Raise my mound on the sacred hill.
Let my warriors the wish of their chief fulfill;
For my fathers sleep in the sacred ground.
The Autumn blasts o'er Wakawa's mound
Will chase the hair of the thistles' head,
And the bare-armed oak o'er the silent dead,
When the whirling snows from the north descend,
Will wail and moan in the midnight wind.
In the famine of winter the wolf will prowl,
And scratch the snow from the heap of stones,
And sit in the gathering storm and howl,
On the frozen mound, for Wakawa's bones.
But the years that are gone shall return again,
As the robin returns and the whippowil,
When my warriors stand on the sacred hill
And remember the deeds of their brave chief slain."
Beneath the glow of the Virgin Star
They raised the song of the red war-dance.
At the break of dawn with the bow and lance
They followed the chief on the path of war.
To the north--to the forests of fir and pine--
Led their stealthy steps on the winding trail,
Till they saw the Lake of the Spirit[55] shine
Through somber pines of the dusky dale.
Then they heard the hoot of the mottled owl;[56]
They heard the gray wolf's dismal howl;
Then shrill and sudden the war-whoop rose
From an hundred throats of their swarthy foes,
In ambush crouched in the tangled wood.
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