ee glide past their troubled view
Two forms as a meteor light,
And will note a white canoe,
Paddled along by two,
And will bear the words of a tender song,
Stealing like a spring-wind along;
Tell me, my daughter, if either be you?"

Then down the daughter's cheek
Ran drops like the summer rain,
And thus she spoke:
"Father, I love the valiant Annawan;
Too long have we roam'd o'er the rocky dell,
And through the woody hollow,
And by the river brink,
And o'er the winter snows,
To tear him from my heart:
Too long have we sat by the summer rill,
To watch the buck as he came to drink,
And to see the beaver wallow,
To live from him apart--
My father hears."

"Thou lov'st the son of my foe,
And know'st thou not the wrongs
That foe hath heap'd on me?
The nation made him chief--
Why made they him a chief?
Had his deeds equall'd mine?
Three were the scalps on his pole,
In my smoke were nine:
I had fought with a Cherokee;
I had struck a warrior's blow,
Where the waves of Ontario roll;
I had borne my lance where he dare not go;
I had look'd on a stunted pine,
In the realms of endless frost,
And the path of the Knisteneau,
And the Abenaki crost;
While the Red Oak planted his land,
It was mine to lead the band.
Since then we never spoke,
Unless to utter reproach,
And bandy bitter words;
We meet as two hungry eagles meet,
When a badger lies dead at their feet--
Each would use a spear on his foe,
Each an arrow would put to his bow,
And bid its goal be his foeman's breast,
But the warriors interpose,
And delay the vengeance I owe.
Thou hear'st my words--'t is well.

"Then listen to my words--
The soul of a Maqua never cools;
His ire can never be assuag'd,
But with the smell of gore
I thirst for the Red Oak's blood;
I live but for revenge;
Thou shalt not wed his son;
Choose thee a mate elsewhere,
And see that ye roam no more
By night o'er the rocky dell,
And through the woody hollow,
But when the sun its eye-lids closes,
See that thine own the example follow."

And the father of the youth
Spake thus unto his son:
"A bird has whispered in my ear,
That when the stars have gone to rest,
And the moon her eye-lids hath clos'd,
Who walk beside