Still hope, like a star in the night
gleaming oft through the broken clouds somber,
Cheered the heart of Winona, and bright
on her dreams beamed the face of the Frenchman.
As the thought of a loved one and lost,
sad and sweet were her thoughts of the White Chief;
In the moon's mellow light, like a ghost,
walked Winona alone by the _Ha-Ha_,
Ever wrapped in a dream. Far away--
to the land of the sunrise--she wandered;
On the blue-rolling _Tanka-Mede_[BR]
in the midst of her dreams, she beheld him--
In his white-winged canoe, like a bird,
to the land of Dakotas returning,
[BR] Lake Superior,--The Gitchee Gumee of the Chippewas.
And often in fancy she heard
the dip of his oars on the river.
On the dark waters glimmered the moon,
but she saw not the boat of the Frenchman.
On the somber night bugled the loon,
but she heard not the song of the boatmen.
The moon waxed and waned, but the star
of her hope never waned to the setting;
Through her tears she beheld it afar,
like a torch on the eastern horizon.
"He will come,--he is coming," she said;
"he will come, for my White Eagle promised,"
And low to the bare earth the maid
bent her ear for the sound of his footsteps,
"He is gone, but his voice in my ear
still remains like the voice of the robin;
He is far, but his footsteps I hear;
he is coming; my White Chief is coming!"
But the moon waxed and waned.
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