"In a blue smoke in her naked forests--
"She will linger, kissing all the branches,
"She will linger, touching all the places,
"Bare and naked, with her golden fingers,
"Saying, 'Sleep, and dream of me, my children
"'Dream of me, the mystic Indian Summer;
"'I, who, slain by the cold Moon of Terror,
"'Can return across the path of Spirits,
"'Bearing still my heart of love and fire;
"'Looking with my eyes of warmth and splendour;
"'Whisp'ring lowly thro' your sleep of sunshine?
"'I, the laughing Summer, am not turn'd
"'Into dry dust, whirling on the prairies,--
"'Into red clay, crush'd beneath the snowdrifts.
"'I am still the mother of sweet flowers
"'Growing but an arrow's flight beyond you--
"'In the Happy Hunting Ground--the quiver
"'Of great Manitou, where all the arrows
"'He has shot from his great bow of Pow'r,
"'With its clear, bright, singing cord of Wisdom,
"'Are re-gather'd, plum'd again and brighten'd,
"'And shot out, re-barb'd with Love and Wisdom;
"'Always shot, and evermore returning.
"'Sleep, my children, smiling in your heart-seeds
"'At the spirit words of Indian Summer!'"
"Thus, O Moon of Falling Leaves, I mock you!
"Have you slain my gold-ey'd squaw, the Summer?"
The mighty morn strode laughing up the land,
And Max, the labourer and the lover, stood
Within the forest's edge, beside a tree;