Fair was the chief as the morning-star;
His eyes were mild and his words were low,
But his heart was stouter than lance or bow;
And her young heart flew to her love afar
O'er his trail long covered with drifted snow.
She heard a warrior's stealthy tread,
And the tall Wakawa appeared, and said:
"Is Wiwaste afraid of the spirit dread
That fires the sky in the fatal north?[26]
Behold the mysterious lights. Come forth:
Some evil threatens, some danger nears,
For the skies are pierced by the burning spears."

The warriors rally beneath the moon;
They shoot their shafts at the evil spirit.
The spirit is slain and the flame is gone,
But his blood lies red on the snow-fields near it;
And again from the dead will the spirit rise,
And flash his spears in the northern skies.

Then the chief and the queenly Wiwaste stood
Alone in the moon-lit solitude,
And she was silent and he was grave.
"And fears not my daughter the evil spirit?
The strongest warriors and bravest fear it.
The burning spears are an evil omen;
They threaten the wrath of a wicked woman,
Or a treacherous foe; but my warriors brave,
When danger nears, or the foe appears,
Are a cloud of arrows--a grove of spears."

"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