Flint and Feather | Page 7

Talk terms of Peace? Not I.
It is eminently fitting that this daughter of Nature should have been laid
to rest in no urban cemetery. According to her own request she was
buried in Stanley Park, Vancouver's beautiful heritage of the forest
primeval. A simple stone surrounded by rustic palings marks her grave
and on this stone is carved the one word "Pauline." There she lies
among ferns and wild flowers a short distance from Siwash Rock, the
story of which she has recorded in the legends of her race. In time to
come a pathway to her grave will be worn by lovers of Canadian poetry
who will regard it as one of the most romantic of our literary shrines.
THE WHITE WAMPUM
(The following poems are from the author's first book, "The White
Wampum," first published in 1895.)
OJISTOH
I am Ojistoh, I am she, the wife
Of him whose name breathes bravery

and life
And courage to the tribe that calls him chief.
I am Ojistoh,
his white star, and he
Is land, and lake, and sky--and soul to me.
Ah! but they hated him, those Huron braves,
Him who had flung their
warriors into graves,
Him who had crushed them underneath his heel,

Whose arm was iron, and whose heart was steel
To all--save me,
Ojistoh, chosen wife
Of my great Mohawk, white star of his life.
Ah! but they hated him, and councilled long
With subtle witchcraft
how to work him wrong;
How to avenge their dead, and strike him
where
His pride was highest, and his fame most fair.
Their hearts
grew weak as women at his name:
They dared no war-path since my
Mohawk came
With ashen bow, and flinten arrow-head
To pierce
their craven bodies; but their dead
Must be avenged. Avenged? They
dared not walk
In day and meet his deadly tomahawk;
They dared
not face his fearless scalping knife;
So--Niyoh![1]--then they thought
of me, his wife.
O! evil, evil face of them they sent
With evil Huron speech: "Would I
consent
To take of wealth? be queen of all their tribe?
Have
wampum ermine?" Back I flung the bribe
Into their teeth, and said,
"While I have life
Know this--Ojistoh is the Mohawk's wife."
Wah! how we struggled! But their arms were strong.
They flung me
on their pony's back, with thong
Round ankle, wrist, and shoulder.
Then upleapt
The one I hated most: his eye he swept
Over my
misery, and sneering said,
"Thus, fair Ojistoh, we avenge our dead."
And we two rode, rode as a sea wind-chased,
I, bound with buckskin
to his hated waist,
He, sneering, laughing, jeering, while he lashed

The horse to foam, as on and on we dashed.
Plunging through creek
and river, bush and trail,
On, on we galloped like a northern gale.

At last, his distant Huron fires aflame
We saw, and nearer, nearer still
we came.

I, bound behind him in the captive's place,
Scarcely could see the
outline of his face.
I smiled, and laid my cheek against his back:

"Loose thou my hands," I said. "This pace let slack.
Forget we now
that thou and I are foes.
I like thee well, and wish to clasp thee close;

I like the courage of thine eye and brow;
I like thee better than my
Mohawk now."
He cut the cords; we ceased our maddened haste
I wound my arms
about his tawny waist;
My hand crept up the buckskin of his belt;

His knife hilt in my burning palm I felt;
One hand caressed his cheek,
the other drew
The weapon softly--"I love you, love you,"
I
whispered, "love you as my life."
And--buried in his back his
scalping knife.
Ha! how I rode, rode as a sea wind-chased,
Mad with sudden freedom,
mad with haste,
Back to my Mohawk and my home. I lashed
That
horse to foam, as on and on I dashed.
Plunging thro' creek and river,
bush and trail,
On, on I galloped like a northern gale.
And then my
distant Mohawk's fires aflame
I saw, as nearer, nearer still I came,

My hands all wet, stained with a life's red dye,
But pure my soul, pure
as those stars on high--
"My Mohawk's pure white star, Ojistoh, still
am I."
[1] God, in the Mohawk language.
AS RED MEN DIE
Captive! Is there a hell to him like this?
A taunt more galling than the
Huron's hiss?
He--proud and scornful, he--who laughed at law,

He--scion of the deadly Iroquois,
He--the bloodthirsty, he--the
Mohawk chief,
He--who despises pain and sneers at grief,
Here in
the hated Huron's vicious clutch,
That even captive he disdains to
touch!
Captive! But never conquered; Mohawk brave
Stoops not to be to any

man a slave;
Least, to the puny tribe his soul abhors,
The tribe
whose wigwams sprinkle Simcoe's shores.
With scowling brow he
stands and courage high,
Watching with haughty and defiant eye

His captors, as they council o'er his fate,
Or strive his boldness to
intimidate.
Then fling they unto him the choice;
"Wilt thou
Walk o'er the bed of fire that waits thee now--
Walk
with uncovered feet upon the coals,
Until thou reach the ghostly Land
of Souls,
And, with thy Mohawk death-song please our ear?
Or wilt
thou