Yonnondio
(The sense of the word is lament for the aborigines . It is an Iroquois term; and has been used for a personal name.)
A song, a poem of itself—the word itself a dirge, Amid the wilds, the rocks, the storm and wintry night, To me such misty, strange tableaux the syllables calling up; Yonnondio—I see, far in the west or north, a limitless ravine, with plains and mountains dark, I see swarms of stalwart chieftains, medicine-men, and warriors, As flitting by like clouds of ghosts, they pass and are gone in the twilight, (Race of the woods, the landscapes free, and the falls! No picture, poem, statement, passing them to the future:) Yonnondio! Yonnondio!—unlimn’d they disappear; To-day gives place, and fades—the cities, farms, factories fade; A muffled sonorous sound, a wailing word is borne through the air for a moment, Then blank and gone and still, and utterly lost.
Life
Ever the undiscouraged, resolute, struggling soul of man; (Have former armies fail’d? then we send fresh armies—and fresh again;) Ever the grappled mystery of all earth’s ages old or new; Ever the eager eyes, hurrahs, the welcome-clapping hands, the loud applause; Ever the soul dissatisfied, curious, unconvinced at last; Struggling to-day the same—battling the same.