Far, far away, where the sun goes down,
And the beetling crags of the mountains frown,
Where the rivers sweep with a graceful flow,
Unruffled save by the light canoe;
Where the forest grand with its stately trees
Tells the solemn roll of the centuries,
And the calm, deep voice of the Western wave
Sings the ceaseless hymns of mighty praise;
There the Indian lives as proudly free
As the peerless bird that roams o'er the sea,
Through the forest bounds, or his light canoe
Like a feather sends o'er the lakes so blue.
In that far-off land of the setting sun
There dwelt a maid some moons agone;
A peerless star was that chieftan's child--
The proudest rose of the forest wild.
Her proud, dark eye had a midnight look,
And her voice was clear as the running brook;
Her step was free as the bounding doe,
And wild as her ebon tresses' flow.
'T is said that the angels loved the maid,
And sang to her in the forest glade,
Till her eyes had a dreamy, far-off look,
And her heart became like a sealéd book.
One night, they say, when the evening star
Hung its pale lamp out in the skies afar,
That she wandered down from her wigwam door,
To the lakelet's sandy, wave-kissed shore.
She wandered out, but she came not back;
They sought her long in the forest track,
Then said she'd gone with the angel band,
To dwell for aye in the "better land."
She wandered out--and they tell the tale
How music stole on the evening gale,
And o'er the water the low strains crept
From wave to wave like the moonbeams' step.
They say, when the year brings that eve around
There comes o'er the lake the same sweet sound,
Which floats for awhile the waters o'er,
Then dies with the waves on the other shore.
