na-gee Pa-zo-dan_--Spirit-Knob. (Literally--little
hill of the spirit.)
[CA] The Welsh name for the robin.
[Illustration: CRYSTAL BAY LAKE MINNETONKA]
[CB] Lodges.
[CC] Wanm-dee--the war-eagle of the Dakotas.
[CD] Lake Superior.
[CE] Pronounced _Yoon-hay-hay_--the exclamation used by Dakota women in
their lament for the dead, and equivalent to "woe-is-me."
BEYOND
White-haired and hoary-bearded, who art thou
That speedest on, albeit bent with age,
Even as a youth that followeth after dreams?
Whence are thy feet, and whither trends thy way?
Stayed not his hurried steps, but as he passed
His low, hoarse answer fell upon the wind:
"Go thou and question yonder mountain-peaks;
Go thou and ask the hoary-heaving main;--
Nay, if thou wilt, the great, globed, silent stars
That sail innumerable the shoreless sea,
And let the eldest answer if he may.
Lo the unnumbered myriad, myriad worlds
Rolling around innumerable suns,
Through all the boundless, bottomless abyss,
Are but as grains of sand upwhirled and flung
By roaring winds and scattered on the sea.
I have beheld them and my hand hath sown.
"Far-twinkling faint through dim, immeasured depths,
Behold Alcyone--a grander sun.
Round him thy solar orb with all his brood
Glimmering revolves. Lo from yon mightier sphere
Light, flying faster than the thoughts of men,
Swift as the lightnings cleave the glowering storm,
Shot on and on through dim, ethereal space,
Ere yet it touched thy little orb of Earth,
Five hundred cycles of thy world and more.
Round him thy Sun, obedient to his power,
Thrice tenfold swifter than the swiftest wing,
His aeon-orbit, million-yeared and vast,
Wheels through the void. Him flaming I beheld
When first he flashed from out his central fire--
A mightier orb beyond thine utmost ken.
Round upon round innumerable hath swung
Thy sun upon his circuit; grander still
His vaster orbit far Alcyone
Wheels and obeys the mightier orb unseen.
"Seest thou yon star-paved pathway like an arch
Athwart thy welkin?--wondrous zone of stars,
Dim in the distance circling one huge sun,
To whom thy sun is but a spark of fire--
To whom thine Earth is but a grain of dust:
Glimmering around him myriad suns revolve
And worlds innumerable as sea-beach sands.
Ere on yon _Via Lactea_ rolled one star
Lo I was there and trode the mighty round;
Yea, ere the central orb was fired and hung
A lamp to light the chaos. Star on star,
System on system,
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