VI.
‘Come hither, child,’ the monarch said,
‘And set thee down by me,
‘And I’ll tell thee of thy mother dead,
‘Fair sprout of that parent tree.
‘Twelve suns ago she fell asleep,
‘And she never awoke again;
‘And thou wast then too young to weep,
‘Or to share thy father’s pain.
‘But wouldst thou know thy mother’s look,
‘When her form was young and fair,
‘Look down upon the tranquil brook,
‘And thou’lt see her picture there.
‘For her own bright locks of flowing jet
‘Are over thy shoulders hung;
‘In thy face her loving eyes are set,
‘And her music is on thy tongue.
‘But Okee call’d her home to rest,
‘And away her spirit flew,
‘Dancing on sunbeams far to the west,
‘Where the mountain tops are blue.
‘And often at sunset hour she strolls
‘Alone on the mountains wild,
‘And beckons me home to the land of souls,
‘And calls for her darling child.
‘And I am an aged sapless tree,
‘That soon must fall to the plain;
‘And then shall my spirit, light and free,
‘Rejoin thy mother again.
‘And thou, my child’—But here a sigh
Had reach’d the aged chieftain’s ear;
He turn’d, and lo, his daughter’s eye
Was beaming through a trembling tear,
And she was looking in his face
With such a tender, earnest grace,
The monarch clasp’d her to his side,
And thus her childish lips replied.