Part 3 (1/2)

Your wife? Ah, what of that, who cares for me?

Who pities my poor love and agony?

What white-robed priest prays for your safety here, As prayer is said for every volunteer That swells the ranks that Canada sends out?

Who prays for vict'ry for the Indian scout?

Who prays for our poor nation lying low?

None--therefore take your tomahawk and go.

My heart may break and burn into its core, But I am strong to bid you go to war.

Yet stay, my heart is not the only one That grieves the loss of husband and of son; Think of the mothers o'er the inland seas; Think of the pale-faced maiden on her knees; One pleads her G.o.d to guard some sweet-faced child That marches on toward the North-West wild.

The other prays to s.h.i.+eld her love from harm, To strengthen his young, proud uplifted arm.

Ah, how her white face quivers thus to think, _Your_ tomahawk his life's best blood will drink.

She never thinks of my wild aching breast, Nor prays for your dark face and eagle crest Endangered by a thousand rifle b.a.l.l.s, My heart the target if my warrior falls.

O! coward self I hesitate no more; Go forth, and win the glories of the war.

Go forth, nor bend to greed of white men's hands, By right, by birth we Indians own these lands, Though starved, crushed, plundered, lies our nation low...

Perhaps the white man's G.o.d has willed it so.

DAWENDINE

There's a spirit on the river, there's a ghost upon the sh.o.r.e, They are chanting, they are singing through the starlight evermore, As they steal amid the silence, And the shadows of the sh.o.r.e.

You can hear them when the Northern candles light the Northern sky, Those pale, uncertain candle flames, that s.h.i.+ver, dart and die, Those dead men's icy finger tips, Athwart the Northern sky.

You can hear the ringing war-cry of a long-forgotten brave Echo through the midnight forest, echo o'er the midnight wave, And the Northern lanterns tremble At the war-cry of that brave.

And you hear a voice responding, but in soft and tender song; It is Dawendine's spirit singing, singing all night long; And the whisper of the night wind Bears afar her Spirit song.

And the wailing pine trees murmur with their voice attuned to hers, Murmur when they 'rouse from slumber as the night wind through them stirs; And you listen to their legend, And their voices blend with hers.

There was feud and there was bloodshed near the river by the hill; And Dawendine listened, while her very heart stood still: Would her kinsman or her lover Be the victim by the hill?

Who would be the great unconquered? who come boasting how he dealt Death? and show his rival's scalplock fresh and bleeding at his belt.

Who would say, ”O Dawendine!

Look upon the death I dealt?”

And she listens, listens, listens--till a war-cry rends the night, Cry of her victorious lover, monarch he of all the height; And his triumph wakes the horrors, Kills the silence of the night.

Heart of her! it throbs so madly, then lies freezing in her breast, For the icy hand of death has chilled the brother she loved best; And her lover dealt the death-blow; And her heart dies in her breast.

And she hears her mother saying, ”Take thy belt of wampum white; Go unto yon evil savage while he glories on the height; Sing and sue for peace between us: At his feet lay wampum white.

”Lest thy kinsmen all may perish, all thy brothers and thy sire Fall before his mighty hatred as the forest falls to fire; Take thy wampum pale and peaceful, Save thy brothers, save thy sire.”

And the girl arises softly, softly slips toward the sh.o.r.e; Loves she well the murdered brother, loves his hated foeman more, Loves, and longs to give the wampum; And she meets him on the sh.o.r.e.

”Peace,” she sings, ”O mighty victor, Peace! I bring thee wampum white.