She wakened the woods with her musical words,
And the sky-lark, ashamed of his voice, forbore.
She called back the years that had passed, and long
I heard their voice in her happy song.
Her heart was the home of the sunbeam. Bright
Poured the stream of her song on the starry night.
O, why did the chief of the tall Hohe
His feet from Kapoza [6] so long delay?
For his father sat at my father's feast,
And he at Wakawa's--an honored guest.
He is dead!--he is slain on the Bloody Plain,
By the hand of the treacherous Chippeway;
And the face shall I never behold again
Of my brave young brother--the chief Chaske.
Death walks like a shadow among my kin;
And swift are the feet of the flying years
That cover Wakawa with frost and tears,
And leave their tracks on his wrinkled skin.
Wakawa, the voice of the years that are gone
Will follow thy feet like the shadow of death,
Till the paths of the forest and desert lone
Shall forget thy footsteps. O living breath,
Whence art thou, and whither so soon to fly?
And whence are the years? Shall I overtake
Their flying feet in the star-lit sky?
From his last long sleep will the warrior wake?
Will the morning break in Wakawa's tomb,
As it breaks and glows in the eastern skies?
Is it true?--will the spirits of kinsmen come
And bid the bones of the brave arise?"