Weary the hours; but the sun at last
Went down to his lodge in the west, and fast
The wings of the spirits of night were spread
O’er the darkling woods and Wiwaste’s head. 
Then slyly she slipped from her snug retreat,
And guiding her course by Waziya’s star,[62]
That shone through the shadowy forms afar,
She northward hurried with silent feet;
And long ere the sky was aflame in the east,
She was leagues from the spot of the fatal feast. 
’Twas the hoot of the owl that the hunters heard,
And the scattering drops of the threat’ning shower,
And the far wolf’s cry to the moon preferred. 
Their ears were their fancies—­the scene was weird,
And the witches[63] dance at the midnight hour. 
She leaped the brook and she swam the river;
Her course through the forest Wiwaste wist
By the star that gleamed through the glimmering mist
That fell from the dim moon’s downy quiver. 
In her heart she spoke to her spirit-mother: 
“Look down from your teepee, O starry spirit. 
The cry of Wiwaste.  O mother, hear it;
And touch the heart of my cruel father. 
He hearkened not to a virgin’s words;
He listened not to a daughter’s wail. 
O give me the wings of the thunder-birds,
For his were wolves[52] follow Wiwaste’s trail;
And guide my flight to the far Hohe—­
To the sheltering lodge of my brave Chaske.”

The shadows paled in the hazy east,
And the light of the kindling morn increased. 
The pale-faced stars fled one by one,
And hid in the vast from the rising sun. 
From woods and waters and welkin soon
Fled the hovering mists of the vanished moon. 
The young robins chirped in their feathery beds,
The loon’s song shrilled like a winding horn,
And the green hills lifted their dewy heads
To greet the god of the rising morn. 
She reached the rim of the rolling prairie—­
The boundless ocean of solitude;
She hid in the feathery hazel-wood,
For her heart was sick and her feet were weary;
She fain would rest, and she needed food. 
Alone by the billowy, boundless prairies,
She plucked the cones of the scarlet berries;
In feathering copse and the grassy field
She found the bulbs of the young Tipsanna,[43]
And the sweet medo [64] that the meadows yield. 
With the precious gift of his priceless manna
God fed his fainting and famished child.

At night again to the northward far
She followed the torch of Waziya’s star;
For leagues away o’er the prairies green,
On the billowy vast, may a man be seen,
When the sun is high and the stars are low;
And the sable breast of the strutting crow
Looms up like the form of the buffalo. 
The Bloody River [40] she reached at last,
And boldly walked in the light of day,
On the level plain of the valley vast;
Nor thought of the terrible Chippeway. 
She was safe from the wolves of her father’s band,
But she trod on the treacherous “Bloody Land.”