| |
| WHITE Head of Waters, White Head of Light— | |
| Capilano; Cla’h’ya. 1 | |
| White head of the Chief to thee lifts greeting. | |
| I am hoar with years as thou, great Father; | |
| My hair hangs like the dropping ice | 5 |
| Of thy highest hushed waters. | |
| I have lived a hundred years at thy foot, | |
| Singing the prayer of thanks for life: | |
“O Kia-Kun ë, Great Spirit One, Great Kind One, | |
| I praise thee for life, I serve thee with living, | 10 |
| I bless thee that in kindness thou hast made the earth | |
| And with love covered it. | |
| Yea, by thy kindness, men and trees stand forth; | |
| Silently, to me, speak they the speech of brothers. | |
| For delights the little rivers come among the hills, | 15 |
| Shining with the smiles of women; | |
| Ay, as the merry murmuring of many maidens | |
| Are the rivers; swift and tender in their coming. | |
| (Because thou art Kind, Kunë, thou madest women.) | |
| It is the morn, Kunë, I pray, I praise thee.” | 20 |
| Ah!—how many hundred years hast thou prayed thus, Capilano? | |
| With thee this day, Mountain-Father, I thank Kunë for another dawn. | |
| I am girt with blanket and rope of cedar-fibre; | |
| In my ear is a ring of fine bark. | |
| Thou art belted with innumerable pine-trees; | 25 |
| To thee they are smaller than feathers. | |
| The sun is the cedar-ring in thine ear, | |
| The long sea asleep is the spear in thy hand. | |
| It is still, with pale lights on the distant blade, | |
| Pointing at rest to islands beyond the dropping sky. | 30 |
| Thou art come forth, as a hunter, to the dawn, | |
| Herding the antlered shadows down the forest slope. | |
| Their swift fleeing hoofs strike fire from the beaten sandshores of morning, | |
| |
| And the black wraiths swoon upon the bright opening sea. | |
| With blood of his proud throat crimsoning the eastern sky | 35 |
| The great Stag of the Dark in the van falls dying. . . . . . . . . | |
| Here was I chief ere the coming of the white man; | |
| Now is his village spread from this sea beyond my sight. | |
| His canoes are floating villages; | |
| They go by with a great noise and a black smoke. | 40 |
| His deeds are mighty; they leap with roaring clouds and thunder-fires | |
| Into the blue quiet morning and the white moon-sky. . . . . . . . . | |
| Yet have I heard no sound mightier | |
| Than the sun shattering the night | |
| On thy stone shoulder, Capilano. | 45 |
| Yet have I seen no sight more wonderful and fair | |
| Than the coming of the light, | |
| When Day, the silver-winged gull, down-swooping finds the sea. | |
| Yet have I known no thing sweeter, stronger, | |
| Than the smell of piney winds and blue rippling sea-water, | 50 |
| And the kindness of Kunë-Kia, the living One, | |
| Waking the heart of the old chief | |
| To another dawn of life. | |
