Page:The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18.djvu/456

448 Into the forest:

There by the pond-side

Spread her black tresses

Over her forehead.

Sad is the loon's cry

Heard in the twilight;

Sad is the night-wind,

Moaning and moaning;

Sadder the stifled

Sob of a widow!

Low on the pebbles

Murmured the water:

Often she fancied

It was young Wawah

Playing the reed-flute.

Sometimes a dry branch

Snapped in the forest:

Then she rose, startled,

Ruddy as sunrise,

Warm for his coming!

But when he came not,

Back through the darkness,

Half broken-hearted,

Miantowona

Went to her people.

When an old oak dies,

First 't is the tree-tops,

Then the low branches,

Then the gaunt stem goes:

So fell Tawanda,

Oldest of Hurons,

Chief of the chieftains.

Miantowona

Wept not, but softly

Closed the sad eyelids;

With her own fingers

Fastened the deer-skin

Over his shoulders;

Then laid beside him

Ash-bow and arrows,

Pipe-bowl and wampum,

Dried corn and bear-meat,—

All that was needful

On the long journey.

Thus old Tawanda

Went to the hunting

Grounds of the Red Man.

Then, as the dirges

Rose from the village,