Page:Flint and Feather (1914).djvu/178

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130
FLINT AND FEATHER

I started up—and bending o'er my dead,
Asked when did her sweet lips in silence close.
"She called thy name—then passed away," they said,
"Just on the hour whereat the moon arose."

Among the lonely Lakes I go no more,
For she who made their beauty is not there;
The paleface rears his tepee on the shore
And says the vale is fairest of the fair.
Full many years have vanished since, but still
The voyageurs beside the campfire tell
How, when the moonrise tips the distant hill,
They hear strange voices through the silence swell.
The paleface loves the haunted lakes they say,
And journeys far to watch their beauty spread
Before his vision; but to me the day,
The night, the hour, the seasons are all dead.
I listen heartsick, while the hunters tell
Why white men named the valley The Qu'Appelle.