PART I.
“Push off, push off the birch canoe,
The wave and the wood are still;
The screaming loon is fast asleep,
And so is the whip-poor-will.
The moonlight-blowing flowers I love—
On yon little isle they grow;—”
So said a black-eyed Ottawa girl,
In silvery accents low.
“Off, off with the bark canoe, my boy,
And tarry till I come back—”
“No, sister,” said the red-neck’d boy,
“The panther will smell my track.
Our boat upon the deep shall rock,
And in it the paddles three;
My little grey dog my bow shall watch,
But I will keep with thee.”
“Now, nay, across the lake I go
Alone to the flow’ry isle;
I’ll come e’er the big owl screams for day,
So tarry thou here the while.
Thou art a bounding hunter bold,
As the wolf and the panther know;
And thou shalt whoop at the water-stars
That flash in the skies below;
And when the still woods halloo back,
The braver wilt thou grow.”
Now half-way over the sky-blue lake
Hath paddled the wild red girl;
Kneeling, a wearied arm she rests,—
The waters round her curl.
Away she looks, with beating heart,
Away to the purple isle;
Beneath it swings a bright round moon;
She listeneth all the while,—
Heard she one far shrill whistle-sound,
Her sadness were a smile.
The lake was still as still could be,
And bright as a warrior’s blade;
And, save the dash of the leaping fish,
Not a waking sound was made.
The lovely bright-eyed Ottawa girl
Hath bent o’er the low canoe,
And smoothed anew her raven hair
In the glass of the shining blue.
And now is at the islet’s edge
The stem of her birchen bark:
And so is the bare, the springy foot
Of a hunter tall and dark.
“My deer-eyed dove,” the hunter breathed—
And the maid fell at his knee:
Along its lash a bright tear flashed,
And thus again spake he.
“My dark-eyed dove, the twisted shells,
With tints of the blood-red snow,
I’ve brought thee now, and scarlet bird,
And skin of the spotted doe.”
The red girl of the sky-blue lake,
She loves that chieftain bold:—
He loves again: but hatred lurks,
And ever by day and by night it works
In the heart of her father old.
And hither, when the swan leads off
Her brood on the sleeping swell,
Beneath a climbing vine they meet,
With tenderest words, in accents sweet,
The tale of their loves to tell.