Old Spookses Pass | Page 9

frolic winds.?In this shrill moon the scouts of winter ran?From the ice-belted north, and whistling shafts?Struck maple and struck sumach--and a blaze?Ran swift from leaf to leaf, from bough to bough;?Till round the forest flash'd a belt of flame.?And inward lick'd its tongues of red and gold?To the deep, tranied inmost heart of all.?Rous'd the still heart--but all too late, too late.?Too late, the branches welded fast with leaves,?Toss'd, loosen'd, to the winds--too late the sun?Pour'd his last vigor to the deep, dark cells?Of the dim wood. The keen, two-bladed Moon?Of Falling Leaves roll'd up on crested mists?And where the lush, rank boughs had foiled the sun?In his red prime, her pale, sharp fingers crept?After the wind and felt about the moss,?And seem'd to pluck from shrinking twig and stem?The burning leaves--while groan'd the shudd'ring wood.?Who journey'd where the prairies made a pause,?Saw burnish'd ramparts flaming in the sun,?With beacon fires, tall on their rustling walls.?And when the vast, horn'd herds at sunset drew?Their sullen masses into one black cloud,?Rolling thund'rous o'er the quick pulsating plain,?They seem'd to sweep between two fierce red suns?Which, hunter-wise, shot at their glaring balls?Keen shafts, with scarlet feathers and gold barbs,?By round, small lakes with thinner, forests fring'd,?More jocund woods that sung about the feet?And crept along the shoulders of great cliffs;?The warrior stags, with does and tripping fawns,?Like shadows black upon the throbbing mist?Of Evening's rose, flash'd thro' the singing woods--?Nor tim'rous, sniff'd the spicy, cone-breath'd air;?For never had the patriarch of the herd?Seen limn'd against the farthest rim of light?Of the low-dipping sky, the plume or bow?Of the red hunter; nor when stoop'd to drink,?Had from the rustling rice-beds heard the shaft?Of the still hunter hidden in its spears;?His bark canoe close-knotted in its bronze,?His form as stirless as the brooding air,?His dusky eyes too, fix'd, unwinking, fires;?His bow-string tighten'd till it subtly sang?To the long throbs, and leaping pulse that roll'd?And beat within his knotted, naked breast.?There came a morn. The Moon of Falling Leaves,?With her twin silver blades had only hung?Above the low set cedars of the swamp?For one brief quarter, when the sun arose?Lusty with light and full of summer heat,?And pointing with his arrows at the blue,?Clos'd wigwam curtains of the sleeping moon,?Laugh'd with the noise of arching cataracts,?And with the dove-like cooing of the woods,?And with the shrill cry of the diving loon?And with the wash of saltless, rounded seas,?And mock'd the white moon of the Falling Leaves.?"Esa! esa! shame upon you, Pale Face!?"Shame upon you, moon of evil witches!?"Have you kill'd the happy, laughing Summer??"Have you slain the mother of the Flowers?"With your icy spells of might and magic??"Have you laid her dead within my arms??"Wrapp'd her, mocking, in a rainbow blanket.?"Drown'd her in the frost mist of your anger??"She is gone a little way before me;?"Gone an arrow's flight beyond my vision;?"She will turn again and come to meet me,?"With the ghosts of all the slain flowers,?"In a blue mist round her shining tresses;?"In a blue smoke in her naked forests--?"She will linger, kissing all the branches,?"She will linger, touching all the places,?"Bare and naked, with her golden fingers,?"Saying, 'Sleep, and dream of me, my children?"'Dream of me, the mystic Indian Summer;?"'I, who, slain by the cold Moon of Terror,?"'Can return across the path of Spirits,?"'Bearing still my heart of love and fire;?"'Looking with my eyes of warmth and splendour;?"'Whisp'ring lowly thro' your sleep of sunshine??"'I, the laughing Summer, am not turn'd?"'Into dry dust, whirling on the prairies,--?"'Into red clay, crush'd beneath the snowdrifts.?"'I am still the mother of sweet flowers?"'Growing but an arrow's flight beyond you--?"'In the Happy Hunting Ground--the quiver?"'Of great Manitou, where all the arrows?"'He has shot from his great bow of Pow'r,?"'With its clear, bright, singing cord of Wisdom,?"'Are re-gather'd, plum'd again and brighten'd,?"'And shot out, re-barb'd with Love and Wisdom;?"'Always shot, and evermore returning.?"'Sleep, my children, smiling in your heart-seeds?"'At the spirit words of Indian Summer!'"?"Thus, O Moon of Falling Leaves, I mock you!?"Have you slain my gold-ey'd squaw, the Summer?"?The mighty morn strode laughing up the land,?And Max, the labourer and the lover, stood?Within the forest's edge, beside a tree;?The mossy king of all the woody tribes,?Whose clatt'ring branches rattl'd, shuddering,?As the bright axe cleav'd moon-like thro' the air,?Waking strange thunders, rousing echoes link'd?From the full, lion-throated roar, to sighs?Stealing on dove-wings thro' the distant aisles.?Swift fell the axe, swift follow'd roar on roar,?Till the bare woodland bellow'd in its rage,?As the first-slain slow toppl'd to his fall.?"O King of Desolation, art thou dead?"?Thought Max, and laughing, heart and lips, leap'd on?The vast, prone trunk. "And have I slain a King??"Above his ashes will I build my house--?No slave beneath its pillars, but--a King!"?Max wrought alone, but for a half-breed lad,?With tough, lithe sinews and deep Indian eyes,?Lit with