so placid, never dim
Through storm and starlight, always lit anew.
They marveled much, and some were sore dismayed
To seek the portents of this stranger star;
But not so, Wabun; he, all unafraid,
Hailed it as answer from the dim afar,
And showed unwonted pleasure at its sight;
His distance seemed to shorten, and his mind
Seemed mellowed by a new-born love to man--
A quickened tenderness to help his kind.

"I wander in the forest; by the stream";
(They gave earnest audience as he spake)
"And underneath the stars--and they all tell
The story of a great, forgotten God.
I listen to the murmuring of the rain,
And to the mighty thunder of the clouds;
And see the forked lightning, in its gleam,
Strike the great oak to shivers, in its path;
I see the maize upon a thousand fields;
I see the goodly carpet on the earth--
And every grassy thread a miracle--
I see the sun upon his track of light,
The moon upon her pathway in the sky--
And all do tell of this forgotten God.
For God is of the living, not the dead:
The tree, the sun, the moon, the stars, and all,
All fill their places; but are not alive

"As we, with thought, and purpose, and design;
But each doth turn upon a steady crank
Held by a mighty and imperious hand.
The bison, and the deer, and all the birds,
Have life, and voice, and action, such as we;
And yet they have no thought, except to live.
They build no houses, lay no harvests up--
We are their masters, with the right to kill.

"All things pay tribute to our prowent hands;
All things we see are provident of us:
The sun to ripen, and the moon to watch,
The birds and flocks for us to gather flesh,
The forests and the prairies for our use,
The mines for metal, and the streams for fish--
All, all, pay tribute to our wasting hands.
Yet we are not a law unto ourselves:
Though masters, yet not gods, for we all die
And fall back into dust; yet are we great,
And greatest of earth's creatures; but for death,
We might claim highest unction; but our pow