Memories of Canada and Scotland, Speeches and Verses | Page 5

life-stream these were
blent;
As a father's words, like arrows
Straight to children's hearts
are sent,
So my currents speeding downwards,
Ever passing, sing the same

Story of the days remembered,
When the stranger people came.

Men of mighty limbs and voices,
Bearing shining shields and knives,

Painted gleamed their hair like evening,
When the sun in ocean
dives.
Blue their eyes and tall their stature,
Huge as Indian shadows seen


When the sun through mists of morning
Casts them o'er a clear lake's
sheen.
From before the great Pale-faces
Fled the tribes to woods and caves,

Watching thence their fearful councils,
Where they talked beside
the waves.
For they loved the shores, and fashioned
Houses from its stones, and
there
Fished and rested, danced at night-time
By their fire and
torches' glare.
Sang loud songs before the pine-logs
As they crackled in the flame,

Raised and drank from bone-cups, shouting
Fiercely some strange
spirit's name.
Turning to the morning's pathway,
Cried they thus to gods, and none

Dared to fight the bearded giants,
Children of the fire and sun.
From their bodies fell our flint-darts,
Yet their arrows flew, like rays

Flashing from the rocks where polished
By the ice in winter days.
Then the Indians prayed the spirits
Haunting river, bank, and hill,

To let hatred, like marsh vapour,
Rise among their foes and kill.
And they seemed to heed, for anger
Often maddened all the band,

Fighting for some stones that glittered
Yellow on Ugondé's sand.
Seeing axe and spear-head crimson,
Hope illumined doubt and dread,

And our land's despairing children
Called upon the mighty dead.
All the Northern night-air shaking,
Rose the ancients' bright array,

Burning lines of battle breaking
Darkness into lurid day.
But the stranger hearts were hardened,
Fearless slept they; then at last

Our Great Spirit heard, and answered
From his home in heaven
vast.

For his waving locks were tempests,
And the thunder-cloud his frown;

Where he trod the earthquake followed,
And the forests bowed
them down.
As his whirlwind struck the mountains,
Rent and lifted, swayed the
ground;
Winged knives of crooked lightning
Gleamed from skies
and gulfs profound.
Floods, from wonted channels driven,
Roared at falling hillside's
shock;
What was land became the torrent,
What was lake became
the rock.
Now the river and the ocean,
Whispering, say: "Our floods alone

See white skeletons slow-moving
Near the olden walls of stone."
Moving slow in stream and sea-tide,
There the stranger warriors sleep,

And their shades still cry in anguish
Where the foaming waters
leap.
THE GUIDE OF THE MOHAWKS.
For strife against the ocean tribe
The Mohawks' war array
Comes
floating down, where broad St. John
Reflects the dawning day.
A camp is seen, and victims fall,
And none are left to flee;
A maid
alone is spared, compelled
A traitress guide to be.
The swift canoes
together keep,
And o'er their gliding prows
The silent girl points
down the stream,
Nor halt nor rest allows.
"Speak! are we near your fires? How dark
Night o'er these waters
lies!"
Still pointing down the rushing stream,
The maiden naught
replies.
The banks fly past, the water seethes;
The Mohawks shout, "To shore!

Where is the girl?" Her cry ascends
From out the river's roar.

The foaming rapids rise and flash
A moment o'er her head,
And
smiling as she sinks, she knows
Her foemen's course is sped;
A moment hears she shriek on shriek
From hearts that death appals,

As, seized by whirling gulfs, the crews
Are drawn into the falls!
THE STRONG HUNTER.
There's a warrior hunting o'er prairie and hill,
Who in sunshine or
starlight is eager to kill,
Who ne'er sleeps by his fire on the wild
river's shore,
Where the green cedars shake to the white rapids' roar.
Ever tireless and noiseless, he knows not repose,
Be the land filled
with summer, or lifeless with snows;
But his strength gives him few
he can count as his friends, Man and beast fly before him wherever he
wends,
For he chases alike every form that has breath,
And his darts must
strike all,--for that hunter is Death!!
Lo! a skeleton armed, and his
scalp-lock yet streams;
From this vision of fear of the Iroquois'
dreams!
MON-DAW-MIN;
OR, THE ORIGIN OF THE INDIAN-CORN.
Cherry bloom and green buds bursting
Fleck the azure skies;
In the
spring wood, hungering, thirsting,
Faint an Indian lies.
To behold his guardian spirit
Fasts the dusky youth;
Prays that thus
he may inherit
Warrior strength and truth.
Weak he grows, the war-path gory
Seems a far delight;
Now he
scans the flowers, whose glory
Is not won by fight.
"Hunger kills me; see my arrow
Bloodless lies: I ask,
If life's doom

be grave-pit narrow,
Deathless make its task.
"For man's welfare guide my being,
So I shall not die
Like the
flow'rets, fading, fleeing,
When the snow is nigh.
"Medicine from the plants we borrow,
Salves from many a leaf;

May they not kill hunger's sorrow,
Give with food relief?"
Suddenly a spirit shining
From the sky came down,
Green his
mantle, floating, twining,
Gold his feather crown.
"I have heard thy thought unspoken;
Famous thou shall be;
Though
no scalp shall be the token,
Men shall speak of thee.
"Bravely borne, men's heaviest burden
Ever lighter lies;
Wrestling
with me, win the guerdon;
Gain thy wish, arise!"
Now he rises, and, prevailing,
Hears the angel say:
"Strong in
weakness, never failing,
Strive yet one more day.
"Now again I come, and find