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From “Songs of the Coast-dwellers”
M’-m’-m’-m’-n! N’-n’-n’-n’-m! | |
| Ai-i-he-i—ah-o-he-a-i-ne— | |
| Swing my chiefling fragrantly | |
| On the cedar-branch. | |
| Cedar, Cedar, tenderly | 5 |
| Sway to the singing wind. | |
| Bright flying Wind with song in thy white throat, | |
| And light in thy wide sea-eyes, | |
| The sky’s blue feathers on thy wing— | |
| Oh blow, blow, gently, softly, Wind, | 10 |
| Rock my chiefling, Wind, | |
| In his little woven cradle. | |
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| When thou wast still a seedling, | |
| Deep in mine earth, months deep, | |
| I sat in thy father’s doorway making thy cradle. | 15 |
| At the first light, eager I rose to the weaving; | |
| In the dusk my fingers still threaded, | |
| Needing no light. | |
| I remember my mother sat near me often, watching; | |
| Sometimes weeping. Yes, she wept; | 20 |
| Yet answered not when I asked wherefor. | |
| In the night thou hast waked me at his side— | |
| Dancing, in thy dark house, to the doors that soon must open | |
| On thy white shining dawn-shores of life: | |
| And I have seen the Moon-Woman’s round face | 25 |
| Laughing through the smoke-hole, mocking, | |
| Pointing to thy empty cradle hanging. | |
| Ai! but her smile grew kind! She said, | |
| “Wait a little longer, impatient one; | |
| When next my round face peeps through the smoke-hole, | 30 |
| I will seek him at your breast.” | |
| Ai-i-hi! Very precious is the man-child! | |
| Ere it is born a woman loves it. | |
| How cam’st thou here, little Chiefling? | |
| A woman gave thee life! | 35 |
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| Yes—my mother wept, watching me weave for thee…… | |
| And I have wept, too, a little. | |
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| Strange, that pain came with love; | |
| I knew it not until thy father sought me. | |
| Yet—what woman would cast love out? | 40 |
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| Gladly in the dusk I waited him— | |
| None told me, not my mother even, of the pang. | |
| So my heart, joyous, sounded a song of drums, | |
| Beating the loud wild march for his swift-trampling feet. | |
| The breasts of love were as the eaves of a house, | 45 |
| Jutting through the red mists and the dusk of ending day, | |
| Calling the hunter to enter to his rest. | |
| The door trembled with strange winds— | |
| He circled my house with the arms of strength, | |
| And took me with weapons……Joy? | 50 |
| Ay. Yet I cried from the depths with a sudden deep cry, | |
| And in grieving earth was the torch quenched. | |
| ….Darkness..and his, his utterly, in that dark…… | |
| None had told me…… | |
| Nor that his strength would leap, rejoicing at my cry. | 55 |
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| At dawn—it is our custom—I went forth alone | |
| Into the mists that wrap the sleeping cedars | |
| And droop to the pale unwakened sea. | |
| Alone on the dawn’s white rim I gathered cedar-boughs. | |
| My tears fell, shining among the earth’s bright drops; | 60 |
| For now I knew | |
| Why the maiden plaits a whip of cedar-fibre, | |
| To give into her husband’s hand on her marriage-day. | |
| Once I asked my father—it seemed so strange | |
| A maid should weave and weave a rod for her own sorrow. | 65 |
| He laughed and said: “It is our custom; ay, an old custom— | |
| I know not if it means aught now, | |
| Or ever did have meaning.” | |
| My mother sat near. Ay, I have remembered that she spoke not; | |
| But, silently, in the shadow of his body, drooped her head. | 70 |
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| Ay, ’tis old, the custom, | |
| Old as earth is old; | |
| Ancient as passion, | |
| Pitiless as passion— | |
| Ay, pitiless, pitiless, the earth-way for women! | 75 |
| Bitter it is, as the taste of bright sea-water, | |
| That he, who takes the gift, and wields our weaving of desire, | |
| Knows not the meaning of the gift—nor can know ever! | |
| Into the heedless hand of passion | |
| We yield our power-of-pain…… . . . . | 80 |
| It is the law of the earth-way. | |
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| So it is with birth-giving. | |
| Aii-he! the mightier pang, | |
| The mightier loving! | |
| And thou and thy father, the two Strong Ones, | 85 |
| Glad, glad, of the woman’s pain-cry! | |
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| M’-m’-m’-m’-n—Ai-i-he-i— | |
| Sleepest thou, little Fatling? | |
| Ay, thou didst long drink at my breast— | |
| (But hast not drained it of love.) | 90 |
| Cedar, Cedar, carefully | |
| Guard my little brown cone | |
| On thy earth-bending branch. | |
| M’-m’-m’-m’-n—Ai-i-he-i— | |
| Little life-bud on the bough! | 95 |
| Sleep, sleep, thou drowsy one— | |
| Thou art guarded well. | |
| Ay, rock, rock, safely, safely, little Man-Child— | |
| A woman watches thee. | |
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