I

THE twilight land toyed with the night

When from the hills with footsteps light

An Indian maiden passed adown

A rugged path o'er boulders brown

Unto the soft gray river sand.

The sweet balsamic breezes fanned

Her bronze-brown cheeks and blue-black hair

With loving wings, and lilies fair

II

The river's rippling monotone—

The low-voiced chants of zephyrs lone,

That swung like censers through the halls

By leafage arched, with leafage walls—

The lazy hum of insect song—

All seemed to woo the shades along

The golden rim of eventide,

As back and forth her paddle plied

Through solemn symphonies of gloom

Into the night-enshrouded tomb

Of recent day. The throbbing stars

Rose one by one above the bars

Of dark abysmal to the sea

Of heaven, and the mystery

Of Nature's silence robed her round

With garments threaded by the sound

Of marsh-bird's wail, or pine-wood's moan.

At length she turned, and towards the zone

Of blackness, girding round the stream

As Lethe coils around a dream,

She swerved the course of the canoe,

And through the grasses, damp with dew,

That held their arms down from the bank

To fondle with the rushes rank,

Propelled its prow against the sand,

And silently sprang to the land.

III

She pulled aside a maple screen

That curtained off a weird ravine,

And stepped toward a smouldering flame,

O'er which crouched low an ancient dame

Whose wrinkled face, as leather dry,

Seemed dead, except that either eye

Shone with a fierce, malignant glare,

Like that which lights the wild-cat's lair

When danger pries into its keep.

"Mother, I'm glad you're not asleep,"

The maiden said in awesome way.

"I've dared the dark which follows day,

And paddled up through shade and gloom,

And grim, fantastic shapes that loom

Like giant goblins round the road

That leads to your retired abode."

"You're welcome, child, but never dread

That you'll disturb my sleeping bed,"

The dame's harsh voice made answer soon,

"I do not sleep till night-tide's noon

Has gone to meet the dawning day.

All night my tireless fancies play

Unceasing gambols with the gnomes

That chase each other 'neath the domes

That roof the wild deer's headlong path

When flying from the hunter's wrath.

Why came you here? Do troubles chase

You from your pillowed resting-place?

Has love bestowed a heart on you,

And come you here to prove it true?"

"No heart has love bestowed on me,

But mine has gone, and I to thee

Come in the anguish of my grief

To seek for solace or relief.

'Tis said that you can lift the screen

That veils the destinies unseen....

Until this summer I was free

IV

The ancient crone revived the blaze

Until its red, uncertain rays

Crept down the hillside dun, and died

Upon the river's misty tide.

Then by the lurid flickering gleams,

That seemed dissolving out of dreams

Among the leafy arcades far,

She caught the glitter of a star

That silver-like shot from its nest

Upon a young brave's stalwart breast,

As up the forest path he came,

Attracted by the pinewood flame.

"Why comest thou?" her voice rang keen

Through shrouded glade and dim ravine.

V

She lit a smoking pine-knot red,

And swayed it thrice around her head,

Then hurled it hissing in the marsh,

The while her voice on air-wings harsh

Passed through the thronging shadows dense,

Unto love's hearing strained and tense.

"I hear the voices of the trees

In answer to the asking breeze,

And this is what the voices say:

'True love will always have its way!'

Come forth, my children, to the light;

The answer to the breeze is right."

The maiden came with drooping head,

The brave with grave and measured tread,

And joined their hands above the blaze.

"For you, fond lovers, length of days

I prophesy, and happy times.

Your lives shall run like merry rhymes

Through many years of full content,

And when at last your course is spent,

Your children shall revere your name,

Your children's children—" Flashed a flame,

A lightning blast, athwart their eyes,

And death assailed them in the guise

Of Iroquois, the Hurons' dread—

And seeress, lovers, all were dead!