Page:The Poets and Poetry of the West.djvu/551

 1850-60.] C GATES KINNEY. 535 How evanished all the promise For, though civil life effaces Of the perfectness of bliss : All else they have gloried in, Love's green grave between us, Emma, Yet this poetry of places. Keeps us parted aye and aye — Shall remind us they have been : Even not to know each other Therefore, white man, pioneering In the Love-home far away ! Far and farther in the west, Let the Indian names be sacred, Though thou i-avage all the rest. Call not cataracted rapid MINNEHAHA. That has leaped its way and riven. By his own name, curt and vapid. Ere the Muses transatlantic, That some Saxon boor has given ! Pale of face, and blue of eye, But let nature keep her titles ! Found the wilderness romantic Let her name the quick cascade 'Neath the occidental sky. Minnehaha — Laughing- Water — Think not then was here no worship In the language she has made ! Of the beautiful and grand ; Think not Nature had no wooers Minnehaha ! how it gushes In the wild Hesperian land. Like a flow of laughter out ! Minnehaha ! how it rushes Poesy, agrestic maiden, Downward with a gleeful shout ! Wild-eyed, black-haired, haunted here. IMinnehaha ! to the echoes — Singing of the Indian Aiden, Minnehaha! back the same — Southwest of this mortal sphere ; Minnehaha ! Minnehaha ! Singing of the good Great Spirit, Live forever that sweet name ! Who is in and over all ; Singing sweetly every river. Mountain, wood, and waterfall. And this dark Parnassian maiden, Sang sublimely war's wild art ; ON! EIGHT ON! Sang of love and lips love-laden With the honey of the heart. On ! right on ! Art thou immortal, But the war-song's frantic music, Born to act, and deeds to do. And the death-song's roundelay, And yet sittest in the portal And the love-song's rude cantata, Of thy destiny? Pass through! Westward, westward die away. On ! right on ! strike — stave to slivers These will with the red tribes perish ; Error's gates that bar thy way ; For their language leaves nor scroll Enter, and live with the livers ! Nor tradition writ, to cherish Live and act, while yet 'tis day. Such immortalness of soul. So, the names that they have given On ! right on I for night is coming — To the charms of Nature here — Night of life, which comes to all — Stream, cascade, lake, hill, and valley — When Death's fingers, chill and numbing, Let us fervently revere. Seal the lids and spread the pall.