Nocturnal Grave Lights
It is supposed to be four days’ journey to the land of the dead; wherefore, during four nights, the Chippewas kindle a fire on the grave.
Light up a fire upon my grave
When I am dead.
’Twill softly shed its beaming rays,
To guide the soul its darkling ways;
And ever, as the day’s full light
Goes down and leaves the world in night,
These kindly gleams, with warmth possest,
Shall show my spirit where to rest
When I am dead.
Four days the funeral rite renew,
When I am dead.
While onward bent, with typic woes,
I seek the red man’s last repose;
Let no rude hand the flame destroy,
Nor mar the scene with festive joy;
While night by night, a ghostly guest,
I journey to my final rest,
When I am dead.
No moral light directs my way
When I am dead.
A hunter’s fate, a warrior’s fame,
A shade, a phantom, or a name,
All life-long through my hands have sought,
Unblest, unlettered, and untaught:
Deny me not the boon I crave—
A symbol-light upon my grave,
When I am dead.
“Every exhibition of elementary power, in earth or sky, is deemed, by the Indians, as a symbolic type of a deity.”—Hist. Inds.
In the frowning cliff, that high
Glooms above the passing eye,
Casting spectral shadows tall
Over lower rock and wall;
In its morn and sunset glow,
I behold a Manito.
By the lake or river lone,
In the humble fretted stone,
Water-sculptured, and, by chance,
Cast along the wave’s expanse;
In its morn and sunset glow,
I behold a Manito.
In whatever’s dark or new,
And my senses cannot view,
Complex work, appearance strange,
Arts’ advance, or nature’s change—
Fearful e’er of hurt or woe,
I behold a Manito.
In the motions of the sky,
Where the angry lightnings fly,
And the thunder, dread and dire,
Lifts his mighty voice in fire—
Awed with fear of sudden woe,
I behold a Manito.
Here my humble voice I lift,
Here I lay my sacred gift,
And, with heart of fear and awe,
Raise my loud Wau-la-le-au.
Spirit of the fields above,
Thee I fear, and Thee I love,
Whether joy betide or woe,
Thou, thou art my Manito.