 | The poet, the fool and the faeries |  |
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THE MOUND MEN
I
They brought him back from the battlefieldOn a bier of boughs and of spear and shield,
The foeman's flint in his flesh and bone:
They brought him back to the thud and drone
Of the snake-skin drum and the flute of stone,
And the medicine dance that shrieked and reeled.
II
Fierce and fain he had led the fightFrom blood-red dawn till death-black night:
Fain and fierce in the hollow wood
Where the eagle circled and screamed for food,
And the bison passed like a rolling flood,
And the panther leapt like a shaft of light.
III
Loud in a land of streams and caves,Of crags and woods, where they found their graves,
Hate met hate with shriek and shout,
And arrows blotted the daylight out;
Stealth met strength and rage met rout
And swept to death with a thousand braves.
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IV
Spear of flint and arrow and bowAnd axe of granite gave blow for blow,
Till there by the stream, where the bison track
Led down from the hills, the foe fell back,
And the white salt-lick with blood flowed black
For love of a chief a spear laid low.
V
As the red moon rose like a banner-stoneThey bore him down from the hills alone;
As the red moon sank like a battle blade
They bore him into the forest glade
Where the glare of the fires made red the shade,
And the Mound Men piped on their flutes of bone.
VI
With head to the West they brought him home,And built him a bed of the forest loam;
With head to the West they laid him down
With his axe on his breast, like a great king's crown;
And five of his men, that were strong and brown,
They chose for his guard in the life to come.
VII
Streaked with ochre and brave with beadsForth they strode to the drone of reeds;
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Chanting low while the priestmen bared
Knives of flint as they whirled, wild-haired;
Danced, loud-singing the dead man's deeds.
VIII
Five of his braves, who chose to fareThe way with him and its dangers share:
Five of his braves!—and the flint knives fell,
While the death-dance wailed with the medicine spell;
Five of his braves, who would bear them well
Side by side with the big chief there.
IX
Side by side, with their bows and spears,To be his guard through the countless years,
They laid them down in a stalwart row
On skins of the bear and the buffalo,
Beads and feathers and paint aglow
And rings of keel on their hands and ears.
X
For the Land where the Hunt should never ceaseThey placed by the chief his pipe of peace
And knife and arrows. ... Then based it wide
And heaped the mound that should hold and hide
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Through the ceaseless roll of the centuries.
Note:—In the year 1897, near Richmond, Ky., a
burial mound was opened which contained the skeletons
of six men of the Stone Age. The principal one was lying
with head to the West. In the femur of his left leg,
driven entirely through the bone, was a large flint spearhead.
... About the bodies were found many instruments
of stone and clay.
| The poet, the fool and the faeries | |