TREE-BURIAL

Near our southwestern border, when a child

Dies in the cabin of an Indian wife,

She makes its funeral-couch of delicate furs,

Blankets and bark, and binds it to the bough

Of some broad branching tree with leathern thongs

And sinews of the deer. A mother once

Wrought at this tender task, and murmured thus:

"Child of my love, I do not lay thee down

Among the chilly clods where never comes

The pleasant sunshine. There the greedy wolf

Might break into thy grave and tear thee thence,

And I should sorrow all my life. I make

Thy burial-place here, where the light of day

Shines round thee, and the airs that play among

The boughs shall rock thee. Here the morning sun,

Which woke thee once from sleep to smile on me,

Shall beam upon thy bed, and sweetly here

Shall lie the red light of the evening clouds

Which called thee once to slumber. Here the stars

Shall look upon thee- the bright stars of heaven

Which thou didst wonder at. Here too the birds,

Whose music thou didst love, shall sing to thee,

And near thee build their nests and rear their young

With none to scare them. Here the woodland flowers,

Whose opening in the spring-time thou didst greet

With shouts of joy, and which so well became

Thy pretty hands when thou didst gather them,

Shall spot the ground below thy little bed.

"Yet haply thou hast fairer flowers than these,

Which, in the land of souls, thy spirit plucks

In fields that wither not, amid the throng

Of joyous children, like thyself, who went

Before thee to that brighter world and sport

Eternally beneath its cloudless skies.

Sport with them, dear, dear child, until I come

To dwell with thee, and thou, beholding me,

From far, shalt run and leap into my arms,

And I shall clasp thee as I clasped thee here

While living, oh most beautiful and sweet

Of children, now more passing beautiful,

If that can be, with eyes like summer stars-

A light that death can never quench again.

"And now, oh wind, that here among the leaves

Dost softly rustle, breathe thou ever thus

Gently, and put not forth thy strength to tear

The branches and let fall their precious load,

A prey to foxes. Thou, too, ancient sun,

Beneath whose eye the seasons come and go,

And generations rise and pass away,

While thou dost never change- oh, call not up,

With thy strong heats, the dark, grim thunder-cloud,

To smite this tree with bolts of fire, and rend

Its trunk and strew the earth with splintered boughs.

Ye rains, fall softly on the couch that holds

My darling. There the panther’s spotted hide

Shall turn aside the shower; and be it long,

Long after thou and I have met again,

Ere summer wind or winter rain shall waste

This couch and all that now remains of thee,

To me thy mother. Meantime, while I live,

With each returning sunrise I shall seem

To see thy waking smile, and I shall weep;

And when the sun is setting I shall think

How, as I watched thee, o’er thy sleepy eyes

Drooped the smooth lids, and laid on the round cheek

Their lashes, and my tears will flow again;

And often, at those moments, I shall seem

To hear again the sweetly prattled name

Which thou didst call me by, and it will haunt

My home till I depart to be with thee."