The Wandering Wizard - From "Flint and Feather"

I am sailing to the leeward,
Where the current runs to seaward
Soft and slow;
Where the sleeping river-grasses
Brush my paddle as it passes
To and fro.

On the shore the heat is shaking
All the golden sands awaking
In the cove,
And the quaint sandpiper winging
O'er the shallows, ceases singing
When I move.

On the water's idle pillow
Sleeps the overhanging willow,
Green and cool;
Where the rushes lift their burnished
Oval heads from out the tarnished
Emerald pool.

"AS RED MEN DIE"

Captive!. Is there a hell to him like this?
A taunt more galling than the Huron's hiss?
He, proud and scornful. He, who laughed at law
He, scion of the deadly Iroquois.
He, the bloodthirsty, He, the Mohawk Chief,
He who despises pain and sneers at grief,
Here in the hated Huron's vicious clutch
That even captive, he distains to touch

Captive! but never conquered. Mohawk brave
Stoops not to be to any man a slave.
Least to the puny tribe his soul abhors,
The tribe whose wigwams sprinkle Simcoe's shores.
With scowling brow he stands, and courage high,
Watching with haughty and defiant eye
His captors, as they council o'er his fate
Or strive his boldness to intimidate.
Then fling they unto him the choice:

"Wilt thou walk o'er the bed of fire that waits thee now ...
Walk with uncovered feet upon the coals
Until you reach the ghostly Land of Souls
And with thy Mohawk death-song please our ear?
Or wilt thou with the women rest thee here?"

FIRE-FLOWERS

And only where the forest fires have sped,
Scorching relentlessly the cool north lands,
A sweet wild flower lifts its purple head,
And like some gentle spirit sorrow-fed,
It hides the scars with almost human hands.

And only in the heart that knows of grief,
Of desolating fire, of human pain,
There comes some purifying sweet belief,
Some fellow-feeling, beautiful - if brief.
And life revives and blossoms once again.

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