Page:The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18.djvu/454

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ONG ere the Pale Face

Crossed the Great Water,

Miantowona

Passed, with her beauty,

Into a legend

Pure as a wild-flower

Found in a broken

Ledge by the sea-side.

Let us revere them,—

These wildwood legends,

Born of the camp-fire!

Let them be handed

Down to our children,—

Richest of heirlooms!

No land may claim them:

They are ours only,

Like our grand rivers,

Like our vast prairies,

Like our dead heroes!

In the pine-forest,

Guarded by shadows,

Lieth the haunted

Pond of the Red Men.

Ringed by the emerald

Mountains, it lies there

Like an untarnished

Buckler of silver,

Dropped in that valley

By the Great Spirit!

Weird are the figures

Traced on its margins,—

Vine-work and leaf-work,

Knots of sword-grasses,

Moonlight and starlight,

Clouds scudding northward!

Sometimes an eagle

Flutters across it;

Sometimes a single

Star on its bosom

Nestles till morning.

Far in the ages,

Miantowona,

Rose of the Hurons,

Came to these waters.