1
A song, a poem of itself—the word itself a dirge,
2
Amid the wilds, the rocks, the storm and wintry night,
3
To me such misty, strange tableaux the syllables calling up;
4
Yonnondio—I see, far in the west or north, a limitless ravine, with plains and mountains dark,
5
I see swarms of stalwart chieftains, medicine-men, and warriors,
6
As flitting by like clouds of ghosts, they pass and are gone in the twilight,
7
(Race of the woods, the landscapes free, and the falls!
8
No picture, poem, statement, passing them to the future:)
9
Yonnondio! Yonnondio!—unlimnd they disappear;
10
To-day gives place, and fades—the cities, farms, factories fade;
11
A muffled sonorous sound, a wailing word is borne through the air for a moment,
12
Then blank and gone and still, and utterly lost.
Yonnondio, the title of the poem means lament for the aborigines. Aborigines are the first inhabitants of a country. In this poem Walt is lamenting over the losses that the Native Americans have suffered. The first line tells the reader that this is a dirge – a funeral song.