the dawn of peace; For thine eyes whose purple shadows tell of dawn, My hate shall cease.

"Dawendine, Child of Dawning, hateful are thy kin to me; Red my fingers with their heart blood, but my heart is red for thee: Dawendine, Child of Dawning, Wilt thou fail or follow me?"

And her kinsmen still are waiting her returning from the night, Waiting, waiting for her coming with her belt of wampum white; But forgetting all, she follows, Where he leads through day or night.

There's a spirit on the river, there's a ghost upon the sh.o.r.e, And they sing of love and loving through the starlight evermore, As they steal amid the silence, And the shadows of the sh.o.r.e.

WOLVERINE

"Yes, sir, it's quite a story, though you won't believe it's true, But such things happened often when I lived beyond the Soo."

And the trapper tilted back his chair and filled his pipe anew.

"I ain't thought of it neither fer this many 'n many a day, Although it used to haunt me in the years that's slid away, The years I spent a-trappin' for the good old Hudson's Bay.

"Wild? You bet, 'twas wild then, an' few an' far between The squatters' shacks, for whites was scarce as furs when things is green, An' only reds an' 'Hudson's' men was all the folk I seen.

"No. Them old Indyans ain't so bad, not if you treat 'em square.

Why, I lived in amongst 'em all the winters I was there, An' I never lost a copper, an' I never lost a hair.

"But I'd have lost my life the time that you've heard tell about; I don't think I'd be settin' here, but dead beyond a doubt, If that there Indyan 'Wolverine' jest hadn't helped me out.

"'Twas freshet time, 'way back, as long as sixty-six or eight, An' I was comin' to the Post that year a kind of late, For beaver had been plentiful, and trappin' had been great.

"One day I had been settin' traps along a bit of wood, An' night was catchin' up to me jest faster 'an it should, When all at once I heard a sound that curdled up my blood.

"It was the howl of famished wolves--I didn't stop to think But jest lit out across for home as quick as you could wink, But when I reached the river's edge I brought up at the brink.

"That mornin' I had crossed the stream straight on a sheet of ice An' now, G.o.d help me! There it was, churned up an' cracked to dice, The flood went boiling past--I stood like one shut in a vice.

"No way ahead, no path aback, trapped like a rat ash.o.r.e, With naught but death to follow, and with naught but death afore; The howl of hungry wolves aback--ahead, the torrent's roar.

"An' then--a voice, an Indyan voice, that called out clear and clean, 'Take Indyan's horse, I run like deer, wolf can't catch Wolverine.'

I says, 'Thank Heaven.' There stood the chief I'd nicknamed Wolverine.

"I leapt on that there horse, an' then jest like a coward fled, An' left that Indyan standin' there alone, as good as dead, With the wolves a-howlin' at his back, the swollen stream ahead.

"I don't know how them Indyans dodge from death the way they do, You won't believe it, sir, but what I'm tellin' you is true, But that there chap was 'round next day as sound as me or you.

"He came to get his horse, but not a cent he'd take from me.

Yes, sir, you're right, the Indyans now ain't like they used to be; We've got 'em sharpened up a bit an' _now_ they'll take a fee.

"No, sir, you're wrong, they ain't no 'dogs.' I'm not through tellin' yet; You'll take that name right back again, or else jest out you get!

You'll take that name right back when you hear all this yarn, I bet.

"It happened that same autumn, when some Whites was comin' in, I heard the old Red River carts a-kickin' up a din, So I went over to their camp to see an English skin.