As the happy years flew swiftly by,
Beneath Caucanoe's watchful eye,
Paralee grew, with rapid pace,
Into a maid of faultless grace.
Caucanoe loved this lovely child
With a passion fierce, and deep, and wild,
Yet hopeless, he feared, that love would be,
Since naught could bridge the raging sea
Of racial and tribal pride,
That lay between them, deep and wide;
And well he knew another's soul
Brooked naught on earth save his control.
King Ulca's daughter, the proud Ella Ree,
Graceful and lithe as a willow tree,
With eyes and hair like the raven's wing,
And voice as soft as the babbling spring,
Had sought him for her wigwam brave,
Weeping o'er his late wife's grave;
And well he knew the tears she shed,
By tribal law their bodies wed.
True love for her he could not feel,
Yet such a fact dared not reveal;
His squaw she was alone in name
And never to his wigwam came.
Another love, oh, fateful thought!
With direful misery doubly fraught,
Surged and tossed within his soul
Until it spurned his late control.
At last he sought her much loved side
And begged her to become his bride.
The maiden heard and laughed outright,
And thus let loose the fiends of night
That of late had lain at rest
Within Caucanoe's savage breast.
Now, naught could stay this rising ire
Save to light the Council Fire.
At last among his braves he stood,
Like some monarch of the wood;
While burning words flowed from his tongue,
That showed how deep his heart was wrung.