TO THE DRIVING CLOUD

GLOOMY and dark art thou, O chief of the mighty Omahas;

Gloomy and dark, as the driving cloud, whose name thou hast taken!

Wrapt in thy scarlet blanket, I see thee stalk through the city's

Narrow and populous streets, as once by the margin of rivers

Stalked those birds unknown, that have left us only their footprints.

What, in a few short years, will remain of thy race but the footprints?

How canst thou walk these streets, who hast trod the green turf of the prairies?

How canst thou breathe this air, who hast breathed the sweet air of the mountains?

Ah! 'tis in vain that with lordly looks of disdain thou dost challenge

Looks of disdain in return, and question these walls and these pavements,

Claiming the soil for thy hunting-grounds, while down-trodden millions

Starve in the garrets of Europe, and cry from its caverns that they, too,

Have been created heirs of the earth, and claim its division!

Back, then, back to thy woods in the regions west of the Wabash !

There as a monarch thou reignest. In autumn the leaves of the maple

Pave the floors of thy palace-halls with gold, and in summer

Pine-trees waft through its chambers the odorous breath of their branches.

There thou art strong and great, a hero, a tamer of horses!

There thou chasest the stately stag on the banks of the Elk-horn,

Or by the roar of the Running-Water, or where the Omawhaw

Calls thee, and leaps through the wild ravine like a brave of the Blackfeet!

Hark! what murmurs arise from the heart of those mountainous deserts?

Is it the cry of the Foxes and Crows, or the mighty Behemoth,

Who, unharmed, on his tusks once caught the bolts of the thunder,

And now lurks in his lair to destroy the race of the red man?

Far more fatal to thee and thy race than the Crows and the Foxes,

Far more fatal to thee and thy race than the tread of Behemoth,

Lo! the big thunder-canoe, that steadily breasts the Missouri's

Merciless current! and yonder, afar

prairies, the camp-fires

on the

Gleam through the night; and the cloud of dust in the grey of the daybreak

Marks not the buffalo's track, nor the Mandan's dexterous horse-race;

It is a caravan, whitening the desert where dwells the Camanches!

Ha! how the breath of these Saxons and Celts, like the blast of the east-wind,

Drifts evermore to the west the scanty smokes of thy wigwams!

CURFEW

I

SOLEMNLY, mournfully,
Dealing its dole,
The Curfew Bell
Is beginning to toll.

Cover the embers,

And put out the light;
Toil comes with the morning,
And rest with the night.

Dark grow the windows,
And quenched is the fire,
Sound fades into silence,-
All footsteps retire.

No voice in the chambers,
No sound in the hall!
Sleep and oblivion

Reign over all.

II

The book is completed,

And closed, like the day; And the hand that has written it

Lays it away.

Dim grow its fancies,

Forgotten they lie; Like coals in the ashes, They darken and die.

Song sinks into silence,
The story is told,

The windows are darkened,
The hearth-stone is cold.

Darker and darker

The black shadows fall; Sleep and oblivion Reign over all.

SONGS

TO AN OLD DANISH SONG-BOOK

WELCOME, my old friend,
Welcome to a foreign fireside,
While the sullen gales of autumn
Shake the windows.

The ungrateful world

Has, it seems, dealt harshly with thee, Since, beneath the skies of Denmark, First I met thee.

There are marks of

age,

There are thumb-marks on thy margin, Made by hands that clasped thee rudely At the alehouse.

Soiled and dull thou art;

Yellow are thy time-worn pages,

As the russet, rain-molested

Leaves of autumn.

Thou art stained with wine

Scattered from hilarious goblets,

As the leaves with the libations
Of Olympus.

Yet dost thou recall

Days departed, half-forgotten,
When in dreamy youth I wandered
By the Baltic,-