Classic Poem

Higher swings the mellow Kwasip, climbing
Up the misty stairway of the midnight;
Higher leap the red flames of the Council,
Hooding all the hilltops like a halo —
Like the promise of a fairer dawning.
Falleth shadows on the checkered barring,
Toileth footsteps up the sloping pathway, —
And the red gleam glints the earnest faces,
Lights the bending form of man and woman,
Cuts the white-robed figures on the darkness,
Like pale wraiths from out the Way of Shadows.
Lowly bows the veiled head of the woman, —
Softly sweeps the mantle of the priesthood,
Like the gray moss trailing in the village,
From the long arms of the swaying pine tree;
Sowing, northward, eastward, southward, westward;
And the spirits of the night wind, Nappe,
Reap with ghostly hands a silken harvest,
And the reedy pipes of tangled marshes,
Float the echo of the mellow chanting: —
" We go out upon the hilltops;
Our days are passed away in sorrow —
Our lamentations fill the earth,
And our tears have watered the cornfields —
Sil.
We heard a voice within the darkness, calling,
" Aleksandiste tza."
We laid our hearts upon the Earth for comfort,
But thorns sprung up, and wounded our bosoms,
Sil.
Our feet that leaped before thee like young does,
Now drag like creeping things upon the path of sorrow;
Our bones are crumbled with our mourning,
And our flesh is consumed with grief, —
Sil.
Consider thou the subject of our mourning —
Sil.
Breathe thou the fire of thy being in his nostrils, —
Wah-wah.
Give thou again, thy Chieftain to his people,
Oh! Great Sil. "
Softly fade the haloes of the hilltops;
Softly die the fires of the Council,
And the winds of dawning, chill with dewdrops,
Sigh around the wigwam of Sehbohleh.
Melted are the frozen chains that bound him,
And the stiffened sinews, thrilled with being,
Seek and grope upon the lowly deerskin.
Glides a shadow from the outer darkness, —
Breathes a sigh that wotteth not of dawning;
Then the lips of love meet love with loving, —
Then the arms of love meet love with proving,
And a veiled head rests upon his bosom.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Brightly gleams the armor of the dawning,
Lifts the sun-god grandly from his slumber,
Casting down a thousand golden arrows,
From the wide mouth of his rainbow quiver.
Pausing now upon the rosy ladder,
Soft he turns to give his royal greeting;
He will not forget his mourning people;
He, Great Sil, will yet remember Natchez.
Gently falls the whisper of the monarch,
Like the droning zephyr of the summer,
Floating 'round the Hill of Incantation, —
And the South Wind, bending low to listen,
Lifting up his mellow horn of welcome,
Turns — and lo! the sunbeams of the waste-lands,
Kiss a snowy field of fleecy cotton!