Menominee Dirge

We bear the dead, we bear the dead,
In robes of otter habited,
From the quiet depths of the greenwood shade,
To her lonely couch on the hill-top made.
There, there the sun when dies the day
Flings mournfully his parting ray —
In vain the winds lift her tresses black —
Ke-ton-ee-mi-coo, Wa-was-te-nac!
When ploughs tear up the forest floor,
And hunters follow the deer no more,
When the red man's council-hearth is cold
His glory, like a tale that 's told,
Spare, white man! spare an oak to wave.
Its bough above the maiden's grave,
And the dead will send a blessing back —
Ke-ton-ee-mi-coo, Wa-was-te-nac!
Another race are building fires
Above the bones of our buried sires —
Soon will the homes of our people be
Far from the bright Menominee;
But yearly to yon burial-place
Some mourning band of our luckless race
To smooth the turf will wander back —
Ke-ton-ee-mi-coo, Wa-was-te-nac!
On the wafting wings of yesternight,
The soul of our peerless one took flight;
She heard a voice from the clime of souls,
Sweeter than lays of orioles,
Say, "Come to that bright and blissful land
Where Death waves not his skeleton hand,
Where the sky with storm is never black" —
Ke-ton-ee-mi-coo, Wa-was-te nac!