To drown his grief in the blood of the foe! 
I shall fall.  Raise my mound on the sacred hill. 
Let my warriors the wish of their chief fulfill;
For my fathers sleep in the sacred ground. 
The Autumn blasts o’er Wakawa’s mound
Will chase the hair of the thistles’ head,
And the bare-armed oak o’er the silent dead,
When the whirling snows from the north descend,
Will wail and moan in the midnight wind. 
In the famine of winter the wolf will prowl,
And scratch the snow from the heap of stones,
And sit in the gathering storm and howl,
On the frozen mound, for Wakawa’s bones. 
But the years that are gone shall return again,
As the robin returns and the whippowil,
When my warriors stand on the sacred hill
And remember the deeds of their brave chief slain.”

Beneath the glow of the Virgin Star
They raised the song of the red war-dance. 
At the break of dawn with the bow and lance
They followed the chief on the path of war. 
To the north—­to the forests of fir and pine—­
Led their stealthy steps on the winding trail,
Till they saw the Lake of the Spirit[55] shine
Through somber pines of the dusky dale. 
Then they heard the hoot of the mottled owl;[56]
They heard the gray wolf’s dismal howl;
Then shrill and sudden the war-whoop rose
From an hundred throats of their swarthy foes,
In ambush crouched in the tangled wood. 
Death shrieked in the twang of their deadly bows,
And their hissing arrows drank brave men’s blood. 
From rock, and thicket, and brush, and brakes,
Gleamed the burning eyes of the “forest-snakes."[57]
From brake, and thicket, and brush, and stone,
The bow-string hummed and the arrow hissed,
And the lance of a crouching Ojibway shone,
Or the scalp-knife gleamed in a swarthy fist. 
Undaunted the braves of Wakawa’s band
Leaped into the thicket with lance and knife,
And grappled the Chippeways hand to hand;
And foe with foe, in the deadly strife,
Lay clutching the scalp of his foe and dead,
With a tomahawk sunk in his ghastly head,
Or his still heart sheathing a bloody blade. 
Like a bear in the battle Wakawa raves,
And cheers the hearts of his falling braves. 
But a panther crouches along his track—­
He springs with a yell on Wakawa’s back! 
The tall chief, stabbed to the heart, lies low;
But his left hand clutches his deadly foe,
And his red right clinches the bloody hilt
Of his knife in the heart of the slayer dyed. 
And thus was the life of Wakawa spilt,
And slain and slayer lay side by side. 
The unscalped corpse of their honored chief
His warriors snatched from the yelling pack,
And homeward fled on their forest track
With their bloody burden and load of grief.

The spirits the words of the brave fulfill—­
Wakawa sleeps on the sacred hill,
And Wakinyan Tanka, his son, is chief. 
Ah soon shall the lips of men forget
Wakawa’s name, and the mound of stone
Will speak of the dead to the winds alone,
And the winds will whistle their mock regret.