Classic Poem

CANTO FOURTH

As if to battle, o'er the midnight heaven
The clouds are hurrying forth: now veiled on high;
Now sallying out, the moon and stars are driven,
As wandering doubtful; in the shifting sky,
Mid mazes strange the Dancers seem to fly;
Wildly the unwearied hunters drive the Bear:
Through the deep groves is heard a Spirit's cry;
And hark! what strain unearthly echoes there,
Borne fitful from afar, along the troubled air.

I.

TO THE MANITTO OF DREAMS .


I.

" Spirit ! THOU Spirit of subtlest air,
Whose power is upon the brain,
When wondrous shapes, and dread and fair,
As the film from the eyes
At thy bidding flies,
To sight and sense are plain!

2.

" Thy whisper creeps where leaves are stirred;
Thou sighest in woodland gale;
Where waters are gushing thy voice is heard;
And when stars are bright,
At still midnight,
Thy symphonies prevail!

3.

" Where the forest ocean, in quick commotion,
Is waving to and fro,
Thy form is seen, in the masses green,
Dimly to come and go.
From thy covert peeping, where thou layest sleeping,
Beside the brawling brook,
Thou art seen to wake, and thy flight to take
Fleet from thy lonely nook.

4.

Where the moonbeam has kiss'd
The sparkling tide,
In thy mantle of mist
Thou art seen to glide.
Far o'er the blue waters
Melting away,
On the distant billow,
As on a pillow,
Thy form to lay.

5.

Where the small clouds of even
Are wreathing in heaven
Their garland of roses,
O'er the purple and gold,
Whose hangings enfold
The hall that encloses
The couch of the sun,
Whose empire is done, —
There thou art smiling,
For thy sway is begun;
Thy shadowy sway,
The senses beguiling,
When the light fades away,
And thy vapour of mystery o'er nature ascending,
The heaven and the earth,
The things that have birth,
And the embryos that float in the future are blending.


II.

I.

" From the land, on whose shores the billows break
The sounding waves of the mighty lake;
From the land where boundless meadows be,
Where the buffalo ranges wild and free;
With silvery coat in his little isle,
Where the beaver plies his ceaseless toil;
The land where pigmy forms abide,
Thou leadest thy train at the eventide;
And the wings of the wind are left behind,
So swift through the pathless air they glide.

2.

Then to the chief who has fasted long,
When the chains of his slumber are heavy and strong,
Spirit ! thou comest; he lies as dead,
His weary lids are with heaviness weighed;
But his soul is abroad on the hurricane's pinion,
Where foes are met in the rush of fight,
In the shadowy world of thy dominion
Conquering and slaying, till morning light!

3.

Then shall the hunter who waits for thee,
The land of the game rejoicing see;
Through the leafless wood,
O'er the frozen flood,
And the trackless snows
His spirit goes,
Along the sheeted plain,
Where the hermit bear, in his sullen lair,
Keeps his long fast, till the winter hath pass'd,
And the boughs have budded again.
Spirit OF DREAMS ! all thy visions are true,
Who the shadow hath seen, he the substance shall view!


III.

1.

" Thine the riddle, strange and dark,
Woven in the dreamy brain: —
Thine to yield the power to mark
Wandering by, the dusky train;
Warrior ghosts for vengeance crying,
Scalped on the lost battle's plain,
Or who died their foes defying,
Slow by lingering tortures slain.

2.

Thou the war-chief hovering near,
Breathest language on his ear;
When his winged words depart,
Swift as arrows to the heart;
When his eye the lightning leaves;
When each valiant bosom heaves;
Through the veins when hot and glowing
Rage like liquid fire is flowing;
Round and round the war pole whirling,
Furious when the dancers grow;
When the maces swift are hurling
Promised vengeance on the foe;
Thine assurance, Spirit true!
Glorious victory gives to view!

3.

When of thought and strength despoiled,
Lies the brave man like a child;
When discoloured visions fly,
Painful, o'er his glazing eye,
And wishes wild through his darkness rove,
Like flitting wings through the tangled grove, —
Thine is the wish; the vision thine,
And thy visits, Spirit ! are all divine!

4.

When the dizzy senses spin,
And the brain is madly reeling,
Like the Pow-wah, when first within
The present spirit feeling;
When rays are flashing athwart the gloom,
Like the dancing lights of the northern heaven,
When voices strange of tumult come
On the ear, like the roar of battle driven, —
The Initiate then shall thy wonders see,
And thy priest, O Spirit ! is full of thee!


IV.

" Spirit OF DREAMS ! away! away!
It is thine hour of solemn sway;
And thou art holy; and our rite
Forbids thy presence here to-night.
Go light on lids that wake to pain;
Triumphant visions yield again!
If near the Christian's cot thou roam,
Tell him the fire has wrapp'd his home:
Where the mother lies in peaceful rest,
Her infant slumbering on her breast,
Tell her the red man hath seized its feet,
And against a tree its brains doth beat:
Fly to the bride who sleeps alone,
Her husband forth for battle gone;
Tell her, at morn, — and tell her true, —
His head on the bough her eyes shall view;
While his limbs shall be the raven's prey: —
Spirit OF DREAMS ! away! away! "


V

So sung the Initiates, o'er their rite
While hung the gloom of circling night.
Nor yet the unholy chant must rise,
Nor blaze the fire of sacrifice,
Until beyond yon groves afar,
The Bear hath dipp'd his westering car;
And shrouded night, with central sway,
Veiled deeds unfit to meet the day.
Then rose the Prophet , on whose eye
Past generations had gone by:
He saw them fall, as some vast oak,
By storms unriven, by bolts unbroke,
Sees all the forest by its side
In countless autumns shed its pride;
Marks, gathering still, as years roll on,
Winter's sere harvest round it strown; —
Yet his gigantic form ascends,
Nor to the howling voice of time,
One sturdy, veteran sinew bends,
Erect in native grace sublime.
The scattered relics of the lock,
Which oft had waved o'er battle shock,
In long and silvery lines were spread,
Like the white honours o'er the head
Of ancient mountain ash; —
His large eyes brightly, coldly shone,
As if their mortal light was gone
With clear, unearthly flash;
With strong arms forth outstretched he sprung;
Loose o'er his frame the bearskin hung;
Through every limb quick tremors ran,
As, rapt with fate, that aged man
His lore oracular began.


VI

THE PROPHECY

" O heard ye around the sad moan of the gale,
As it sighed o'er the mountain, and shrieked in the vale?
'Tis the voice of the Spirit prophetic, who pass'd;
His mantle of darkness around him is cast;
Wild flutters his robe, and the light of his plume
Faint glimmers along through the mist and the gloom;
Where the moonbeam is hidden, the shadow hath gone,
It has flitted in darkness, that morrow has none;
But my ear drank the sound, and I feel in my breast,
What the voice of the Spirit prophetic impress'd.
O saw ye that gleaming unearthly of light?
Behold where it winds o'er the moor from our sight! —
'Tis the soul of a warrior who sleeps with the slain; —
How long shall the slaughtered thus wander in vain?
It has pass'd; through the gloom of the forest it flies, —
But I feel in my bosom its summons arise.


VII

" Say, what are the races of perishing men?
They darken earth's surface, and vanish agen;
As the shade o'er the lake's gleaming bosom that flies,
With the stir of their wings where the wildfowl arise,
That has pass'd, and the sunbeam plays bright as before, —
So speed generations, remembered no more;
Since earth from the deep, at the voice of the Spirit,
Rose green from the waters, with all that inherit
Its nature, its changes. The oaks that had stood
For ages, lie crumbling at length in the wood.
Where now are the race in their might who came forth,
To destroy and to waste, from the plains of the north?
As the deer through the brake, mid the forests they sped,
The tall trees crashed round them; earth groaned with their tread;
He perished, the Mammoth, — in power and in pride,
And defying the wrath of Y OHEWAH he died!
And say, what is man, that his race should endure,
Alone through the changes of nature secure?
Where now are the giants, the soil who possess'd,
When our fathers came down, from the land of the west?
The grass o'er their mounds and their fortresses waves,
And choked amid weeds are the stones on their graves;
The hunter yet lingers in wonder, where keeps
The rock on the mountains the track of their steps;
Nor other memorial remains there, nor trace,
Of the proud A LLEGEWR'S invincible race.

VIII.

" As their nation was slain by the hands of our sires,
Our race, in its turn, from our country expires!
Lo! e'en like some tree, where a Spirit before
Had dwelt, when rich garlands and offerings it bore,
But now, half uptorn from its bed in the sands,
By the wild waves encroaching, that desolate stands,
Despoiled of the pride of its foliage and fruit,
While its branches are naked, and bare is its root; —
And each surge that returns still is wearing its bed,
Till it falls, and the ocean rolls on overhead; —
Nor a wreck on the shore, nor a track on the flood,
Tells aught of the trunk that so gloriously stood, —
Even so shall our nations, the children of earth,
Return to that bosom that yielded them birth.
Ye tribes of the E AGLE , the P ANTHER , and W OLF !
Deep sunk lie your names in a fathomless gulf!
Your war-whoop's last echo has died on the shore;
The smoke of your wigwams is curling no more.
Mourn, land of my fathers! thy children are dead;
Like the mists in the sunbeam, thy warriors have fled!

IX.

" But a Spirit there is, who his presence enshrouds,
Enthroned on our hills in his mantle of clouds.
He speaks in the whirlwind; the river outpours
Its tribute to him, where the cataract roars.
His breath is the air we inhale; and his reign
Shall endure till the waters have triumphed again;
Till the earth's deep foundation convulsions shall heave,
And the bosom of darkness its fabric receive!
'T IS THE SPIRIT OF FREEDOM ! and ne'er shall our grave
Be trod by the recreant, or spurned by the slave!
And lo! as the vision of years rolls away,
When our tribes shall have pass'd, and the victor hath sway,
That spirit I mark o'er the war-cloud presiding;
The storm that rolls upward sublime he is guiding;
It is bursting in terror; and choked is the path
Of peace, by the ruins it whelms in its wrath.
The rivers run blood; and the war-caldron boils,
By the flame of their cities, the blaze of their spoils.
Bend, bend from your clouds, and rejoice in the sight,
Ye ghosts of the red men! for freedom they fight!

X

" Dim visions! why crowd ye so fast o'er my eyes,
In the twilight of days that are yet to arise?
Undefined are the shapes and the masses that sweep,
Like the hurricane clouds o'er the face of the deep;
They rise like the waves on the surf-beaten shore,
But recede ere they form, to be gazed on no more.
Like the swarms of the doves o'er the meads that descend,
From the north's frozen regions their course when they bend,
So quick o'er our plains is the multitude's motion;
Still the white sails gleam thick o'er the bosom of ocean;
As the foam of their furrows is lost in the sea,
So they melt in one nation, united and free!

XI.

" Mourn, land of my fathers! the red men have pass'd,
Like the strown leaves of autumn, dispersed by the blast!
Mourn, land of the victor! a curse shall remain,
Till appeased in their clime are the ghosts of the slain!
Like the plants that by pure hands of virgins alone
Must be plucked, or their charm and their virtue is gone,
So the fair fruits of freedom, souls only can taste,
That are stained by no crime, by no passion debased.
His nest where the foul bird of avarice hath made,
The songsters in terror took wing from the shade;
And man, if unclean in his bosom the fire,
No holier spirits descend to inspire.
Mourn, land of the victor! our curse shall remain,
Till appeased for their wrongs be the souls of the slain! "

XII.

He ceased, and sunk exhausted down,
Strength, fire, and inspiration gone.
The fear-struck savages in vain
Await the unfolding voice again.
A panic terror o'er them ran,
As now their impious task began.
Their pyre was reared on stones that fell,
What time, their father's legends tell,
The avenging Spirit's fiery breath
Had poured the withering storm of death
Along that field of blood and shame;
Where now, for ages past the same,
There grew no blade of cheerful green;
But sere and shivering trees were seen,
Blasted, and white with age, to stand,
Like spectres on the accursid land.
Therewith, meet sacrifice of guilt,
Broad and high-reared their pile was built.
And now their torch unclean they bear;
Long had they fed it light with care,
Stolen, where polluted walls were razed,
And purifying flames had blazed.

XIII.

Swift o'er the structure climbs the fire;
In serpent course its streams aspire;
Entwined about their crackling prey,
Aloft they shoot with spiral way;
Wreathing and flashing fiercely round,
Their glittering net was mingling wound
O'er all the pile; but soon they blended;
One mighty volume then ascended, —
A column dense of mounting flame: —
Blacker the shrouded heaven became,
And like substantial darkness frowned
O'er the red atmosphere; around
The sands gave back the unnatural glare;
Lifting their ghostly arms in air,
Were seen those trunks all bleak and bare;
At distance rose the giant pine,
Kindling, as if by power divine,
Of fire a living tree;
While, where the circling forests sweep,
Each varying hue, or bright or deep,
Shone as if raised o'er nature's sleep,
By magic's witchery.

XIV.

He who had marked the Pow-wahs then,
As round the pyre their rites begun,
Had deemed it no vision of mortal men,
But of souls tormented in endless pain,
Who for penance awhile to earth again
Had come to the scene where their crime was done.
No other robe by the band was worn,
Save the girdles rude from the otter torn;
Below, besmeared with sable stain,
Above, blood-red was the fiendish train,
Save a circle pale around each eye,
That shone in the glare with a fiery die;
While a bird with coal-black wings outspread
Was the omen of ill on every head.
And while their serpent tresses wound,
Unkempt and unconfined around;
For unpurified, since their vows, had been
Those ministers of rites unclean.
And one there was, round whose limbs was coiled
The scaly coat of a snake despoiled;
The jaws by his cheek that open stood.
Seemed clogged and dripping yet with blood.
With a rattling chichicoe he led,
Or swift, or slow, their measured tread;
And wildly flapped, the band among,
The dusky tuft from his staff that hung;
Where the hawk's, the crow's and raven's feather,
With the bat's foul wings were woven together.

XV.

Close by a couch, with mats o'erspread,
As if a pall that wrapped the dead,
Sat crouching one, who might beseem
The goblin crew of a monstrous dream;
For never did earthly creature wear
A shape like that recumbent there.
No hideous brute that starving sought
Some cavern's grisly womb, to rot,
Nor squalid want in death forlorn,
Hath e'er such haggard semblance borne.
A woman once; — but now a thing
That seemed perverse to life to cling,
To rob the worm of tribute due; —
Her limbs no vesture covering,
No season's change, nor shame she knew.
Burnt on her withered breast she bore
Strange characters of savage lore;
And gathering up her bony frame,
As fiercely raged the mounting flame,
Not one proportion equal told
Of aught designed in nature's mould.
Her yellow eyeballs bright with hate,
Rolled in their sunken sockets yet,
With sickly glare, as of charnel lamps
That glimmer from sepulchral damps.

XVI.

And now began the Initiates' dance;
Slow they recede, and slow advance;
Hand locked in hand, with footsteps slow,
About the ascending flame they go.
At first, in solemn movement led,
A chant low muttered they obeyed;
But shrill and quick as the measure grew,
Whirling about the pyre they flew,
In a dizzy ring, till their senses reeled,
And the heavens above them madly wheeled,
And the earth spun round, with its surface burning,
Like a thousand fiery circles turning.
Louder and wilder as waxed the tone,
They sever, in uncouth postures thrown;
They sink, they tower, and crouch and creep,
High mid the darting fire they leap,
And with fearful prank and hellish game;
Disport, as buoyant on the flame.
Now terror seemed to freeze each heart,
As tremulous in every part,
With outstretched arms and wandering eyes,
They brave airial enemies,
And combat with an unseen foe;
He seems to strike above, below; —
And fiercer grew the imagined fight,
Till every limb, convulsed and tight,
Showed the muscle strained, and swollen vein,
As of madman writhing in mortal pain.
With fury blind, they rolled around,
Impervious to the scorching ground,
And even within the glowing verge
Unconscious and unheeding urge.
The measure changes: ere its close,
Staggering the rout possessed arose;
Then pealed the loud hah-hah!
Harsh, dissonant, in anguish heaved,
As if the soul, to be relieved,
In sound took wing afar.
Like laughter of exulting fiends,
The startling chorus wild ascends;
While the shrill whoop, — that had seemed to die
With the last breath of agony,
Then rose with its horrid shriek and long, —
Closed that disturbed, discordant song.
Then in the silence, you had thought
The daemon coming whom they sought,
And from the sullen chichicoe,
Had heard his boding answer flow.

XVII.

SONG OF THE POW-WAHS.

" Beyond the hills the Spirit sleeps,
His watch the power of evil keeps;
The Spirit of fire has sought his bed,
The Sun, the hateful Sun is dead.
Profound and clear is the sounding wave,
In the chambers of the Wakon-cave;
Darkness its ancient portal keeps;
And there the Spirit sleeps, — he sleeps.

XVIII.

" Come round on raven pinions now,
SpiritS OF ILL , to you we bow!
Whether ye sit on the topmost cliff,
While the storm around is sweeping,
Mid the thunder shock, from rock to rock
To view the lightning leaping;
As ye guide the bolt, where towers afar
The knotted pine to heaven,
And where it falls, your serpent scar
On the blasted trunk is graven: —
Whether your awful voices pour
Their tones in gales that nightly roar; —
Whether ye dwell beneath the lake;
In whose depths eternal thunders wake, —
Gigantic guard the glittering ore,
That lights Maurepas' haunted shore, —
On Manataulin's lonely isle,
The wanderer of the wave beguile, —
Or love the shore where the serpent-hiss,
And angry rattle never cease, —
Come round on raven pinions now!
SpiritS OF EVIL ! to you we bow.

XIX.

" Come ye hither, who o'er the thatch
Of the coward murderer hold your watch;
Moping and chattering round who fly
Where the putrid members reeking lie,
Piecemeal dropping, as they decay,
O'er the shuddering recreant day by day;
Till he loathes the food that is whelmed amid
The relics, by foul corruption hid;
And the crawling worms about him bred
Mistake the living for the dead!

XX.

" Come ye who give power
To the curse that is said,
And a charm that shall wither
To the drops that are shed,
On the cheek of the maiden,
Who never shall hear
The kind name of Mother
Saluting her ear;
But sad as the turtle
On the bare branch reclining,
She shall sit in the desert,
Consuming and pining;
With a grief that is silent,
Her beauty shall fade,
Like a flower nipt untimely,
On its stem that is dead.

XXI.

" Come ye, who as hawks hover o'er
The spot where the war-club is lying,
Defiled with the stain of their gore,
The foemen to battle defying;
On your dusky wings wheeling above,
Who for vengeance and slaughter come crying;
For the scent of the carnage ye love,
The groans of the wounded and dying.

XXII.

" Come ye, who at the sick man's bed,
Watch beside his burning head;
When the vaunting juggler tries in vain
Charm and fast to sooth his pain,
And his fever-balm and herbs applies,
Your death watch ye sound till your victim dies.

XXIII.

" And ye who delight
The soul to affright,
When naked and lonely,
Her dwelling forsaken,
To the country of spirits
Her journey is taken;
When the wings of a dove
She has borrowed to fly,
Ye swoop from above,
And around her ye cry:
She wanders and lingers
In terror and pain,
While the souls of her kindred
Expect her in vain.

XXIV.

" By all the hopes that we forswear;
By the potent rite we here prepare;
By every shriek whose echo falls
Around the Spirits' golden walls;
By our eternal league made good;
By all our wrongs and all our blood;
By the red battle-axe uptorn;
By the deep vengeance we have sworn;
By the uprooted trunk of peace,
And by the wrath that shall not cease,
Where'er ye be, above, below,
SpiritS OF ILL ! we call ye now!

XXV.

" Not beneath the mantle blue
Spread below Y OHEWAH'S feet;
Not through realms of azure hue,
Incense breathing to his seat;
Not with fire, by living light
Kindled from the orb of glory;
Not with words of sacred might,
Taught us in our father's story;
Not with odours, fruit or flower,
Thee we summon, dreadful Power!
Power of darkness! Power of ill!
Present in the heart and will,
Plotting, despite of faith and trust,
Treason, avarice, murder, lust!
From caverns deep of gloom and blood,
Attend our call, O serpent god!
Thee we summon by our rite,
H OBAMÓQUI ! Power of night!

XXVI.

" Behold the sacrifice!
A harmless infant dies,
To whet thine anger's edge!
A Christian woman's pledge,
Begot by Indian sire,
Ascends thy midnight pyre.
For thy friendship, for our wrongs,
To thee the child belongs. "

XXVII.

Did the fiend hear and answer make?
Above them loud the thunders break;
The livid lightning's pallid hue
Their dusky canopy shone through;
Then tenfold blackness gathering far
Presaged the elemental war.
While yet in air the descant rung,
Upward the listening priestess sprung,
By instant impulse; as if yet
The spirit of her youth survived,
As if from that lethargic state,
Quickened by power vouchsafed, she lived.
She tore the sable mats away,
And there Y AMOYDEN'S infant lay,
By potent opiates lulled to keep
The silence of the dreamless sleep,
O'er which that night should sink;
Swathed in the sacrificial vest,
Its bier the unconscious victim press'd.
The hag's long, shrivelled fingers clasp
The babe in their infernal grasp,
While o'er the fiery brink,
Rapidly, giddily she hurls
The child, as her withered form she whirls;
And chants, with accents hoarse and strong,
The last, the dedicating song.

XXVIII.

SONG OF THE PRIESTESS.

" The black clouds are moving
Athwart the dull moon,
The hawks high are roving,
The strife shall be soon.
Then burst thou deep thunder!
Pour down all ye floods!
Ye flames rive in sunder
The pride of the woods!
But O thou! who guidest
The flood and the fire,
In lightning who ridest,
Directing its ire; —
If darker to-morrow
The wrath of the strife,
Be the white man's the sorrow,
And thine be his life!
The elk-skin about him,
The crow-skin above,
To thee we devote him,
The pledge of mixed love
For ever and ever
The slaves of thy will,
Let ours be thy favour,
O Spirit OF ILL ! "

XXIX.

She had not ceased, when on the blast
A warning shriek of horror pass'd;
Emerging from the woodland gloom,
They saw a form unearthly come.
White were its locks, its robes of white,
And gleaming through their lurid light,
Swift it advanced. The Pow-wahs stood,
Palsied amid their rites of blood;
E'en the stern Prophet feared to trace
The awful features of that face,
And shrunk, as if towards their flame
Y OHEWAH'S angry presence came.

XXX

He grasped the witch by her skinny arm,
Her powerless frame confessed the charm;
Before his bright, indignant glance
Her eyes were fixed in terror's trance.
" Away, " the stranger cried, " away!
Votaries of Moloch! yield your prey!
Have ye not heard the wrath on high
Speak o'er your foul iniquity?
Know ye not, for such worship fell,
Deep yawns the eternal gulf of hell? "
Then, bursting from his dream of fear,
To front the intruder rushed the SEER , —
When straight, o'er all the vaulted heaven,
Kindled and streamed the glittering levin;
Pale and discoloured shone below
The embers in that general glow,
As blind amid the blaze they reel,
Rattled and crashed the deafening peal;
And with its voice so long and loud,
Fell the burst torrent from the cloud;
It dashed impetuous o'er the pile;
The hissing waters rave and boil;
The smothered fires a moment soar,
Spread their swarth glare the forest o'er,
Then sink beneath their whelming pall,
And total darkness covers all.

XXXI.

O many a shriek of horror fell,
Amid that darkness terrible,
Unlit, save by the lightning's flash,
And echoing with the tempest crash
Those stifled screams of fear;
They deem in every bursting peal
The avenging Spirit's rage they feel,
And crouching, shuddering hear.
While ever and anon ascended
The dying P RIESTESS ' maddening cry, —
With muttering curses fearful blended
It rose convulsed on high.
And when their palsying dread was gone,
And a dim brand recovered shone,
And when they traced by that sad light
The scene of their unfinished rite,
And many a look uncertain cast,
The STRANGER and the CHILD had pass'd.