again.

My baby, my darling, my blossom,
Nor anguish nor falsehood shall know;
Together we cleave the wild billow--
Unfaltering together we go
To rest on the same rocky pillow,
To slumber and mingle below._

Plunging on the sunlit stream,
The frail canoe, with trembling leaps,
Hurries toward the mists that gleam
To veil the awful steeps.
What need has she for any veil?
Despairing eyes will never quail!
See, now upon the glowing crest,
Where clouds of spray beneath her lie,
She clasps her boy upon her breast,
She gazes on the cloudless sky,
And in its blue depth seems to see
Death, robed in peaceful purity;
Then down into the boiling tomb
That makes for her the happiest doom.
How strange that peace should thus be found
Amid such tumult-breathing sound!
To leap from life and light, and find
A darkness sweeter to the mind!

* * * * *

Long shall the mists of morning show
The spirit of her who long ago
Wrapped them round her wearily--
A victim of love and treachery.
Long shall her mournful death-song find
An echo in the moaning wind;
Long shall Dahkota legend bind
That echo with the roaring falls,
The ancient, foam-crowned, giant falls,
Whose voice so oft hath given
The welcome of its watery halls,
That lead the soul, when the Great Spirit calls,
To the hunting-grounds of heaven.
And though a child of the forest dark
Weary of life would here embark,
As to a portal hither comes,--
And yet who may not pass this way
Into eternal joy and day,--
The water hides and soon benumbs
The sorrow, and the cadence deep
Becomes a lullaby to hush
The spirit to its endless sleep
Beneath the surging rush,
Beneath the shrouding spray,
Where the tireless waters sweep
To their wild, unpausing leap--
Then fly to the South away!
The flood is cold, but the heart is bold
When the future that lives new sorrow gives;
And within the chamber halls
Of the grand and solemn falls
May be found a sleep so sweet and deep
That its darkness never palls,
While ages pass with silent creep.
Time hath no tooth to tear
The heart whose pulse is dead,
And sorrow may live in the air
But not in the river-bed!
I ween all peacefully there
Is pillowed forever the head
Of a woman whose heart was fair,
Though her cheeks were dusky red.

Winona.

PART I.

Winona,[1] first-born daughter, was the name
Of a Dakota girl who, long ago,
Dwelt with her people here unknown to fame.
Sweet word, Wi