And turned their hearts from me away. Their stren gth Has weakness grown since devastating wars Have cut them down in the first flower of youth; And white men from beyond the dawn have come And bought our lands and paid for them with blood. Among my people they sowed seeds of woe, And e'en my power to their service yoked. My children hear and heed my voice no more; But as some giant oak, into whose heart Disease has crept, will flourish for a time, Then, one by one, the branches fade and fall, Until a bare and withered trunk it stands For the first storm to fell,—e'en so decay, With slow and certain blight has seized upon The Red Man; and the nation which agone Flourished with branches wide and rootlets deep, Now tottering stands, and in its leafless age, Casts but a shadow of its coming doom.
"Wakonda, thy Lakotahs look to thee For help. Let loose thy fiercest thunderbolts Upon th' invaders heads; and let the braves Their fathers' lands and graves once more possess." He ceased.
UNKTAHA, GODDESS OF WATERS AND
OF NIGHT.
The fair Unktaha then arose.
A crescent moon was on her head. A gourd,
The earth to water, in one hand she held.
The lightning serpent, emblem of the earth's
Fertility, the other grasped. Her path
A shining light appeared, like streamlet's gleam
On sunny day, but in the distance lost
In mist and shadow;—for Unktaha fair
Not only rules the waters, but the night
As well, and governs then the dreams of men.
For when in morning's glow you rise refreshed, —
The spectres gone which frightened you last e'en,
The burdens lightened which oppressed you sore, —
