This text comes from Songs of French Canada, a historical songbook transcribed on Wikisource and reproduced from the pinned revision linked below.
Thou little rock of the high hill, attend!
Hither I come this last campaign to end!
Ye echoes soft, give ear unto my sigh,
In languishing I speedily shall die.
Dear little birds, your dulcet harmony
What time you sing makes life dear with me.
Ah! had I wings that I might fly like you,
Ere two days sped I should be happy too.
Lone in these woods I've known cares without end,
Pondering for aye the fate of each dear friend;
I ask myself, "Alas! and are they drowned?
Or by the Iroquois so ruthless found?"
Once as I wander, to my great surprise
On my return I see a smoke arise;
"Great God," I cry, "what was it that I saw?
My hut is taken by the Iroquois."
Then for a while I crouched without the shade,
That I might see if 'twere an ambuscade.
A joy too great filled up my heart to see
The faces of three men, of Frenchmen three.
Then my voice chokes, my knees give way, and lo!
I fall, alas! and they prepare to go!
I am alone, and none console me may,
Although death comes in such a cruel way!
A howling wolf crept to my cabin nigher,
To see if smoke still rose up from my fire.
To him I said, "Go, coward brute and fierce,
Or, by my faith, thy grey coat I will pierce."
A sable crow that flew in search of food,
Perched on a tree in my near neighbourhood.
To him I said, "Gorger of human flesh,
Go elsewhere, seek a meal not quite so fresh.
"Go deeper in the wood, hard by yon swamp,
There, in the Iroquois' abandoned camp
Thou wilt find all the flesh thou covetest;
Go farther on, and leave me to my rest."
O nightingale, go tell my mistress true,
My little ones, I leave them my adieu,
That I have kept my love and honour free,
And they henceforth must hope no more of me.
Here, then, it is the world abandons me—
But I have help, Saviour of man, in Thee.
Most Holy Virgin, do not from me fly!
Within your arms, oh! suffer me to die.