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The Great waters reflect time

Ageless myths foretold in skies

Ghosts speak in the grey waves

Passing fog of cemetery tides

A beacon lit in the mists

To light the way for coffin ships

All of creation in the isles above

To the call of those left in blood

The serpent that guards the shores

Among dark pines aglow

Thunder waters to drums arose

To swallow all in her cold

The incandescent stars of Pictured Rocks

The quarry of red stone blood and sun

Stood proud above her majestic view

Watched the birch bark passing from death anew

Celestial rainfall of Isle Royale

The wild land untouched, untamed

Damp odors of the forest claim

Black soil that hides her bones remains

Smoke pillars from cedar fires burn

Engulf the firs in ember spires turn

Cleansing the night for passage rites forlorn

Stag head wounded by the arrow in flight

Bonfires burn on Northland shores

Before the Moon shining bright above

Bathes Alder boughs in light

-Hiawatha

"With the odours of the forest,

With the dew and damp of meadows,

With the curling smoke of wigwams,

With the rushing of great rivers,

With their frequent repetitions,

And their wild reverberations,

As of thunder in the mountains

From the forests and the prairies,

From the great lakes of the Northland,

Ye who love the haunts of Nature,

Love the sunshine of the meadow,

Love the shadow of the forest,

Love the wind among the branches,

And the rain-shower and the snow-storm,

And the rushing of great rivers

By the rushing in the Spring-time,

By the alders in the Summer,

By the white fog in the Autumn,

By the black line in the Winter ;

And beside them dwelt the singer,

In the Yale of Tawasentha,

In the green and silent valley.

By the shores of Gitche Gumee,

By the shining Big-Sea-Water,

Stood the wigwam of Nokomis,

Daughter of the Moon, Nokomis.

Dark behind it rose the forest,

Rose the black and gloomy pine-trees,

Rose the firs with cones upon them;

Bright before it beat the water,

Beat the clear and sunny water,

Beat the shining Big-Sea-Water."

Shining Opal waters flow

The shores of Siskiwit gold

Boreal Twilight above shown

The Great Freshwater Seas cold

Spirited away to haunted shores

Spruce among the skyline soar

Wolf jaw carved in reverence

Songs of the Lakes persist

Ghost fires burn in the midnight skies

Cassiopeia upon her throne ignites

Speaking with the dryads in light

The warmth of the cabin invites

The moon is one with the sun

Rock harbors the secrets within

The ships that pass in the night

In the starlight it is written