"
"My Father," she said, and her words were low,
"Why should I fear? for I soon will go
To the broad, blue lodge in the Spirit-land,
Where my fond-eyed mother went long ago,
And my dear twin-sisters walk hand in hand.
My Father, listen--my words are true,"
And sad was her voice as the whippowil
When she mourns her mate by the moon-lit rill,
"Wiwaste lingers alone with you;
The rest are sleeping on yonder hill--
Save one--and he an undutiful son--
And you, my Father, will sit alone
When _Sisoka_[27] sings and the snow is gone.
I sat, when the maple leaves were red,
By the foaming falls of the haunted river;
The night-sun was walking above my head,
And the arrows shone in his burnished quiver;
And the winds were hushed and the hour was dread
With the walking ghosts of the silent dead.
I heard the voice of the Water-Fairy;[28]
I saw her form in the moon-lit mist,
As she sat on a stone with her burden weary,
By the foaming eddies of amethyst.
And robed in her mantle of mist the sprite
Her low wail poured on the silent night.
Then the spirit spake, and the floods were still--
They hushed and listened to what she said,
And hushed was the plaint of the whippowil
In the silver-birches above her head:
'Wiwaste, the prairies are green and fair
When the robin sings and the whippowil;
But the land of the Spirits is fairer still,
For the winds of winter blow never there;
And forever the songs of the whippowils
And the robins are heard on the leafy hills.
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