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Shaking the flat black earth with moccasined feet,Dancing again—back among the janglingBells and the stamping legs of gnarled old men—Back to the fathers calling, calling acrossDead winds from the dim gray years.
                  O high-flying eagle,Whose soul, wheeling among the sinuous winds,Has known the molten glory of the sun,The utter calm of dusk, and in the eveningThe lullabies of moonlit mountain waters!—The black-priests locked you in their House of God,Behind great gates swung tight against the frightenedQuivering aspens, whispering perturbed in council,And muttering as they tapped with timid fistsUpon the doors and strove to follow youAnd hold you; tight against the uneasy windsWailing among the balsams, fumbling uponThe latch with fretful fingers; tight againstThe crowding stars who pressed their troubled facesAgainst the windows. In honest faith and zeal,The black-robes put you in a box of God,To swell the broken chorus of amensAnd hallelujahs; to flutter against the door,Crippled of pinion, bruised of head; to beatWith futile flying against the gilded bars;To droop, to dream a little, and to die.
II: WHISTLING WINGS
Shing-ób, companion of my old wild yearsIn the land of K'tchée-gah-mée, my good right armWhen we battled bloody-fisted in the stormsAnd snows with rotting scurvy, with hunger rawAnd ravenous as the lusting tongues of wolves—My Joe, no longer will the ghostly mountainsEcho your red-lunged laughters in the night;The gone lone days when we communed with GodIn the language of the waterfall and wind

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