’Mid the vineyards and mulberry trees,
          and the fair fields of corn and of clover
That rippled and waved in the breeze,
          while the honey-bees hummed in the blossoms. 
For there, where th’ impetuous Rhone,
          leaping down from the Switzerland mountains,
And the silver-lipped, soft-flowing Saone,
          meeting, kiss and commingle together,
Down winding by vineyards and leas,
          by the orchards of fig-trees and olives,
To the island-gemmed, sapphire-blue seas
          of the glorious Greeks and the Romans;
Aye, there, on the vine-covered shore,
          ’mid the mulberry-trees and the olives,
Dwelt his blue-eyed and beautiful Flore,
          with her hair like a wheat-field at harvest,
All rippled and tossed by the breeze,
          and her cheeks like the glow of the morning,
Far away o’er the emerald seas,
          as the sun lifts his brow from the billows,
Or the red-clover fields when the bees,
          singing sip the sweet cups of the blossoms. 
Wherever he wandered—­
          alone in the heart of the wild Huron forests,
Or cruising the rivers unknown
          to the land of the Crees or Dakotas—­
His heart lingered still on the Rhone,
          ’mid the mulberry trees and the vineyards,
Fast-fettered and bound by the zone
          that girdled the robes of his darling. 
Till the red Harvest Moon[71] he remained
          in the vale of the swift Mississippi. 
The esteem of the warriors he gained,
          and the love of the dark-eyed Winona. 
He joined in the sports and the chase;
          with the hunters he followed the bison,
And swift were his feet in the race
          when the red elk they ran on the prairies. 
At the Game of the Plum-stones[77] he played,
          and he won from the skillfulest players;
A feast to Wa’tanka[78] he made,
          and he danced at the feast of Heyoka.[16]
With the flash and the roar of his gun
          he astonished the fearless Dakotas;
They called it the “Maza Wakan”—­
          the mighty, mysterious metal. 
“’Tis a brother,” they said, “of the fire
          in the talons of dreadful Wakinyan,’[32]
When he flaps his huge wings in his ire,
          and shoots his red shafts at Unktehee."[69]

The Itancan,[74] tall Wazi-kute,
          appointed a day for the races. 
From the red stake that stood by his tee,
          on the southerly side of the Ha-ha,
O’er the crest of the hills and the dunes
          and the billowy breadth of the prairie,
To a stake at the Lake of the Loons[79]—­
          a league and return—­was the distance. 
They gathered from near and afar,
          to the races and dancing and feasting;
Five hundred tall warriors were there
          from