Page:Poetry, a magazine of verse, Volume 7 (October 1915-March 1916).djvu/231

Summer Dawn They shall be poured out and drip upon a chief's feet; They shall fill the hollows of his house with children! Flowing in laughter and whispers and little cries As smoke through the smoke-hole at evening! Ai! ah! ai! Women! Waken the soil with freshets; Bear joy upward as a canoe with sails, swifter than paddles. O men, hunters of life, We are the harborers, the fosterers—the women: Seek us!"

It was the women, the harborers, the fosterers, who rose first, And followed Tem-Eyos-Kwi: They called to the men.


 * The men go forth like one!

Lightning and heat are their weapons, hurled crashing before them. Their hairs, spreading wide, give black wings to the sun, As a cloud filled with eagles blown up from the sea. They enter the forest with the tramp of thunder and the darkness of storm; And the song of the women is stilled. The cry of offering ascends, it passes the swooping shadows; There is a sigh through the forest of winds sinking— Then the hush.


 * On the leaves is a sweet whisper of rain,

Whispered sweetness of pangs past. The warm soil drinks the coolness of tears—