THE CHEMAWA AMERICAN.
Till the air reeked with the odor
Of the fumy fish that drying
Filled the larders of our people.
Speebidah the Little One saw
Yet other racks than Schuh-tlahks,
Holding luscious heaps of berries,
Wooed by all the summer sunshine
Till the wealth of richest juices
Had been kissed to utter dryness,
That our people in the winter,
In the cold and rainy season,
In the time of gust and tempest,
Might not lack for summer bounty
Which should warm the blood and
Make the feasts more glad and merry.
On the sands the growing children,
Braves and klootchmen yet to be,
Played the livelong day in gladness,
Gladness that the sun was shining,
.That the summer days yet lingered,
That the winter time had come not,
That the sands were warm and level,
For the hearts of jifeiidren ever
Take small heed of what has come not;
Think they only of the present,
Of the present and its pastimes
Never think they on the future
Ah de-dah! That time is past now.
Where are now those merry people?
Where the laughter and the singing,
Where the joy, the peaceful pleasures?
Who beguiles the darksome winter
With the legend, song and dancing,
With the tales of days long gone?
Where are they who peopled
All the shining sands of Hwulch?
Skyue, with its tents of cedar,
Shacks of shake and cedar bark,
Might reply and, mournful, tell us
Where the dead have pitched their tents,
But the graves of Skyue speak not,
Like their people they are silent,
Silent for their tongues are quiet,
Quiet with the dust that sleepeth
Its long, last, eternal sleep.
Skyue's surges sadly sighing,
Tell of days that used to be,
Tell of strength and war and prowess,
Tell of love and nights of dreaming
When the moon was at its fullest.
O'er the graves the yew trees murmur
Cadences of grief and sorrow,
Like the tender, tender crooning
Which the doting mother maketh
To her babe, in barken cradle,
Drowsy with the slumberous singing
Where are now the merry people
Who beguiled the time with pleasure?
Some are here and, sleeping, hear not.
Others yet dwell near the Hwulch.
For the rest, where dwell the absent,
Where the ones who should be here?
When Stah-gwahk from out the South
land
Comes, the great, the strong and
warm wind,
In the woods the dead leaves rustle,
Raise their drowsy eyes till open,
Look about in wide-eyed wonder,
See Stah-g wahk from out the South land,
Whisper loud with wanton wildness,
Dance in glee to rise again,
Scurry far and drooping singly,
Wheresoe'er the wind it listeth,
Know no more their native forests,
Know no more the land of Hwulch.
So too happened it to others,
Others than the leaves of Hwulch.
Thus the people of the beach land,
Once were like the sands of silver;
Many scattered far and never
more returned to Hwulch's tides.
Some are here and some are here not.
Some still slumber o'er at Skyue,
Take the rest of war worn warriors.
Still at Skyue ghostly squadrons
Belly sails to bellowing blasts, while
Paddles dip in liquid ether
Though no helmsman guides his era::.
Still through ages sail the squadn,!i
To no earthly haven faring,
Yet at last each death-like seaman
Shall no doubt a haven reach.
So Schuh-tlahk's sands faithful ever,
With his nose of rock and stone.
Gazing mutely down in sorrow
On these remnants of our people
Clinging to their haunts so olden.
Haunts and homes of hearts of nu n.
So too Speebidah the Little,
One, looks down in sad abandon,
Croons death songs of days now dyi:
Like their people ah -de-dah!