“Mary fell, rather than sat, down at the poor creature’s feet, and listened to her with a bursting heart. I will repeat the song to you, not exactly as it was chanted by Namoina, but as it has since been put into verse. It still, however, retains its original spirit and meaning.
THE DEATH-SONG OF NAMOINA.
‘I hear the voices of the brave from yonder fair southwest—
They welcome poor Namoina unto her place of rest.
The hills are glad with living things—the valleys bright with corn,
Beyond the beautiful blue sky where all the brave are gone.
‘The earth is cold—the hills are lone—the pleasant places sad,
And everything is desolate that once could make me glad.
The white man’s corn is growing now upon our fathers’ graves—
And Cowtantowit’s[[13]] children flee unto the western waves.