"The Pilot of the Plains" by E. Pauline Johnson
land of waking morn;
Rise and wed thy Redskin wooer, nobler warrior
ne'er was born;
Cease thy watching, cease thy dreaming,
Show the white thine Indian scorn."
Thus they taunted her, declaring, "He remembers
naught of thee:
Likely some white maid he wooeth, far beyond the
inland sea."
But she answered ever kindly,
"He will come again to me."
Till the dusk of Indian summer crept athwart the
western skies;
But a deeper dusk was buming in her dark and
dreaming eyes.
As she scanned the rolling prairie,
Where the foothills fall, and rise.
Till the autumn came and vanished, till the season
of the rains,
Till the westem world lay fettered in midwinter's
crystal chains,
Still she listened for his coming,
Still she watched the distant plains.
Then a night with nor'land tempest, nor'land snows
a-swirling fast,
Out upon the pathless prairie came the Pale-face
through the blast,
Calling, calling, "Yakonwita,
I am coming, love, at last."
Hovered night above, about him, dark its wings and
cold and dread;
Never unto trail or tepee were his straying foot-
steps led;
Till benumbed, he sank, and pillowed
On the drifting snows his head,
Saying, "O! my Yakonwita call me, call me, be
my guide
To the lodge beyond the prairie—for I vowed ere
winter died
I would come again, beloved;
I would claim my Indian bride."
"Yakonwita, Yakonwita!" Oh, the dreariness that
strains
Through the voice that calling, quivers, till a whis-
per but remains,
"Yakonwita, Yakonwita,
I am lost upon the plains."
But the Silent Spirit hushed him, lulled him as he
cried anew,
"Save me, save me! O! beloved, I am Pale but I
am true.
Yokonwita, Yakonwita,
I am dying, love, for you."
Leagues afar, across the prairie, she had risen from
her bed,
Roused her kinsmen from their slumber: " He has
come to-night," she said.
"I can hear him calling, calling;
But his voice is as the dead.
"Listen!" and they sate all silent, while the tem
pest louder grew,
And a spirit-voice called faintly, " I am dying, love,
for you."
Then they wailed, " O! Yakonwita.
He was Pale, but he was true."
Wrapped she then her ermine round her, stepped
without the tepee door,
Saying, "I must follow, follow, though he call for
evermore,
Yakonwita, Yakonwita;"
And they never saw her more.
Late at night, say Indian hunters, when the star-
light clouds or wanes,
Far away they see a maiden, misty as the autumn
rains,
Guiding with her lamp of moonlight
Hunters lost upon the plains.