FOR MY FIREPLACE HARRY NOYES PRATT Pine bough, pine bark, Cone and yellow wood, Drenched with forest fragrances Found in solitude; Filled with summer breezes, Song of bird and bee: As you burn upon my hearth Give me thunder of the surf Sounding on your shore; Give me whisper of the fog- Drip of rain from off your boughs; Give me peace of summer dusk When the day is done. Pine bough, pine bark, Yellow wood and cone, Send your tongues of tangled flame Let me listen as I dream, Knowing that I hear All the sounds the pine has heard Listening through the year. Cor de Gavere Occasionally, in the old days, a man scalped and left for dead recovered from his injury. Such a man could not return to live with his people in the ordinary fashion; he was counted as dead, and worse than honorably dead, for he was doomed to wander in the unhappy limbo of the Scalped with all his kind, vengeful and malignant, outlaw from the realms of both flesh and spirit. The scene is a bleak and broken precipice of red rocks, pitted with cavernous wind erosions, rising sheer from the abyss. The time is late fall, just before the first snow. The hour is the approach of sunset; there is winter in the sky. ODOWAWIN is a young Plainswoman, dressed in the characteristic tunic of fringed deerskin, moccasins, and beaded ankle protectors. Her arms and head are bare; her hair hangs loose. WANAGI, half naked, wears only the tatters of a warrior's costume -clout and leggings. SINGING is heard, remote and hollow-toned: The rooks are ringing red, the rocks are ringing red, the ODOWAWIN enters, strained and anxious. She comes to the brink of the abyss and peers painstakingly into the distance. Disappointment is manifest, as she speaks her thought: With a sharp gesture of pain: Why did I sing that song! It was only mock! It was only girl's play!.. "Go get you feathers, young man who would marry!". That is what I sang ..... And it was only mock . . . only girl's play. ... But he! For him it meant warpath! warpath! She renews her searching into the distance, and then again is reminiscently self-thinking: The fledglings were on the tips of their nests, then,— Trying their young wings, just ready to fly .. And there were ripe berries in the glens, flowers in my hair ... Now, the birds have flocked and flown, The young birds and the old, South, from the coming snow. . . . . Once more anxiously scanning: No sign! I cannot see any sign that he is returning. No man in the distance no voice.. no feather of smoke.. .... . . cold . . . . and the great Now, winter is coming. . . . cold. . . |