X + 

The Sun Dance + 

Now wheresoever thawing breezes blew + 

And green began to prickle in the brown, + 

There went the tale of Crazy Horse’s town + 

To swell a mood already growing there. + 

For something more than Spring was in the air, + 

And, mightier than any maiden’s eyes, + 

The Lilith-lure of Perilous Emprise + 

Was setting all the young men’s blood astir. + 

How fair the more than woman face of her + 

Whose smile has gulfed how many a daring prow! + 

What cities burn for jewels on her brow; + 

Upon her lips what vintages are red! + 

Her lovers are the tallest of the dead + 

Forever. When the streams of Troas rolled + 

So many heroes seaward, she was old; + 

Yet she is young forever to the young. + 

’Twas now the murmur of the man-flood, flung + 

Upon the Hills, grew ominously loud. + 

The whole white world seemed lifted in a cloud + 

To sweep the prairie with a monstrous rain. + 

Slay one, and there were fifty to be slain! + 

Give fifty to the flame for torturing, + 

Then count the marching multitude of Spring + 

Green blade by blade! + 

Still wilder rumors grew; + 

They told of soldiers massed against the Sioux + 

And waiting till the grass was good, to fall + 

On Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull and Gall + 

That all the country might be safe for theft, + 

And nothing of a warrior race be left + 

But whining beggars in a feeding pen. + 

Alas, the rights of men⁠—of other men⁠— + 

That centenary season of the Free! + 

No doubt the situation wanted tea + 

To make it clear! But long before the green + 

Had topped the hills, the agencies grew lean + 

Of youth and courage. Did a watch dog bark + 

Midway between the owl and meadowlark?⁠— + 

Then other lads with bow and shield and lance + 

Were making for the Region of Romance + 

Where Sitting Bull’s weird medicine was strong + 

And Crazy Horse’s name was like a song + 

A happy warrior sings before he dies, + 

And Gall’s a wind of many battle cries + 

That flings a thousand ponies on the doomed. + 

So where the Powder and the Rosebud boomed, + 

Men met as water of the melting snows. + 

The North Cheyennes and North Arapahoes, + 

Become one people in a common cause + 

With Brulés, Minneconjoux, Hunkpapas, + 

Sans Arcs and Ogalalas, came to throng + 

The valleys; and the villages were long + 

With camp on camp. Nor was there any bluff, + 

In all the country, that was tall enough + 

To number half the ponies at a look. + 

Here young June came with many tales of Crook, + 

The Gray Fox, marching up the Bozeman Road. + 

How long a dust above his horsemen flowed! + 

How long a dust his walking soldiers made! + 

What screaming thunder when the pack-mules brayed + 

And all the six-mule wagon teams replied! + 

The popping of the whips on sweaty hide, + 

How like a battle when the foe is bold! + 

And from the North still other tales were told + 

By those who heard the steamboats wheeze and groan + 

With stuffs of war along the Yellowstone + 

To feed the camps already waiting there. + 

Awaiting what? The might of Yellow Hair + 

Now coming from the Heart’s mouth! Rumor guessed + 

How many Snakes were riding from the West + 

To join the Whites against their ancient foes; + 

How many Rees, how many of the Crows + 

Remembered to be jealous of the Sioux. + 

Look north, look south⁠—the cloud of trouble grew. + 

Look east, look west⁠—the whole horizon frowned. + 

But it was better to be ringed around + 

With enemies, to battle and to fail, + 

Than be a beggar chief like Spotted Tail, + 

However fattened by a hated hand. + 

Now when the full moon flooded all the land + 

Before the laughter of the owls began, + 

They turned to One who, mightier than Man, + 

Could help them most⁠—the Spirit in the sun; + 

For whatsoever wonder-work is done + 

Upon the needy earth, he does it all. + 

For him the whole world sickens in the fall + 

When streams cease singing and the skies go gray + 

And trees and bushes weep their leaves away + 

In hopeless hushes empty of the bird, + 

And all day long and all night long are heard + 

The high geese wailing after their desire. + 

But, even so, his saving gift of fire + 

Is given unto miserable men + 

Until they see him face to face again + 

And all his magic happen, none knows how. + 

It was the time when he is strongest now; + 

And so a holy man whose heart was good + 

Went forth to find the sacred cottonwood + 

Belovèd of the Spirit. Straight and high, + 

A thing of worship yearning for the sky, + 

It flourished, sunning in a lonely draw; + 

And there none heard the holy man nor saw + 

What rites were done, save only one who knows + 

From whence the new moon comes and whither goes + 

The old, and what the stars do all day long. + 

Thereafter came the people with a song, + 

The men, the boys, the mothers and the maids, + 

All posy-crowns and blossom-woven braids, + 

As though a blooming meadow came to see. + 

And fruitful women danced about the tree + 

To make the Spirit glad; for, having known + 

The laughter of the children of their own, + 

Some goodness of the earth, the giving one, + 

Was in them and was pleasing to the Sun, + 

The prairie-loving nourisher of seed. + 

A warrior who had done the bravest deed + 

Yet dared that year by any of the Sioux + 

Now struck the trunk as one who counts a coup + 

Upon a dreaded foe; and prairie gifts + 

He gave among the poor, for nothing lifts + 

The heart like giving. Let the coward save⁠— + 

Big hoard and little heart; but still the brave + 

Have more with nothing! Singing virgins came + 

Whose eyes had never learned to droop with shame, + 

Nor was there any present, man or youth, + 

Could say them aught of ill and say the truth, + 

For sweet as water in a snow-born brook + 

Where many birches come and lean to look + 

Along a mountain gorge, their spirits were. + 

And each one took the ax they gave to her + 

And smote the tree with many a lusty stroke; + 

And with a groan the sleeper in it ’woke + 

And far hills heard the falling shout of him. + 

Still rang the axes, cleaving twig and limb + 

Along the tapered beauty of the bole, + 

Till, naked to the light, the sacred pole + 

Lay waiting for the bearers. + 

They who bore + 

Were chieftains, and their fathers were before, + 

And all of them had fasted, as they should; + 

Yet none dared touch the consecrated wood + 

With naked fingers, out of pious fear. + 

And once for every season of the year + 

They paused along the way, remembering + 

With thanks alike the autumn and the spring, + 

The winter and the summer. + 

Then it fell + 

That many warriors, lifting up a yell + 

That set their ponies plunging, thundered down + 

Across the center of the circled town + 

Where presently the holy tree should stand; + 

For whosoever first of all the band + 

Could strike the sacred spot with bow or spear + 

Might gallop deep among the dead that year + 

Yet be of those whom busy Death forgot. + 

And sweaty battle raged about the spot + 

Where screaming ponies, rearing to the thrust + 

Of screaming ponies, clashed amid the dust, + 

And riders wrestled in the hoof-made gloam. + 

So, having safely brought the sun-tree home, + 

The people feasted as for victory. + 

And on the second day they dressed the tree + 

And planted it with sacred songs and vows, + 

And round it reared a wall of woven boughs + 

That opened to the mystic source of day. + 

And with the next dawn mothers came to lay + 

Their babies down before the holy one, + 

Each coveting a hero for a son + 

Or sturdy daughters fit to nurse the bold. + 

Then when the fourth dawn came the war drums rolled; + 

And from their lodges, lean and rendered pure + 

With meatless days, those vowing to endure + 

The death-in-torture to be born again, + 

Came naked there before the holy men + 

Who painted them with consecrated paint. + 

And if a knee seemed loosened, it was faint + 

With fast and weary vigil, not with dread; + 

For lo! the multitudinary dead + 

Pressed round to see if heroes such as they + 

Still walked the earth despite the smaller day + 

When ’twas not half so easy to be brave. + 

Now, prone beneath the pole, as in a grave, + 

Without a wince each vower took the blade + 

In chest or back, and through the wound it made + 

Endured the passing of the rawhide thong, + 

Swung from the pole’s top; raised a battle song + 

To daunt his anguish; staggered to his feet + 

And, leaning, capered to the war drum’s beat + 

A dizzy rigadoon with Agony. + 

So all day long the spirit-haunted tree + 

Bore bloody fruitage, groaning to the strain, + 

For with the dropping of the ripe-in-pain, + 

Upon the stem the green-in-courage grew. + 

And seldom had there fallen on the Sioux + 

So great a wind of ghostly might as then. + 

Boys tripped it, bleeding, with the tortured men. + 

The mothers, daughters, sisters, sweethearts, wives + 

Of those who suffered, gashed their flesh with knives + 

To share a little of the loved one’s pang; + 

And all day long the sunning valley rang + 

With songs of courage; and the mother sod + 

Received the red libation; and the god + 

Gave power to his people. + 