II.
Amid the hills of Carolina,
Hills impregnant with rich bliss,
With their grots and groves and fountains,
Hills that love-beams love to kiss;
Roamed the dark, but pretty maiden,
Occoneechee, lovely child,
Roamed she far out in the mountains,
‘Mid their solitude so wild.
Dreamed she oft here, as she rambled,
Of her warrior Whippoorwill,
Of her lover, long her lover,
Whom she first met near the rill,
High upon the Smoky Mountains,
Where the sunset’s afterglow
Holds the secrets of Dame Nature
From the sons of men below.
Occoneechee sought her lover,
Down Oconaluftee’s vale,
Through the brush and tangled wildwood,
Without compass, chart or trail,
Where the river Tuckaseigee
Dashes down its rocky bed,
Near a trail long since deserted,
Over which a tribe once sped.