s of Lake Superior;
And at my side there lay a vale
Replete with little glens, where oft
The Indian wigwam rose, and little fields
Of waving corn displayed their tasselled heads.
A stream ran through the vale, and on its marge
There grew wild rice, and bending alders dipped
Into the tide, and on the rising heights
The ever-verdant pine laughed in the breeze.

I turned around, to gaze upon the scenes
More perfectly, and there beheld a man
Tall and erect, with feathers on his head,
And air and step majestic; in his hands
Held he a bow and arrows, and he would have passed,
Intent on other scene, but that I spake to him:
"Pray, whither comest thou? and whither goest?"
"My coming," he replied, "is from the Master of Life,
The Lord of all things, and I go at his commands."

"Then why," I further parleyed, "since thou art
So much the friend of Him, whom white men seek
By prayer and rite so fervently to obey--why, tell,
Art thou so oft in want of e'en a meal
To satisfy the cravings of a man? Why cast abroad
To live in wilds, where oft the scantiest shapes
Of foot and wing must fill thy board, while pallid hunger strays
With hideous shouts, by mountain, vale, and stream?"

"The Great Spirit," he replied, "hath not alike
Made all men; or, if once alike, the force of climes,
And wants and wanderings have estranged them quite.
To me, and to my kind, forest, and lake, and wood,
The rising mountain, and the drawn-out stream
That sweeps, meandering, through wild ranges vast,
Possess a charm no marble halls can give.
We rove, as winds escaped the Master's fists--
Now, sweeping over beds of prairie flowers--
Now, dallying on the tops of leafy trees,
Or murmuring in the corn-fields, and, when tired
With roving, we lie down on beds where springs
The simple wild flower, and some shreds of bark,
Plucked from the white, white birch, defends our heads,
And hides us from the blue ethereal skies,
Where, in his sovereign majesty, this Spirit rules;
Now, casting lightning from his glowing eyes--
Now, uttering thunder with his mighty voice.

"To you, engendered in another clime
Of which our fathers knew not, he hath given
Arts, arms, and skill we know not, or if ever knew,
Have quite forgot. Your hands are thickened up
With toils of field and shop, where whirring wheels resound,
And hammers clink. The anvil and the plough
Belong to you; the very ox construes your speech,
And turns him to obey you. All this toil
We deem a