Her hair was like the grape-clustered vine;
Her neck was the neck of the swan;
Her eyes were the eyes of the dove;
Her hand was as small as the red oak's leaf;
Her foot was the length of the lark's spread wing;
Her step was the step of the antelope's child;
Her voice was the voice of a rill in the moon,
Of the rill's most gentle song:
Oh, how beautiful was the Ricara girl!
How worthy to be the wife of the man,
And to light-the fires of a _Brave_!
How fit-to be the mother
Of stout warriors and expert hunters!

And how grew the Ricara boy?--
Does my brother listen?
He does, it is well.--
He grew to be fair to the eye,
Like a tree that hath smooth bark,
But is rotten or hollow at core;
A vine that cumbers the earth
With the weight of leaves and flowers,
But never brings forth fruit:
He did not become a man:
He painted not as a warrior paints,
Red on the cheek,
Red on the brow,
Nor wore the gallant scalp-lock,
Black with the plumes of the warrior-bird,
Nor stole his father's bow,
Nor ran away with his spear,
Nor took down the barbed sheaf,
Nor raised his shout as he followed the step
Of his chief to the Pawnee lodge.
He better loved to sit by the fire,
While the women were spinning the mulberry-bark(2)
Or to lie at his length by the stream,
To watch the nimble salmon's sport,
Or, placed by the leafy perch of the bird,
To snare the poor simple thing;
He better loved to rove with girls
In search of early flowers.

The Ricara father said to the maid,
"Listen to me, my dove,
When I gave thee away,
I deem'd that I gave
My child to one who would gain renown,
By the deeds which had given his sires renown,
To a boy who would snatch, ere his limbs were grown,
The heaviest bow of the strongest man,
And hie to the strife with a painted face,
And a shout that should ring in the lonely glades,
Like a spirit's among the hills;
I did not deem I had given my dove
To a youth with the heart of a doe;
A gatherer-in of flowers,
A snarer of simple birds,
A weeder with women of maize[D],
A man with the cheek of a girl--
Dost thou listen?

"Now, since thy lover is weak in heart,
A woman in mind and soul,
Nor boasts, nor wishes to boast,
Of deeds in battle done,
Nor s