Where art thou, mother? I am weary thinking;
A heritage of pain and woe
Was thine,—beneath it art thou slowly sinking,
Or hast thou perished long ago?
And doth thy spirit ’mid the quivering leaves above me,
Hover, dear mother, near, to guard and love me?
I murmur at my lot; in the white man’s dwelling
The mother there is found;
Or he may tell where spring buds first are swelling
Above her lowly mound;