Part 3

Earth with fields a-dancing ye make beautiful! Earth with hues entrancing ever ye make fair! The vessel of rejoicing ye keep forever full! The singing of your voices fills the singing air!

O ye Maidens! O ye Maidens! O ye Maidens of the Corn! Planting, tilling, Baskets filling---- Joy with you is yearly born, Where with beauty, where with beauty Yearly ye our lives adorn!

_The Flute Musician summoneth to cool slumber:_

Cool wells of water, Clear wells of sweet water, I slumber beside them....

Star phantoms in water, Dream phantoms in water, I gaze on them slumbering....

Echoing voices of women, Echoing from the still water, I harken them slumbering....

Liquid melodies lingering, Floating faint o’er the water, Soothe my soul in its slumber....

Where the pools lie silent, Deep and placid the water, I sink into slumber....

Where life’s wanderings vanish, Sunk in the shadowless water, Fade the dim phantoms of slumber....

_The Morning Star summoneth the Corn Maidens:_

Come away! Come away! Come away!

Over the crest of the Southland, Over the marge of the Year!

Into the Gardens of Summer, Into Fields ever green, ever dear!

Unto the Land of Rejoicing, Unto the Dancers of Cheer!

Where the Sons of Morning waken through the circles of the Sky, And the zonéd World refreshened turneth with exultant cry, While the flaming Sun ascendant leapeth shouting zenith-high!

There the fields in glowing colors down the bright horizons throng; There the minstrel winds beguiling mellow music bear along, And the heart of life upspringeth in a jubilance of song!

Come away! Come away! Come away!

Into the Gardens of Summer, Over the marge of the Year! Fleet to the Land of Rejoicing---- Fleet with the Dancers of Cheer!

_The Corn Maidens linger in the Place of Mist and Dew:_

Mists of Morning dreamily ascending---- Earth and Heaven in one being blending.... Upcoming corn, Tender-green corn....

Breaths of Summer balmy-fragrant blowing---- Crystal dews upon the corn-leaves glowing.... Silkening corn, Tasseling corn....

Butterflies from honey-cups sweet sipping---- Pollen-dews upon the corn low-dripping.... Ear-forming corn, Kernelling corn....

Feathered wings of birds the blue sky covering---- Golden haze o’er all the cornfields hovering.... Ripening corn, Hardening corn....

Many colors through the wide fields dancing---- Laughing sunlight o’er the cornlands glancing.... Crisp-sheathéd corn, Harvest-ripe corn....

_Sun’s Gleam parteth the mists and revealeth the Rainbow Woman:_

Sun Gleam! Sun Gleam! Part thou the Mists of their Concealment! Cleave thou the clouds that do them veil!

Sun Gleam! Sun Gleam! Bare thou the way to their revealment! Blaze to their biding-place swift trail!

_The Choir watcheth with eagerness:_

Lo, now she cometh glory-vestured---- Daughter of Joy! Daughter of Day! Lo, now she cometh beauty-splendored, Crested with Sun-Father’s ray!

She bursteth the seals of the Night, The lair of the hidden layeth bare! She scattereth with lances of light The demons of Earth and of Air!

She maketh still places to shout, The caverns of silence to sing! The choirs of the hills wide about With joy of her radiance ring!

Lo, she darteth her arrows flame-feathered! The fog-hidden bursteth aglow! Up, up, from the arches of crystal Springeth the Mist-Mother’s Bow!

_The Rainbow Woman approacheth the Zenith:_

O Woman of the Rainbow, we hail thee! Daughter of Sun Gleam, we hail thee!

The Place of Concealment is found! Abode of the precious Corn Maidens!

_The Choir chanteth the beauty of the World:_

All, all is beautiful! Once again all is beautiful!

The Fathering Sun, The Mothering Earth, Yearn unto one another, Warm unto one another, Where all is beautiful!

The rain-fringéd clouds, The light-gleaming dew,---- Crystal of Heaven, Crystal of Earth,---- In their freshness all is beautiful!

Fair blossoms of flowers, Fair pollens of corn,---- The meadows rejoice in them, The fields rejoice in them,---- In their fragrance all is beautiful!

Colored plumes of the World, Colored kernels of corn,---- Day they make precious, Life they make precious,---- In their fruitfulness all is beautiful!

Yea, all, all is beautiful! The Seeds of Life are beautiful! The Gifts of Life are beautiful! Men walk in beauty! The Children walk in beauty!

SAINT DOMINIC’S DAY

_August 4, Pueblo of Santo Domingo_

A blessed Saint is Dominic And blessed folk are they, In many a land, ’neath many a sun, Who keep his holy day---- Who gift of waxen tapers bring And kneel them down to pray:

Who kneel before his image bright With golden-bearded face And gilded robe and coronet And beg of him a grace---- Where they keep the dear Saint’s festival In many an outland place.

’Tis in the time of the tasseled maize When the fields are plumed with green And the mesas of the terraced land Red-wall them in between, While overhead the cloud-flecked sky Is lazily serene,---- ’Tis in this time men dance the corn That the harvest be not lean.

They gather at the mud-walled church, A crew of motlied folk, In gala dress their Saint to bless, In striped and fringéd cloak, In beaded shirt and blanket gay, Answering the bellman’s stroke:

They heed them well the chiméd bell, They go within to pray Where golden-bearded Dominic In festival array---- The blessed Saint in festal paint---- Smiles pleasantly that day:

He smiles upon each worshipper Who enters at the door And makes the sign of Christian faith From the bowl that stands before---- The bowl with olden pagan things Obscurely patterned o’er,----

Who kneels before the sanguined rail, The Virgin in her blue, The Christ upon his painted Cross,---- And nigh them, bright of hue, A pony and a buffalo Some dark-skinned artist drew, With cock and stag and butterfly, And maize just as it grew

All greened and bannered in the fields Long ages ere the day The foreign priest had brought the feast Of Dominic that way---- The long-robed priest had taught the feast And taught the words to say When in the time of tasseled maize For plenty men must pray:

And so they gather at the church, As now for many a year, Within its old adobe walls Holy mass to hear While they kneel where dear Saint Dominic Sits smiling pleasant cheer,---- For corn will grow as all men know If Dominic be near.

With beating drum and rattling shell, With gunshot and with shout, Beneath a flaunting canopy They bring the bright Saint out,---- The priest with gold-rimmed spectacles, The friar gowned and stout, The squaw, the chief, the blanket-man,---- Color a-flame in the motlied clan,---- The lanky long-haired scout Nigh a bronzen, earringed Navaho Lingering thereabout.

They march them down the earthen street,---- Each house must Dominic grace; They chant a hymn in the Latin tongue Which Old World centuries have sung; They come to the village place, Where in his shrine made blanket-gay, They set the Saint to face The motlied throng that march with song Into the sunny space---- White, golden-bearded Dominic Sainting a dark-skin race.

Oh, skies are blue where all day through The painted dancers come With plumes a-flare in their dusky hair, With rattle and with drum---- In bright array with bannered display, All timed to the rhythmic drum!

Oh, earth is fair in the sunny air, With her fields of flowing green, Where the mesas of the terraced land Red-wall them in between---- And the folk are gay as they dance the day That the harvest be not lean!

With naked bodies striped and daubed, With flaming parrot crest, Bright necklaces, and terraced crowns Adorned with floating featherdowns---- Earth with the sunlight blest! And ghostly white Koshare clowns, Like souls that know no rest---- Like living souls with ancient things Uncannily possessed!

To rattle and drum the dancers come, The dust-brown earth they beat, While the singers intone an heathen drone Where they follow with rhythmic feet---- An heathen drone which their sires had known Would make the harvest sweet!

They come before Saint Dominic, They dance the growing maize, Its planting and its tasseling, Full-bladed summer days, And the dews and rains that fill the grains, And the purple harvest haze---- The life that lies in Mother Earth And in bright Sun-Father’s rays:

Dancing they sing the antique song That made the maize to grow Or ever Christian priest or saint Their sires had come to know---- Dancing they sing an heathen thing Out of the long ago---- That brought fair yield to the tilléd field Dim centuries ago.

Yes, a blessed Saint is Dominic And blessed folk are they Who come with dancing feet to meet Upon his holy day---- Who tapers bring and old songs sing And reverently pray

Kneeling before his image bright With its golden-bearded face, As the priests had taught when first they brought Their Saint to the dark-skin race,---- Who should keep each year his festival In their ancient dancing-place.

FLOWER ALONE

A Santa Clara woman In Sant’ Domingo town, Her rights were less than human That day at red sundown,---- They made her less than dogs are made Within the stranger town.

Oh, she was wicked merry On Santa Clara street! Red-brown as a berry, Hale as ripened wheat; And he who came to woo her, He came on dancing feet.

Round his raven locks a kerchief gay, His belt of the silver wrought,---- From Sant’ Domingo all the way With none but her in thought: A braided scarf, a turquoise ring, These were the gifts he brought.

Why should she heed the old wives’ saw? “A bride should seek her bed “Within the pale of the village law “Wherein she hath been bred.” At old wives’ tales and old wives’ wails She shook a saucy head.

And so in Sant’ Domingo town She ground her daily corn; She drew her water at the well, And there her babe was born; And earthen pots she made to sell And quaintly did adorn.

A Santa Clara woman Within a stranger town, Its folk were more than human To hold her as their own: A saucy-head she had been bred, Should they not bring her down?

They mocked her for her outland ways, They jeered her kin and clan; They whispered evil of her days, They won away her man,---- A saucy-head she had been bred, But, oh, her heart grew wan!

They babbled evil of her days And evil of her art; They mocked, they jeered, they came to gaze Where she bode with aching heart,---- Where moody-eyed in her alien pride With her babe she sat apart.

A Santa Clara woman In Sant’ Domingo town, They made her less than human, And the hour was red sundown When from cut and gash of the plaited lash Crimson her blood ran down.

Crimson her blood as the setting sun, But never to blow or curse Did she open her lips till their work was done And they left her for better or worse,---- Till they dragged her tied to a horse’s tail And left her for a corse.

She lay beside the beasts’ corral, Her body as the dead, And dimly she heard the tiny call Of her babe that would be fed,---- Dimly she heard, and she did crawl To nurse it, while she bled.

A Santa Clara woman Within a stranger town; Her rights were less than human When redly the sun went down,---- But the babe that was born of her body She nursed while the blood ran down.

With curious eyes I watched her at work Where she plied her potter’s art And creatures drew with cunning hand, Bright for the white man’s mart,---- I wondered at the blood-red band Limned to each crimsoned heart.

THE POTTERY PEDDLER

I saw him with his pack of wares, Spoil of an ancient craft,---- His body supple as the bow After the true-sped shaft:

I liked the weave of banded wool That girt him at the thighs; I liked the glint of gaudy things That filled me with surmise:

The abalone at his ears, His beaded turquoise string; The kerchief round his glossy hair---- Red on a blackbird’s wing:

I liked the silver where its hue Shone on his earth-brown skin, And, oh, his patient eyes I liked, All smouldering within.

I saw him loping up the road Made by the white man’s hand: His step was soundless, and he seemed A phantom in the land.

I saw him on a white man’s street---- And, lo, the street was gone A century of centuries While still mine eyes looked on!

And I beheld him, lithe and proud, Chief upon plain and hill,---- The eagle was his panoply, The mountain lion his kill:

About him thronged his earth-brown kin, Rhythmic with the drum,---- I saw their gleaming feathers And their bright musicians come:

I saw them with their patterned robes, Their glint of gaudy things, Their greens, their reds, their silver whites, Their dangles and their rings:

A century of centuries While still mine eyes looked on: An Indian--and the white man’s street Ten thousand years agone!

THE DEAD PUEBLO

In 1838 the dozen or so of Indians, who comprised at that time the fading population of Pecos, abandoned their ancient pueblo and took refuge with their kinfolk of Jemez from the unceasing Comanche raids, which for more than a century had been diminishing the tribe. This closed a period of continuous occupation estimated by archaeologists at more than fifteen hundred years, during which the pueblo had become the most powerful in the Rio Grande region. A veritable fortress on its final site,--for it had been removed to the mesa top from an earlier location across the arroyo,--it is believed that Pecos had been founded as a result of the growing attacks of the wild tribes of the Plains and Desert upon the scattered farming communities of the fertile valleys and uplands of the vicinity. For many centuries and through many shifts of the local culture (by no means primitive when Pecos was founded) the community grew in strength--an eastern outpost of the Pueblo civilization. When in 1540 Coronado entered New Mexico in quest of the “seven cities of Cibola,” the people of Cicuyé (a Tewa name by which Pecos became known to the Spaniards) sent a delegation with presents, offering their friendship. Hernando de Alvarado was despatched to the town, where, says the chronicler Castañeda, “the people came out with signs of joy, and brought them into the town with drums and pipes and something like flutes, of which they had a great many; they made many presents of cloth and turquoises, of which there are quantities in that region; and the Spaniards enjoyed themselves for several days.” Of the village Castañeda says: “The houses are all alike, four stories high. One can go over the top of the whole village without there being a street to hinder. There are corridors going all around it at the first two stories, by which one can go around the whole village.... The people of this village boast that no one has been able to conquer them and that they can conquer whatever villages they wish.” It was at Pecos that the Spaniards found the Plains Indian “El Turco,” who told of the wonderful Quivera and lured them on into the expedition toward the Missouri River. When finally Coronado returned to Mexico, Friar Luis, a lay brother, remained at Pecos, one of the two first missionaries of the region. Castañeda writes: “Nothing more has been heard about him; but before the army left Tiguex some men who went to take him a number of sheep met him as he was on his way to visit some other villages.... He felt very hopeful that he was liked at the village [Pecos] and that his teaching would bear fruit, although he complained that the old men were falling away from him. I, for my part, believe that they finally killed him.” Later the Franciscans built at Pecos one of their largest establishments, now a massive ruin.

THE DEAD PUEBLO

I

A valley with its ancient hills Deep-founded in earth’s adamant And crested dark with driven cloud, Like warrior’s trophies blown aslant:

With zenith-high a riven space, Whence royal from his azured zones The golden sun strikes sheer where lie The dead pueblo’s fallen stones:

A ruin upon the mesa top Above the scarred arroyo’s sands, Its ochres crimsoned by the glow, Mid rock-strewn solitudes it stands:

Where citadelled as now with light Its ramparts stood a thousand years, The valley’s strong Acropolis Against the gathering murk of fears:

When Caesars held imperial sway Its dusky warriors manned their wall; Round council-fires its chieftains sate When Roland fell at Roncevalles:

What time the looms of Flanders wove, Its women spun their fleecy thread; They fashioned earthen burial jars While wailing mere mourned Arthur dead:

The dancers gathered to its feasts The while Columbus sailed the seas; At Coronado curious gazed Its children from their mothers’ knees:

And there where now is grass-grown nave, Walls summer-breached and winter-rent, To pray before a Christian saint Came many a dark-hued penitent:

But yesterday its people passed Into their silence and their night, Leaving their broken walls to glow Encrimsoned by the shafted light:

Leaving their valley’s purpled hills To gather glamours and to brood, Scornful of man and his phantom years, In vast and patient solitude.

II

In the days of the Sires of the People Came the First-remembered of Men Forth from the wombs of mothering Night, To seek their Sign and to find their Light, And to hew them homes mid the virgin loams, Then, as ever again.

Out of the mists of the past they marched, Children of Earth and of Sky,---- The red-soil land was theirs to claim, The hill-born torrent their flood to tame, And avalanche-thrown was the quarry-stone For their houses builded high.

They gathered them where the valleys smiled, They gathered them, tribe and clan,---- They laid their walls through the sunny days; They broke their fields and they tilled their maize, And they sang them airs and chanted them prayers That come with the joy of man.

Till up from the glowing desert, And up from the wandering plain, The greased and painted warriors crept With sudden whoop on them that slept---- Like wolves in bands from the famished lands,---- And they left a bloody stain.

They ravaged the peaceful farmsteads, They shattered and scattered the folk, And they filled the land with a deathly spell, Where Apache stealth and Comanche yell And the treacherous blow of the Navaho Their nightly terrors woke.

Till the chieftains counselled in sorrow Mid the sound of women’s woe, And they swore to build them a fortress-keep, And to hold their lands, and to sow and reap Where Sacred Earth had given them birth, Whatso might be their foe!

And they set the rocks of their citadel On the mesa’s granite crest, And their terraces rose till the barren space Became a nation’s gathering place, And the red light shone from the stubborn stone Where the People dwelt at rest.

And a new Age dawned and their troubled Morn Passed into the splendid Day; And they sang from their roofs when their work was done High-chanted hymns to the Fathering Sun; And their bows were strong and the arrow’s prong Kept the carrion tribes at bay.

III

Time was kindly with this people In the ancient Vale of Pecos, In their citadel enseated High above the scarred arroyo, High upon the brunting mesa.

There within the storeyed houses Built about their dancing plaza, Walled against the foeman’s onslaught, Walled and towered and ever watchful, Safe and happy dwelt the people:

With their cornfields round about them In the pleasant watered valleys, Fair with corn of many colors Sacred to the Guardian Mothers---- White of Morn and blue of Zenith, Yellow for the burning Sunset, Speckled for the cloudy Northland: Earth and Sky have many colors, So the corn has colors many Sacred to the Guardian Mothers:

With their cornfields and their beanfields, With their vines of squash and pumpkin, With their sunflowers and tobacco, Dwelt the olden folk of Pecos Rich and happy in their valley:

And the fires upon their hearth-stones Glowed at dawn and glowed at twilight, And the wavering smoke ascended Quiet into quiet heavens---- Till the city seemed reflected In the vaporous blue of noonday, In the gleaming stars of night-time:

And the women at their grinding Sang the Song of Fruitful Pollen; And the maidens at their spinning Sang the Breath-song of the Cotton; And they wove their baskets singing, Singing modelled earthen vessels, Painted brown and black and yellow With the symbols of the Cloud-Folk, Of the Mist-Folk and the Rain-Folk, And the sudden zig-zag Lightning---- And they left the life-line broken For the spirit of the vessel That it might not be imprisoned In the moulded clay forever: