Ah me! it is the loon alone, the loon upon the lake.”
This is a literal translation, but there is the true spirit of the love-lorn maiden, and a high development of the poetic sentiment. There has been only now and then a wanderer among the forests, who could appreciate or discern the beautiful, though there have been poems, and novels in abundance concerning wild forest life, by those who wrote the wanderings of their imagination and their fancy. The bright picture has been too bright, and the dark picture too dark.
In the war songs of the Indian, there is never allusion to blood and carnage; and revenge is not made prominent among the natives for pursuing the enemy. Bold and [[92]]daring deeds are incited as worthy of imitation, and fortitude and heroism are exalted as the loftiest virtues. They had characteristics, generated by their peculiar life, but there is nothing about them to prevent their becoming like unto others. White men have lived among them and learned to prefer the hunter’s life. Indians have learned to prefer the habits of civilization, and shown themselves capable of education and refinement equal to any attained by any nation.
When children, they have the same joyous nature, the same quick perceptions, and exhibit the same varieties of character.
“As the twig is bent, the tree is inclined,”
is as true of them as of pale-faced children.
The following lines are a translation of a song heard among a troop of Chippewa children as they were playing at twilight around their dwellings, and the air was filled with myriads of fire-flies, which they were trying to catch. I have seen few prettier things among the children’s songs of any people.
“Fire-fly, fire-fly, bright little thing,
Light me to bed, and my song I will sing;