🧚 The Feast of the Virgins., part 1

The sun sails high in his azure realms; Beneath the arch of the breezy elms The feast is spread by the murmuring river.1 With his battle spear and his bow and quiver, And eagle plumes in his ebon hair, The chief Wakâwa himself is there; And round the feast in the Sacred Ring, [48] Sit his weaponed warriors witnessing.2 Not a morsel of food have the Virgins tasted For three long days ere the holy feast; They sat in their teepee alone and fasted, Their faces turned to the Sacred East.3 [21] In the polished bowls lies the golden maize And the flesh of fawn on the polished trays.4 For the Virgins the bloom of the prairies wide-- The blushing pink and the meek blue-bell, The purple plumes of the prairie's pride, [49] The wild, uncultured asphodel, And the beautiful, blue-eyed violet That the Virgins call "Let-me-not-forget," In gay festoons and garlands twine With the cedar sprigs [50] and the wildwood vine.5 So gaily the Virgins are decked and dressed, And none but a virgin may enter there; And clad is each in a scarlet vest, And a fawn skin frock to the brown calves bare.6 Wild rosebuds peep from their flowing hair, And a rose half-blown on the budding breast; And bright with the quills of the porcupine The moccasined feet of the maidens shine.7

Hand in hand round the feast they dance, And sing to the notes of a rude bassoon, And never a pause or a dissonance In the merry dance or the merry tune.8 Brown-bosomed and fair as the rising moon, When she peeps o'er the hills of the dewy east, Wiwâstè sings at the Virgins Feast; And bright is the light in her luminous eyes; They glow like the stars in the winter skies; And the lilies that bloom in her virgin heart Their golden blush to her cheeks impart-- Her cheeks half hid in her midnight hair.9 Fair is her form--as the red fawn's fair, And long is the flow of her raven hair; It falls to her knees, and it streams on the breeze Like the path of a storm on the swelling seas.10

Proud of their rites are the Virgins fair, For none but a Virgin may enter there. '11 Tis a custom of old and a sacred thing; Nor rank nor beauty the warriors spare, If a tarnished maiden should enter there.12 And her that enters the Sacred Ring With a blot that is known or a secret stain The warrior who knows is bound to expose, And lead her forth from the ring again.13 And the word of the warrior is a sacred by law; For the Virgins' Feast is a sacred thing.14 Aside with the mothers sat Hârpstinà: She durst not enter the virgins' ring.15

Round and round to the merry song The maidens dance in their gay attire.16 While the loud "Ho-Ho's" of the tawny throng Their flying feet and their song inspire.17 They have finished the song and the sacred dance, And hand in hand to the feast advance-- To the polished bowls of the golden maize, And the sweet fawn meat in the polished trays.18

Then up from his seat in the silent crowd Rose the frowning, fierce-eyed, tall Red Cloud; Swift was his stride as the panther's spring, When he leaps on the fawn from his cavern lair; Wiwâstè he caught by her flowing hair, And dragged her forth from the Sacred Ring.19 She turned on the warrior.20 Her eyes flashed fire; Her proud lips quivered with queenly ire; Her hand to the Spirits she raised and said, And her sun browned cheeks were aflame with red: "I am pure!--I am pure as falling snow!21 Great Tâku-Skan-Skan [51] will testify!22 And dares the tall coward to say me no?"23 But the sullen warrior made no reply.24 She turned to the chief with her frantic cries: "Wakâwa--my Father; he lies!--he lies!25 Wiwâstè is pure as the faun unborn; Lead me back to the feast, or Wiwâstè dies!"26 But the warriors uttered a cry of scorn, And he turned his face from her pleading eyes.27

Then the sullen warrior, the tall Red Cloud, Looked up and spoke and his voice was loud; But he held his wrath and spoke with care: "Wiwâstè is young, she is proud and fair, But she may not boast of the virgin snows.28 The Virgins Feast is a Sacred thing: How durst she enter the Virgins ring?29 The warrior would fain, but he dares not spare; She is tarnished and only the Red Cloud knows."30

She clutched her hair in her clenched hand: She stood like statue bronzed and grand: Wakân-deè [39] flashed in her fiery eyes; Then, swift as the meteor cleaves the skies-- Nay, swift as the fiery Wakinyan's dart, [32] She snatch the knife from the warriors belt, And plunged it clean to the polished hilt-- With deadly cry--in the villain's heart.31 Staggering he clutched the air and fell; His life-blood smoked on the trampled sand, And dripped from the knife in the virgin's hand.32 Then rose his kinsmen's savage yell.33 Swift as the doe's Wiwâstè's feet Fled away to the forest.34 The hunters fleet In vain pursue, and in vain they prowl, And lurk in the forest till dawn of day.35 They hear the hoot of the mottled owl; They hear the were-wolf's [52] winding howl; But the swift Wiwâstè is far away.36 They found no trace in the forest land, They found no trail in the dew-damp grass, They found no track in the river sand, Where they thought Wiwâstè would surely pass.37

The braves returned to the troubled chief; In his lodge he sat in his silent grief. "38 Surely," they said, "she has turned a spirit.39 No trail she left with her flying feet; No pathway leads to her far retreat.40 She flew in the air, and her wail--we could hear it, As she upward rose to the shining stars; And we heard on the river, as we stood near it, The falling drops of Wiwâstè's tears."41

Wakâwa thought of his daughter's words Ere the south-wind came and the piping birds-- "My Father, listen,--my words are true," And sad was her voice as the whippowil When she mourns her mate by the moon-lit rill, "Wiwâstè lingers alone with you; The rest are sleeping on yonder hill-- Save one--and he an undutiful son,-- And you, my Father, will sit alone When Sisóka [53] sings and the snow is gone."42 His broad breast heaved on his troubled soul, The shadow of grief o'er his visage stole Like a cloud on the face of the setting sun.43

"She has followed the years that are gone," he said; "The spirits the words of the witch fulfill; For I saw the ghost of my father dead, By the moon's dim light on the misty hill.44 He shook the plumes on his withered head, And the wind through his pale form whistled shrill.45 And a low, sad voice on the hill I heard.46 Like the mournful wail of a widowed bird."47 Then lo, as he looked from his lodge afar, He saw the glow of the Evening-star; "And yonder," he said, "is Wiwâstè's face; She looks from her lodge on our fading race.48 Devoured by famine, and fraud, and war, And chased and hounded from woe to woe, As the white wolves follow the buffalo."49 And he named the planet the _Virgin Star_.50 [54]51

"Wakâwa," he muttered, "the guilt is thine!52 She was pure,--she was pure as the fawn unborn.53 O, why did I hark to the cry of scorn, Or the words of the lying libertine?54 Wakâwa, Wakâwa, the guilt is thine!55 The springs will return with the voice of birds, But the voice of my daughter will come no more.56

She wakened the woods with her musical words, And the sky-lark, ashamed of his voice, forbore.57 She called back the years that had passed, and long I heard their voice in her happy song.58 Her heart was the home of the sunbeam.59 Bright Poured the stream of her song on the starry night.60 O, why did the chief of the tall Hóhé His feet from Kapóza [6] so long delay?61 For his father sat at my father's feast, And he at Wakâwa's--an honored guest.62 He is dead!--he is slain on the Bloody Plain, By the hand of the treacherous Chippeway; And the face shall I never behold again Of my brave young brother--the chief Chaskè.63 Death walks like a shadow among my kin; And swift are the feet of the flying years That cover Wakâwa with frost and tears, And leave their tracks on his wrinkled skin.64 Wakâwa, the voice of the years that are gone Will follow thy feet like the shadow of death, Till the paths of the forest and desert lone Shall forget thy footsteps.65 O living breath, Whence art thou, and whither so soon to fly?66 And whence are the years?67 Shall I overtake Their flying feet in the star-lit sky?68 From his last long sleep will the warrior wake?69 Will the morning break in Wakâwa's tomb, As it breaks and glows in the eastern skies?70 Is it true?--will the spirits of kinsmen come And bid the bones of the brave arise?"71