They shall be poured out and drip upon a chief's feet;
They shall fill the hollows of his house with children!
Flowing in laughter and whispers and little cries
As smoke through the smoke-hole at evening!
Ai! ah! ai! Women! Waken the soil with freshets;
Bear joy upward as a canoe with sails, swifter than paddles.
O men, hunters of life,
We are the harborers, the fosterers—the women:
Seek us!"
It was the women, the harborers, the fosterers, who rose first,
And followed Tem-Eyos-Kwi:
They called to the men.
The men go forth like one!
Lightning and heat are their weapons, hurled crashing before them.
Their hairs, spreading wide, give black wings to the sun,
As a cloud filled with eagles blown up from the sea.
They enter the forest with the tramp of thunder and the darkness of storm;
And the song of the women is stilled.
The cry of offering ascends, it passes the swooping shadows;
There is a sigh through the forest of winds sinking—
Then the hush.
On the leaves is a sweet whisper of rain,
Whispered sweetness of pangs past.
The warm soil drinks the coolness of tears—
[171]
