SCOTT, Duncan Campbell


Enigma

Some men are born to gather women's tears,

To give a harbour to their timorous fears,

To take them as the dry earth takes the rain,

As the dark wood the warm wind from the plain;

Yet their own tears remain unshed,

Their own tumultuous fears unsaid,

And, seeming steadfast as the forest and the earth,

Shaken are they with pain.

They cry for voice as earth might cry for the sea

Or the wood for consuming fire;

Unanswered they remain

Subject to the sorrows of women utterly --

Heart and mind,

Subject as the dry earth to the rain

Or the dark wood to the wind.


The Onondaga Madonna

She stands full-throated and with careless pose,

This woman of a weird and waning race,

The tragic savage lurking in her face,

Where all her pagan passion burns and glows;

Her blood is mingled with her ancient foes,

And thrills with war and wildness in her veins;

Her rebel lips are dabbled with the stains

Of feuds and forays and her father's woes.

And closer in the shawl about her breast,

The latest promise of her nation's doom,

Paler than she her baby clings and lies,

The primal warrior gleaming from his eyes;

He sulks, and burdened with his infant gloom,

He draws his heavy brows and will not rest.