Chapter 5

God drops no nobler anchorage on earth, Than those who mold a nation, and a name; Whose travail in the wilderness gives birth To some great epoch, without thought of fame. The pioneers of empire, for all time, Are gold-dust, from the placers of our homes-- The surface croppings from a nation's prime, The mellow acre of the richest loams. They overgrow the boundaries of life, And push the horizon far out in space. With lethargy they wage a ceaseless strife, And with the whirling earth, they keep their pace. All honor to the soul who sets his stake Where human kind have never trenched before; Where only God his thunders o'er it shake, And solitude shall murmur, "nevermore." Such men are sovereigns, though they grasp no crown, And raise no jewelled scepter in the hand; Yet are they Princes, in their bronze and brown, And demonstrate their fitness to command.

The Norsemen, on the North Atlantic wave; Columbus, passing out in unknown seas; De Soto, gaining but an unknown grave; The hardy Pilgrims, on their bended knees; The Argonauts, upon the Western slope-- These are the souls no human praise can reach. Each, in their turn, gave empire back to hope, And all are greater than the gift of speech. No pen can lustre their unfading claim; No cenotaph do honor to their dust-- These are crown jewels on the brow of Fame; Their conquest is supreme, their laurels ever just.

Yet, in the van of empire, still is left The noiseless print of ancestry more grand; Indentures chiseled in the highest cleft, By giants of a long forgotten land,-- The nameless graves of centuries untold; The ashes of the prehistoric age; The self-forgetting litany of gold-- How vast their monuments, how broad their page! In what a grand democracy of death They lift their silent fingers to our years, Melt our memorials with a single breath In mute companionship of life and tears!

We are but pygmies to the almighty past, The names we honor but the surface-mould; Beneath must lie an empire far more vast, Whose fundaments alone deserve the name of "old."

Not many years, till they had found the bed Of copper ore upon Superior's rim; And hither many of the hardy ones were led By Orchas, quick in architrave, and fleet of limb; And many the fantastic implements he shaped For husbandry; no want of theirs escaped His eager scrutiny--the axe and blade, The rough-made pick, and the encumbered spade, The vessels for the housewife, and the spear, And other weaponry for bison and for deer. All these were fashioned in an uncouth way, And yet they filled the purpose of the day.

They had not reached the iron age of thought, And what they made, necessity had taught; But riper years must ope the "Sampson Mine," And wake the rugged giant, in the shine Of a meridian sunlight; they little thought Of what a Hercules remained unsought, So near Missouri's border; yet, not strange Is their indicted ignorance--their range Was circumscribed; and iron was left to rest, Till man had long been cradled on the breast Of patient Mother Earth--not all at once Did she give up her treasures; and the dunce Must grow into philosopher with years. Experience with its battlehood of tears, Is Nature's great interpreter; we learn But slowly, till the lessons fervid burn Their impress into action; then awakes The slow-taught pupil into higher life-- Invention is the furnace-spark of strife; Necessity, the hand that wields the sledge Upon the patient anvil of our needs, And Providence makes good its wakeful pledge With plenteous harvest; from the dormant seeds That lie unconed beneath our very feet We stumble on to marvels, and awake To find some giant force, in what we meet; And in the insects of our path, leviathans, we greet.

Time's wheels, though shaken, never fail to track The rut of empire, without turning back; They, ceaseless whirl, with lubricate of blood, Drawn from a thousand channels on the way, Unrusting, through the oxydizing flood, To measure centuries, or mark a day. And thus, the primal pioneers move on To unaccustomed progress, on the banks Of the confluent streams that scar the face Of the great Western basin; and their ranks Are filled with happy husbandry; the land Gives back its tillage, with a lavish hand.

The forests and the streams were over-full With fish, and flesh to feed them, and they pass One conquest, to another, in the lull Of untamed nature. Garnered as a mass To fill their open hands, the native corn Soon covered the rich valleys, and the plant, So dalliant to the race, was early born, Tobacco. They were not adamant Against the weaknesses so close allied To human nature; and there was excess, And envy, emulence, and pride, And all the ills that left their first impress; And yet God gave them peace. No brother's hand Was raised against a brother, and the years Spread fruit and plenty over a fair land Destined to futurehood of bitter, bitter tears.

DEPARTURE OF WABUN.

"Most governed is most wayward." Very true; Repeating history doth verify That law from malefaction always grew, And with its ceasing, rulership must die, Except the common sway of Deity, When love and service shall together blend, And man, from every earthly master free, Shall recognize his Father and his Friend.

These ancient prairie dwellers, had no need Of stringent government; a few to lead In seeding and in harvest; some to guide In matters of religion, and of form; The rustic swain, and his compliant bride, To join in wedlock; and in time of storm, To smooth the little intricates of life With counsel, sage, and thus avoiding strife, To guide their budding nation into bloom. All claiming unction from the prophet's shade, Still gave their worship to the god of day, And their oblations on the altar laid. Yet, the responsive accident of fire Could never be recalled--they little knew The secret of its coming; and they shaped No other pebbles like the one so true To Uri's pleadings; still they kept their faith And reared their shapely mounds to meet the sun With his first glance, and from the morning's breath Retain their fervency, till day was done. From out their number, some were set apart For game and chase. The buffalo and deer And wild fowl, all, paid tribute to their skill, And vale and forest echoed with their cheer.

But one of these, young Wabun, shunned the group, And wandered by the forest streams alone. Some called him "dreamer"; others tried to win His mooding back to mirth; but there was none That seemed to reach the center of his soul; He joined not in the worship of his race, And seemed to be so distant in his thought, That one might search the Pleiad's in his face.

There shone a star upon the eastern rim-- So suddenly it shot upon their view, So brilliant and so placid, never dim Through storm and starlight, always lit anew. They marveled much, and some were sore dismayed To seek the portents of this stranger star; But not so, Wabun; he, all unafraid, Hailed it as answer from the dim afar, And showed unwonted pleasure at its sight; His distance seemed to shorten, and his mind Seemed mellowed by a new-born love to man-- A quickened tenderness to help his kind.

"I wander in the forest; by the stream"; (They gave earnest audience as he spake) "And underneath the stars--and they all tell The story of a great, forgotten God. I listen to the murmuring of the rain, And to the mighty thunder of the clouds; And see the forked lightning, in its gleam, Strike the great oak to shivers, in its path; I see the maize upon a thousand fields; I see the goodly carpet on the earth-- And every grassy thread a miracle-- I see the sun upon his track of light, The moon upon her pathway in the sky-- And all do tell of this forgotten God. For God is of the living, not the dead: The tree, the sun, the moon, the stars, and all, All fill their places; but are not alive

"As we, with thought, and purpose, and design; But each doth turn upon a steady crank Held by a mighty and imperious hand. The bison, and the deer, and all the birds, Have life, and voice, and action, such as we; And yet they have no thought, except to live. They build no houses, lay no harvests up-- We are their masters, with the right to kill.

"All things pay tribute to our prowent hands; All things we see are provident of us: The sun to ripen, and the moon to watch, The birds and flocks for us to gather flesh, The forests and the prairies for our use, The mines for metal, and the streams for fish-- All, all, pay tribute to our wasting hands. Yet we are not a law unto ourselves: Though masters, yet not gods, for we all die And fall back into dust; yet are we great, And greatest of earth's creatures; but for death, We might claim highest unction; but our power Is limited; wherefore, if we are highest type Of creature earth, then must it surely be That God is man, but of a higher mold; Not subject unto death, but Lord of life. And, if all earthly forces must conserve Our being (highest born of all the earth), Then back of us the great Creator stands

"Unseen, as is Eternity unseen, But felt, as is each ripple of her waves, Upon the shores of our unstable life. The greater is not seen. We do not see The very thought that holds us in control.

"Thus have I doled, and pondered on it well, Until, upon my vision dawned that star; And as upon some errand quickly sent (I know not how I went, I felt so light), I sped upon its rays, o'er vale, and hill, And o'er a vaster water than the lakes-- A grand expanse of green and surging waves. And, on, still on, till just before my face A mother, and an infant at her breast, And many seeming wise and stately men Bending in homage and with offerings choice, Of sweetly-scented vintage; then I sought To find the wherefore of this sweet emprize; And I was told this was the Son of God-- The One that was to come, the mighty One, Redeemer of the world; that man had sinned And he was come to set at one the race With the All-Father; that we had been made In God's own image; that the sun and moon Were but his handiwork. To Him alone (Invisible, yet always looking on)

"Should homage be ascribed. All this was short Yet was it printed on my pliant breast, And cannot be erased. I seek no name And claim no higher homage for the gleam Vouchsafed my vision of the mighty past And prescience of the future; tis enough To know my steps directed, and to feel That in my darkness I have found out God. No more the unknown God, but evermore The ripened type of the diviner man; And as we reap the tokens of his love, Remember him as Father Man of men-- The Infinite Perfection of our race."

Much more he said which made a deep impress Upon the hardy hunters, and the less Were those who gave no sanction to his word; The greater portion followed him in thought, And soon in deed. The votaries of the sun Made most malignant onslaught, and they sought To drive the thoughtful Wabun from his "dream." The strife was vain. They in their fervent hope Turn to the East, into the wilderness-- The grand Druidic of the Eastern slope, And, hid to all but God, they penetrate The deep recesses of their broad estate.

The gentle Wabun held for many years His hand upon the pulses of their thought; Sometimes upon their love, sometimes their fears, His fervent purity, its impress wrought. He led them to the thousand untold charms That sparkle on the rugged Eastern slope. He bared to them the great Creator's arms, And, in God's grandest alphabet, he read their highest hope.

Niagara was but a giant scroll, Whereon God writ a token of his strength; The muttering voice of its unceasing roll Was but a cadence of the mighty length That measures the eternities of life. Its grandeur but one glitter of the gold That played upon his vesture; that the strife Of waters was the stream so cold, Down which humanity as rudely rushed; Without a thought for their eternal good, With all the semblance of the Father crushed, They pass down in the surge of death's unceasing flood.

The broad Atlantic lashing at the shore, Was human passion--with the balance gone; Endeafening the graces with its roar, And blindly lashing the Eternal throne. Into these miniatures, God thrust himself, That every wave might glitter with his name, That every rock might hold upon its shelf Some semblance that their reverence might claim. The kindlier tokens of paternal care, On Nature's face, were beaming everywhere.

And yet, how few of us, can truly blend The creature with Creator, in our sight; And from the Father, grasp the hand of friend, Whose stars of providence outshine the night! Our eyes are fettered with an earthly bound, Our narrow horizon will not enlarge; Our gaze, star fixed, will drop back to the ground, And will not with the infinite surcharge. Only God's hand can push the barriers back, And give our vision unimpeded range; And with each respite, on the weary track, Fix the unchangeable, where all is change.

RETURN AND STRIFE.

No wonder, that when Wabun passed away, Their torpid natures should have lost the charm That held so perfect, with its gentle sway, Yet slacked so quickly, with the palsied arm. Infirmities are easy to impart, And through the generations, they come down; But God must place his hand upon each heart, And press each brow where he would drop a crown.

Long brotherhood of forest, storm and flood, Had schooled them for the turbulence of life. The wraith of Nature made them men of blood; The war of elements, the ocean's strife, The thunder of Niagara now heard, The lashing of Atlantic on the beach, The slogan of the forest--in a word The carnival, at rife, within their reach, All served to spur their natures into storm. How many catch the key-note of their song From the surrounding elements, and warm Their frozen energies, and make them strong In earth's unceasing alchemy! Much more The untutored savage; he has lost the key, And must from Nature's chalice find the door, Through which to penetrate life's mystery.

And many generations passed away, Since these stern foresters had dwelt apart From their ancestral brethren; till the day When in their higher prowess, from the heart Of the great forest fastnesses, they spring As panthers, on their unsuspecting prey. They have grown strong in weaponry, yet cling To Deity, in their untutored way. The "happy hunting ground" to them is Heaven; And the "Great Spirit" still to them is God; Yet, from their hearts, all tender passions driven, They smite their brethren with a heavy rod. A long and ceaseless struggle, many years, Alternately, invasion and defense, Till they are driven southward; and the fears, That Kohen's prophecy would be fullfilled And back of this, the agony intense Of impotence in prayer so deeply chilled The hearts of these poor children of the sun, That they gave easy conquest to their foes; And thus the struggle stubbornly begun, So unresisting now, was finished without blows.

When man is shorn of strength, and there is left Only Omnipotence, we kiss the rod-- The very rod that smites us. In the cleft We would attempt to hide from Deity, Yet in his anger is an answered prayer-- The consciousness of presence; though we flee, The wrath of love, is proof of constant care. But when we beat against the empty air, And every echo sends us back despair, And even superstition, fails to foil Our souls with the deceptive glow of spoil, Then are we bittered, and our path made black; We grope in mists, Cimmerian, on the wrack Of constant and interminable doubt, A natural prey, and easy put to rout.

To South, and West, they turn their fateful way Beyond the Mississippi; and their day Seemed lighted with a new influx of hope. The sun embraced them with a warmer smile; The mellow fragrance of the Southern slope Added entrancement each succeeding mile. Not all at once the exodus took place, For they were many, and had scattered wide; Yet to the southward all had set their face To seek in other fields a place to hide From cruel persecutions. When our kin Lends its consanguined arder to the dart, How more intent, with vengeful purposes, How heavier is the load upon the heart!

They scatter into fragmentary clans, And in the earnest of their added woe, Give birth to new religious phantasies. The unclogged streams of superstition flow, When down the mountains, and across the moors, The heavy, swollen torrents sweep along, Throwing their scattered wrecks upon the shores, And breaking barriers, however strong. Baal was great, when Baalbec reared her crest And column after column gave her grace And all the East upon her beauty smiled; But when the "owls and bats" usurped her place, The god had fallen. In the temple dust, Where man, with his immortal, had so strove To make the marble animate (in vain, Like other myriad phantoms of the brain) Time fashions into ghostly hands, that sternly point above. And so, God reaps involuntary praise, From every fashioning of man's design; His ways, indeed, cannot be called our ways; Yet his hozannas, from each crumbling shrine, Teach us the servitude of all the past; That human hands but fashion Heavenly aids; That every sculptured mythmark only fades Into eternal sunshine, at the last.

Some crossed the mountain ramparts of the West; Some lingered still upon the Eastern slope; The empire yet was open to their zest, And all were buoyant with a new-born hope. But war, like pestilence, doth warp our lives, And like contagion, it infects the air. Peace comes in measure, but it never thrives Directly after conflict, till grows fair The flesh so lately scarred. Intestine war Made ravage of their ranks; they ill could spare Their bravest, yet the first to fall in fratricidal jar. The lines, by conflict, soon were closely drawn, And from the night of struggle nations dawn, Whose chiefs assume the King's prerogative. Clans fall, and clansmen perish; nations live That pass chaotic conflict, and ensphere Their crude material, as a new-born world, To individual phalanxes, and rear Their rude escutcheon. As in ether whirled, The new born planet tracks its trial course; So must this human query find its way, And failure is its fashion; but still worse Are those who fail to grapple with the day, But look supinely on while vested rights Are trampled under foot, and raise no hand In deprecating gesture; from the heights Of grim impartial history will stand Unfading letters, written to the shame Of those whose scourges fail to make a name.

PREHISTORIC RENDEZVOUS OF THE AZTECS.

On either side the crest of the Madre, Where mountains kiss their hands to either sea, One slope to blush upon the opening day, The other, to drop down its tapestry And hold the hand for promise of return, Three nations, as three stars, to being burn. The Toltecs, purest of the primal race, The Chichamecs, devoted to the chase, And Aztecs, strongest in the arts of war-- All, seeming thrown beneath one fateful star. No painter limnes upon his labored scroll, Be it fantastic, feast, or forest shades, As war upon its victims; from the soul (Plastic as new damped clay) it never fades Till Time has ironed out the furrowed past; And Peace, by laying fevered brows to rest, Over the present has its mantle cast; Then Nature folds its wardling to its breast. So on these nations had been writ, in brief, The deep-burned liturgy of hardened strife, And through the furnace of their pungent grief, They learn to plant the rootlets of their life. One thing is never lacking, at the time, When in their nascent passions, nations rise: The craft of Priests, in every age and clime, To "point a moral," or portend the skies. And so, from cast-off altars to the sun, New pleadings to new conjured gods arose; The selfish passions since the world begun, All seek supernal outlet on their foes.