Four American Indian Songs

From the Land of the Sky-blue Water,
They brought a captive maid;
And her eyes they are lit with lightnings,
Her heart is not afraid!

But I steal to her lodge at dawning,
I woo her with my flute;
She is sick for the Sky-blue Water,
The captive maid is mute.

The white dawn is stealing above the dark cedar trees,
  The young corn is waving its blades in the morning breeze;
The birds chant so lonely, the leaves softly moan above,
  The heart of me sighs, the heart of me sighs for love.

My signal I flash where the spring's silver waters lie,
  My love-call I send on the winds that are floating by.
Then come, oh, thy coming shall be as the dawn to me,
  The heart of me sighs, the heart of me sighs for thee.

Far off I hear a lover's flute
  A-crying thro' the gloom;
Far off the golden waters flow
  A-down their sandy flume.
I see the shrunken Mother Moon
  Go forth to meet the Day,
While dim and white the dead ones walk
  Upon the Spirit Way.

Why should I wake and walk tonight
  When all the lodge is still?
Why should I watch the Ghostly Road,
  So high and white and chill?
Why should I hate the crying flute
  Which happy lovers play?
Ah! far and white my loved one walks
  Along the Spirit Way!

The moon drops low that once soared high
  As an eagle soars in the morning sky;
And the deep dark lies like a death-web spun
  'Twixt the setting moon and the rising sun.

Our glory sets like the sinking moon;
  The Red Man's race shall be perished soon;
Our feet shall trip where the web is spun,
  For no dawn shall be ours, and no rising sun.