In that desolate land and lone,
Where the Big Horn and Yellowstone
       &nbsp Roar down their mountain path,
By their fires the Sioux Chiefs
Muttered their woes and griefs
       &nbsp And the menace of their wrath.

"Revenge!" cried Rain-in-the-Face,
"Revenue upon all the race
       &nbsp Of the White Chief with yellow hair!"
And the mountains dark and high
From their crags re-echoed the cry
       &nbsp Of his anger and despair.

In the meadow, spreading wide
By woodland and riverside
       &nbsp The Indian village stood;
All was silent as a dream,
Save the rushing a of the stream
       &nbsp And the blue-jay in the wood.

In his war paint and his beads,
Like a bison among the reeds,
       &nbsp In ambush the Sitting Bull
Lay with three thousand braves
Crouched in the clefts and caves,
       &nbsp Savage, unmerciful!
Into the fatal snare
The White Chief with yellow hair
       &nbsp And his three hundred men
Dashed headlong, sword in hand;
But of that gallant band
       &nbsp Not one returned again.

The sudden darkness of death
Overwhelmed them like the breath
       &nbsp And smoke of a furnace fire:
By the river's bank, and between
The rocks of the ravine,
       &nbsp They lay in their bloody attire.

But the foemen fled in the night,
And Rain-in-the-Face, in his flight
       &nbsp Uplifted high in air
As a ghastly trophy, bore
The brave heart, that beat no more,
       &nbsp Of the White Chief with yellow hair.

Whose was the right and the wrong?
Sing it, O funeral song,
       &nbsp With a voice that is full of tears,
And say that our broken faith
Wrought all this ruin and scathe,
       &nbsp In the Year of a Hundred Years.