Duncan Campbell Scott (1862-1947)
The Onondaga Madonna
1She stands full-throated and with careless pose,
2This woman of a weird and waning race,
3The tragic savage lurking in her face,
4Where all her pagan passion burns and glows;
5Her blood is mingled with her ancient foes,
6And thrills with war and wildness in her veins;
7Her rebel lips are dabbled with the stains
8Of feuds and forays and her father's woes.
9And closer in the shawl about her breast,
10The latest promise of her nation's doom,
11Paler than she her baby clings and lies,
12The primal warrior gleaming from his eyes;
13He sulks, and burdened with his infant gloom,
14He draws his heavy brows and will not rest.
Notes
1] Onondaga: native people originally found in New York and Canada.
Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.
Original text: The Poems of Duncan Campbell Scott (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1926): 230. PS 8487 C6 A17 1926 Robarts Library.
First publication date:
1898
Publication date note: Labor and the Angel (1898).
RPO poem editor: Ian Lancashire
RP edition: RPO 1998.
Recent editing: 2:2002/4/10
Form: sonnet
Rhyme: abbaaccadeffed
Other poems by Duncan Campbell Scott
