Winnona’s Song

Lagh-ha! Winna-Winnona is alone!
Alone in the field, alone in the wood,
Alone in the lodge of the whirlwind
On, not to Winnona a whirlwind,
Bur the breath of the soft southwest!

The terrible Sioux were chaff in his path of battle,
The bison were withered leaves when he flew to the chase;
But Winnona was his beloved,
A rose-lined cloud that he gently rolled together—
Now dark and alone it only rains away.

Lagh-ha! lagh-ha! Winnona is left alone!
She feels not her warrior when by night
She stretches her arms to his place in the lodge;
She sees him not first when the hunters return with their bison,
Nor first to go our when the braves uncover the hatchet.

The pale moon dies and returns,
The stars come back from their graves in the clouds;
But he whose smile was better than moon-rise,
But he whose eye-beams were more than the stars—
MAUGH-GARA-OP-OUILLA returns to Winnona no more!