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Geehale: An Indian Lament
THE BLACKBIRD is singing on Michigan’s shore | |
| As sweetly and gayly as ever before; | |
| For he knows to his mate he at pleasure can hie, | |
| And the dear little brood she is teaching to fly. | |
| The sun looks as ruddy, and rises as bright, | 5 |
| And reflects o’er the mountains as beamy a light | |
| As it ever reflected, or ever expressed, | |
| When my skies were the bluest, my dreams were the best. | |
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| The fox and the panther, both beasts of the night, | |
| Retire to their dens on the gleaming of light, | 10 |
| And they spring with a free and a sorrowless track, | |
| For they know that their mates are expecting them back. | |
| Each bird and each beast, it is blessed in degree: | |
| All nature is cheerful, all happy, but me. | |
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| I will go to my tent, and lie down in despair; | 15 |
| I will paint me with black, and will sever my hair; | |
| I will sit on the shore, where the hurricane blows, | |
| And reveal to the god of the tempest my woes; | |
| I will weep for a season, on bitterness fed, | |
| For my kindred are gone to the hills of the dead; | 20 |
| But they died not by hunger or lingering decay; | |
| The steel of the white man hath swept them away. | |
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| This snake-skin, that once I so sacredly wore, | |
| I will toss, with disdain, to the storm-beaten shore: | |
| Its charms I no longer obey or invoke, | 25 |
| Its spirit hath left me, its spell is now broke. | |
| I will raise up my voice to the source of the light; | |
| I will dream on the wings of the bluebird at night; | |
| I will speak to the spirits that whisper in leaves, | |
| And that minister balm to the bosom that grieves; | 30 |
| And will take a new Manito,—such as shall seem | |
| To be kind and propitious in every dream. | |
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| Oh, then I shall banish these cankering sighs, | |
| And tears shall no longer gush salt from my eyes; | |
| I shall wash from my face every cloud-colored stain; | 35 |
| Red—red shall alone on my visage remain! | |
| I will dig up my hatchet, and bend my oak bow; | |
| By night and by day I will follow the foe; | |
| Nor lakes shall impede me, nor mountains, nor snows; | |
| His blood can, alone, give my spirit repose. | 40 |
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| They came to my cabin when heaven was black: | |
| I heard not their coming, I knew not their track; | |
| But I saw, by the light of their blazing fusees, | |
| They were people engendered beyond the big seas: | |
| My wife and my children,—oh, spare me the tale!— | 45 |
| For who is there left that is kin to Geehale? | |
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