d mirthful doings. When she had reached the
summit, boldly approaching the edge of the precipice, she called out
with a loud voice to her friends below, upbraiding them with their
cruelty to herself and her lover, and thanking the Good Spirit that
had put it in her power to baffle their designs, and laugh at their
tyranny. "You," said she, "were not satisfied with opposing my union
with the man whom I had chosen; you endeavoured, by deceitful words,
to make me faithless to him; but when you found me resolved to remain
single, you dared to threaten me: you knew me not, if you thought that
I could be terrified into obedience. Now, you are preparing the bridal
feast, but you shall see how well I can defeat your designs." She then
commenced a plaintive song of death, which ran thus:

WINONA'S DIRGE.

Adieu to these green vales,
And to the pleasant shades,
Where oft I sate and listened to the song
Of birds at morn, and, in the evening hour,
To that which gives the alarm, and bids the band
Of Indian warriors grasp their spears.
No more my ears shall hear those sounds,
In this my father's land;
The notes of singing-birds shall pass me by,
And the soft sighing of the month of buds;
But I shall hear no howl of wolves,
Nor cry of famished bears,
Nor hissing of envenomed snakes,
Nor what more chills the heart,
The tyranny of father, brothers, friends.

Nor shall I be compelled
For ever to behold a hated face,
And shudder at the voice of him who sleeps
Beneath my blanket;
Nor, when within my cabin,
Young faces smile on old ones, shall I wish
Another eye looked on their beaming cheeks;
When the storms howl, I shall not think of one,
Alone in the far forest,
With none to spread his blanket,
With none to build his lodge--
Cold, hungry, lonely, in the desert glen.

But I shall cross the sharp and fearful rock,
And reach the dwelling-place of happy souls.
No deeds shall bar me out.
I never told a lie;
Kind have I been to father and to mother.
Returning from the hunt or field of war,
His daughter handed him a lighted pipe;
And she who gave her birth sat in the sun
Upon her bench, beside the lodge's door,
While young Winona baked the buffalo,
And drew the crystal water from the stream.

And I shall go where there is peace,
And where joy wakes for ever: