Chapter 15 of 15 · 1399 words · ~7 min read

III.

Bird, in thine airy rings Over the foeman's line, Why do thy flapping wings Nearer me thus incline? Blood of the Dauntless brings Courage, oh Bird to thine! _Baim-wä-wä!_

Hark to those Spirit-notes! Ye high Heroes divine, Hymned from your god-like throats That Song of Praise is mine! Mine, whose grave-pennon floats Over the foeman's line! _Baim-wä-wä_!

WAR SONG.

Where are my foes? say, warriors, where? No forest is so black, That it can hide from my quick eye, the vestige of their track: There is no lake so boundless, no path where man may go, Can shield them from my sharp pursuit, or save them from my blow. The winds that whisper in the trees, the clouds that spot the sky, Impart a soft intelligence, to show me where they lie, The very birds that sail the air, and scream as on they go, Give me a clue my course to tread, and lead me to the foe.

The sun, at dawn, lifts up his head, to guide me on my way, The moon, at night, looks softly down, and cheers me with her ray. The war-crowned stars, those beaming lights, my spirit casts at night, Direct me as I thread the maze, and lead me to the fight. In sacred dreams within my lodge, while resting on the land, Bright omens of success arise, and nerve my warlike hand. Where'er I turn, where'er I go, there is a whispering sound, That tells me I shall crush the foe, and drive him from my ground.

The beaming WEST invites me on, with smiles of vermil hue, And clouds of promise fill the sky, and deck its heavenly blue, There is no breeze--there is no sign, in ocean, earth or sky, That does not swell my breast with hope, or animate my eye. If to the stormy beach I go, where heavy tempests play, They tell me but, how warriors brave, should conquer in the fray. All nature fills my heart with fires, that prompt me on to go, To rush with rage, and lifted spear, upon my country's foe.

* * * * *

Transcriber's Notes:

The intent of the corrections listed below is to restore the text to the author's intent, as best as that can be surmised.

Minor inconsistencies of punctuation have been resolved. On occasion, the quotation marks, especially, have been added where the quotation extends across paragraphs. If an ending mark has been omitted, it has been added. Usually, but not always, a space is left where a missing character should have appeared.

Clear typographical errors (e.g. "emcamped" for "encamped", "atlar" for "altar") have also been corrected. A non-standard or variable spelling has been left as printed, unless it is the sole instance of a word repeatedly otherwise spelled (e.g. characterestic (1) / characteristic (35)).

The spelling of names of persons and places, especially when derived from Indian dialects vary considerably. For instance "Allegheny" is also found multiple times as "Alleghany" and "Allegany". "Ottawa" and "Ottowa" are each found several times. Nabinoi / Nabanoi / Nabunwa seem to refer to the same Ojibwa elder. Nearly all such variants are left as printed, except where explicitly noted below.

Words that were hyphenated at the ends of line have been joined with or without the hyphen, depending on the frequency of the word's spelling elsewhere. No attempt was made to regularize other cases. They are kept as printed.

Corrections:

Characters that have been removed, corrected, or which have been added are noted using [] as delimiters. Where misprinted characters are changed, the original and corrected characters are noted as [x/y], where x is the original. Punctuation corrections are not included in this list.

End of Project Gutenberg's The Indian in his Wigwam, by Henry R. Schoolcraft