To the Manitto of Dreams

Spirit! thou Spirit of subtlest air,
Whose power is upon the brain,
When wondrous shapes, and dread and fair,
As the film from the eyes
At thy bidding flies,
To sight and sense are plain!
Thy whisper creeps where leaves are stirr'd;
Thou sighest in woodland gale;
Where waters are gushing thy voice is heard;
And when stars are bright,
At still midnight,
Thy symphonies prevail!
Where the forest ocean, in quick commotion,
Is waving to and fro,
Thy form is seen, in the masses green,
Dimly to come and go.
From thy covert peeping, where thou layest sleeping
Beside the brawling brook,
Thou art seen to wake, and thy flight to take
Fleet from thy lonely nook.
Where the moonbeam has kiss'd
The sparkling tide,
In thy mantle of mist
Thou art seen to glide.
Far o'er the blue waters
Melting away,
On the distant billow,
As on a pillow,
Thy form to lay.
Where the small clouds of even
Are wreathing in heaven
Their garland of roses,
O'er the purple and gold,
Whose hangings enfold
The hall that encloses
The couch of the sun,
Whose empire is done, —
There thou art smiling,
For thy sway is begun;
Thy shadowy sway,
The senses beguiling,
When the light fades away,
And thy vapour of mystery o'er nature ascending,
The heaven and the earth,
The things that have birth,
And the embryos that float in the future are blending.
From the land, on whose shores the billows break
The sounding waves of the mighty lake;
From the land where boundless meadows be,
Where the buffalo ranges wild and free;
With silvery coat in his little isle,
Where the beaver plies his ceaseless toil;
The land where pigmy forms abide,
Thou leadest thy train at the eventide;
And the wings of the wind are left behind,
So swift through the pathless air they glide.
Then to the chief who has fasted long,
When the chains of his slumber are heavy and strong
Spirit! thou comest; he lies as dead,
His weary lids are with heaviness weigh'd;
But his soul is abroad on the hurricane's pinion,
Where foes are met in the rush of fight,
In the shadowy world of thy dominion
Conquering and slaying, till morning light!
Then shall the hunter who waits for thee,
The land of the game rejoicing see;
Through the leafless wood,
O'er the frozen flood,
And the trackless snows his spirit goes,
Along the sheeted plain,
Where the hermit bear, in his sullen lair,
Keeps his long fast, till the winter hath pass'd
And the boughs have budded again.
Spirit of dreams! all thy visions are true,
Who the shadow hath seen, he the substance shall view!
Thine the riddle, strange and dark,
Woven in the dreamy brain: —
Thine to yield the power to mark
Wandering by, the dusky train;
Warrior ghosts for vengeance crying,
Scalped on the lost battle's plain,
Or who died their foes defying,
Slow by fingering tortures slain.
Thou, the war-chief hovering near,
Breathest language on his ear;
When his winged words depart,
Swift as arrows to the heart;
When his eye the lightning leaves;
When each valiant bosom heaves;
Through the veins when hot and glowing
Rage like liquid fire is flowing;
Round and round the war pole whirling,
Furious when the dancers grow;
When the maces swift are hurling
Promised vengeance on the foe '
Thine assurance, Spirit true!
Glorious victory gives to view!
When of thought and strength despoil' d,
Lies the brave man like a child;
When discolour'd visions fly,
Painful o'er his glazing eye,
And wishes wild through his darkness rove,
Like flitting wings through the tangled grove, —
Thine is the wish; the vision thine,
And thy visits, Spirit! are all divine!
When the dizzy senses spin,
And the brain is madly reeling,
Like the P6w-wah, when first within
The present spirit feeling;
When rays are flashing athwart the gloom,
Like the dancing lights of the northern heaven,
When voices strange of tumult come
On the ear, like the roar of battle driven, —
The Initiate then shall thy wonders see,
And thy priest, O Spirit! is full of thee!