POETRY: A Magazine of Verse
My blind-eyed kinsmen look to the little straying feet
Of such—and this—and that—um'm'm'm—
Look to it!) They follow me.
As the twinkling foam-track of hungry stars
Endlessly trails after him, the antlered one, the Red Star—
But takes him never Aik-Ki-yi-y!
I am the Conqueror of Women!
My grass cap is set round with red breasts of red-breasted woodpeckers;
My hair is sleek, black, long, head-twined,
It flashes like the watered fins of Auch-Willo
Striking through the sea in the sun.
It is priceless as the fur of seals:
It is heaven-blossomed, like Yethel's wing.
I am tall, tall, tall and proud,
Proud, proud, proud, and strong;
Strong, strong, strong, like—
Like all the men of the Haidas;
Like all save me, who am tallest, proudest, strongest.
My moccasins are of white doe-skin much embroidered;
Five little rows of smallest white owl—feathers
Go round and round
The star-signs, the love-signs, worked in colored grasses.
(O my kinsman, O No-al-es, would you wed with Ho'g tonight
If you knew—oh, la la!—who worked my moccasins?)
[4]
