I am the one who loved her as my life,
Had watched her grow to sweet young womanhood;
Won the dear privilege to call her wife,
And found the world, because of her, was good.
I am the one who heard the spirit voice,
Of which the paleface settlers love to tell;
From whose strange story they have made their choice
Of naming this fair valley the “Qu’Appelle.”

I hear a voice speak tenderly my name.

“Who calls?” I answered; no reply; and long
I stilled my paddle blade and listened. Then
Above the night’s wind melancholy song
I heard distinctly that strange voice again—
A woman’s voice, that through the twilight came
Like to a soul unborn—a song unsung
I leaned and listened—yes, she spoke my name.
And then I answered in the quaint French tongue,

“Qu’Appelle? Qu’Appelle?” No answer, and the night
Seemed stiller for the sound, till round me fell
The far-off echoes from the far-off height—
“Qu’Appelle?” my voice came back, “Qu’Appelle? Qu’Appelle?”
This—and no more; I called aloud until
I shuddered as the gloom of night increased,
And, like a pallid spectre wan and chill,
The moon arose in silence from the east.

I started up—and bending o’er my dead,
Asked when did her sweet lips in silence close.
“She called thy name—then passed away,” they said,
“Just on the hour whereat the moon arose.”

Among the lonely lakes I go no more,
For she who made their beauty is not there;
The paleface rears his tepee on the shore
And says the vale is fairest of the fair.

Full many years have vanished since, but still
The voyageurs beside the campfire tell
How, when the moonrise tips the distant hill,
They hear strange voices through the silence swell.
The paleface loves the haunted lakes they say,
And journeys far to watch their beauty spread
Before his vision; but to me the day,
The night, the hour, the seasons all are dead.
I listen heartsick, while the hunters tell
Why white men named the valley The Qu’Appelle.