Stealthily, secretly, see me,
Stealthily, secretly, see me,
Stealthily, secretly, see me,
Lo! thee I tenderly regard;
Stealthily, secretly, see me."
Or he may commend his good qualities as a hunter by singing this song:
Cling fast to me, and you'll ever have plenty,
Cling fast to me, and you'll ever have plenty,
Cling fast to me…."
"A Dacota girl soon learns to adorn her fingers with rings, her ears with tin dangles, her neck with beads. Perhaps an admirer gives her a ring, singing:
Wear this, I say;
Wear this, I say;
Wear this, I say;
This little finger ring,
Wear this, I say."
For traces of real amorous sentiment one would naturally look to the poems of the semi-civilized Mexicans and Peruvians of the South rather than to the savage and barbarous Indians of the North. Dr. Brinton (E. of A., 297) has found the Mexican songs the most delicate. He quotes two Aztec love-poems, the first being from the lips of an Indian girl:
I know not whether thou hast been absent:
I lie down with thee, I rise up with thee,
In my dreams thou art with me.
If my ear-drop trembles in my ears,
I know it is thou moving within my heart.
The second, from the same language, is thus rendered:
On a certain mountain side,
Where they pluck flowers,
I saw a pretty maiden,
Who plucked from me my heart,
Whither thou goest,
There go I.
Dr. Brinton also quotes the following poem of the Northern Kioways as "a song of true love in the ordinary sense:"