Old Spookses Pass | Page 9

Isabella Valancy Crawford
with cool dews,
Far
from him, northward; his long, ruddy spear
Flung sunward, whence it
came, and his soft locks
Of warm, fine haze grew silver as the birch.

His wigwam of green leaves began to shake;
The crackling
rice-beds scolded harsh like squaws:
The small ponds pouted up their
silver lips;
The great lakes ey'd the mountains, whisper'd "Ugh!"

"Are ye so tall, O chiefs? Not taller than
Our plumes can reach." And
rose a little way,
As panthers stretch to try their velvet limbs,
And
then retreat to purr and bide their time.
At morn the sharp breath of
the night arose
From the wide prairies, in deep struggling seas,
In
rolling breakers, bursting to the sky;
In tumbling surfs, all yellow'd
faintly thro'
With the low sun--in mad, conflicting crests,
Voic'd
with low thunder from the hairy throats
Of the mist-buried herds; and
for a man
To stand amid the cloudy roll and moil,
The phantom
waters breaking overhead,
Shades of vex'd billows bursting on his
breast,
Torn caves of mist wall'd with a sudden gold,
Reseal'd as
swift as seen--broad, shaggy fronts,
Fire-ey'd and tossing on
impatient horns
The wave impalpable--was but to think
A dream of
phantoms held him as he stood.
The late, last thunders of the summer
crash'd,
Where shrieked great eagles, lords of naked cliffs.
The
pulseless forest, lock'd and interlock'd
So closely, bough with bough,
and leaf with leaf,
So serf'd by its own wealth, that while from high

The moons of summer kiss'd its green-gloss'd locks;
And round its
knees the merry West Wind danc'd;
And round its ring, compacted
emerald;
The south wind crept on moccasins of flame;

And the fed
fingers of th' impatient sun
Pluck'd at its outmost fringes--its dim
veins
Beat with no life--its deep and dusky heart,
In a deep trance
of shadow, felt no throb
To such soft wooing answer: thro' its dream

Brown rivers of deep waters sunless stole;
Small creeks sprang

from its mosses, and amaz'd,
Like children in a wigwam curtain'd
close
Above the great, dead, heart of some red chief,
Slipp'd on soft
feet, swift stealing through the gloom,
Eager for light and for the
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
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