THE RED HUNTERS.
Out of the wood at midnight,
The swift red hunters came;
The prairie was their hunting-ground,
The bison were their game.
Their spears were of glist'ning silver,
Their crests were of blue and gold;
Driven by the panting winds of heaven,
Their shining chariots rolled.
Over that level hunting-ground—
Oh, what a strife was there!
What a shouting—what a threat'ning cry——
What a murmur on the air!
Their garments over the glowing wheels
Streamed backward red and far;
They flouted their purple banners
In the face of each pale star.
Under their tread the autumn flowers
By myriads withering lay;
Poor things! that from those golden wheels
Could nowhere shrink away!
Close, and crashing together,
The envious chariots rolled,
While, anon before his fellows
Leaped out some hunter bold.
Their hot breath, thick and lowering,
About their wild eyes hung,
And, around their frowning foreheads,
Like wreaths of nightshade clung.
The bison! ho, the bison!
They cried, and answered back;
Poor herds of frightened creatures,
With such hunters on their track!
With a weary, lumbering swiftness,
They sought the river’s side,
Driven by those hunters from their sleep
Into its chilling tide.
Some face their foe, with anguish
Dilating their brute eyes——
The spears of silver strike them low,
And dead each suppliant lies.
Now, by the brightening river
The red hunters stand at bay ;
Vain the appalling splendor—
The river shields their prey!
Into its waves, with baffled rage,
They leap in death's despite—
Their golden wheels roll roaring in,
And leave the withered night.
BODY AND SOUL.
A living soul came into the world—
Whence came it? Who can tell?
Or where that soul went forth again,
When it bade the world farewell?
A body it had, this spirit new,
And the body was given a name,
And chance and change and circumstance
About its being came.
Whether the name would suit the soul
The givers never knew—
Names are alike, but never souls:
So body and spirit grew,
Till time enlarged their narrow sphere
Into the realms of life,
Into this strange and double world,
Whose elements are at strife.
'Twere easy to tell the daily paths
Walked by the body’s feet,
To mark where the sharpest stones were laid,
Or where the grass grew sweet;
To tell if it hungered, or what its dress,
Ragged, or plain, or rare ;
What was its forehead—what its voice,
Or the hue of its eyes and hair.
But these are all in the common dust;
And the spirit—where is it?
Will any say if the hue of the eyes,
