When _Sisóka_[53] sings and the snow is gone."
His broad breast heaved on his troubled soul,
The shadow of grief o'er his visage stole
Like a cloud on the face of the setting sun.

[Illustration]

"She has followed the years that are gone," he said;
"The spirits the words of the witch fulfill;
For I saw the ghost of my father dead,
By the moon's dim light on the misty hill.
He shook the plumes on his withered head,
And the wind through his pale form whistled shrill.
And a low, sad voice on the hill I heard,
Like the mournful wail of a widowed bird."
Then lo, as he looked from his lodge afar,
He saw the glow of the Evening-star;
"And yonder," he said, "is Wiwâstè's face;
She looks from her lodge on our fading race,
Devoured by famine, and fraud, and war,
And chased and hounded by fate and woe,
As the white wolves follow the buffalo;"
And he named the planet the _Virgin Star_.[54]

"Wakâwa," he muttered, "the guilt is thine!
She was pure--she was pure as the fawn unborn.
O why did I hark to the cry of scorn,
Or the words of the lying libertine?
Wakâwa, Wakâwa, the guilt is thine!
The springs will return with the voice of birds,