And gayly their sun-dance the Illini kept, And boastful they rested at eve in the dews, But nearer and nearer their wily foes crept, And the cool river filled with their rocking canoes. Seven suns lit the day; seven moons lit the night; Then fled from the Illini’s faces the joy; For the water was low, and the springs sunk from sight, And the foe held the banks of the blue Illinois! Oh, the gray rock that hung O’er the billows of blooms, Where the rain-plover sung In the dark under glooms, And cool, cool ran the prairie river! They lowered their gourds to the river in vain; They crept toward the rippling waters to die; They called on the gods of the cloudlands for rain, But answered them only the flames of the sky. They delved, but in vain, in famishing springs; They sought, but in vain, the red Plumes to deploy; Their thirst deeper burned, and the rain-plover’s wings Brought no cloud to the air of the blue Illinois: To the gray rock that hung O’er the billows of blooms, Where the rain-plover sung In the dark under glooms, And cool, cool ran the prairie river! An Indian mother crept down to the tide, On her famishing bosom her babe newly born; The cool waters rippled the rock ferns beside, And sweetly the rain-plover sung in the corn. “Back!” shouted the foe, with their cross-bows upraised: She drew to her fever-spent bosom her boy; And her thin, withered face to the blazing sky raised, And leaped, and lay dead in the blue Illinois! Oh, the gray rock that hung O’er the billows of blooms, Where the rain-plover sung In the dark under glooms, And cool, cool ran the prairie river! “Ho! Ho!” cried the Plumes of the Northern Lakes proud, To the braves on the Rock whose red warfare was done. “Ho! Ho! we came down in the billows of cloud, But our feet will go back in the paths of the sun.” One by one sunk the braves on the high Rock to die; One by one did the gray wolves of fever destroy; And the Northern winds blew, and the waves rippled by, And the rain-plover sang on the blue Illinois! Oh, the gray rock that hung O’er the billows of blooms, Where the rain-plover sung In the dark under glooms, And cool, cool ran the prairie river!