THE OLD MAN’S LOVE-SONG.
Reading edition
Early in the century there lived an Omaha Indian, a tall and comely man, gifted with a fine voice and a good memory, and who was greatly admired by the men and women of the tribe. Although genial with every one, he was reserved; and none knew all that had transpired in his life or that occupied his thoughts. He was a prosperous man. His lodge was well supplied, for his skill as a hunter was equal to his valour as a warrior.
Years passed; and here and there a silver thread glistened in his black hair, the furrows deepened in his handsome face, and more and more his thoughts seemed to dwell on the past. One day he was heard singing a love-song of his own composition, and gossip became busy as to what this song might mean. His actions threw no light on the mystery. He was the same kind husband and father, the same diligent provider, and he sought no new companionship. Nevertheless, at every dawn he went upon the hill near his lodge; and, while the morning star hung like a jewel in the east, he sang the melody carrying the words,—
"With the dawn I seek thee!"
THE OLD MAN’S LOVE SONG.
Omaha.
Harmonized by Prof. J.C. Fillmore.
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Ha he ha ha he ha he ha we dhe ha dha e ha dhoe, Um-ba e-don ha-i-don, hu-wi-ne ha, ho e ho wa dho he dhe, I ha, ha he ho, ho he ho, he ha we dhe dhoe. Un-ba i-don ha-i-don, hu-wi ne ha, ho e ho ne dho he.
The young men caught the tune, and sang it as they wooed the maidens; and the old man smiled as he heard them. "Yes, they are right," he said. "It is a love-song."
He grew to be a very old man, an old man with a love-song, until it was only when the warm days came that he could slowly climb the hill at dawn, and, alone with the breezes and birds, greet the new day with his song, that both kept and revealed his secret,—the secret of a love, like the radiant bow, spanning the whole horizon of his life. At last a time came when his voice was no longer heard.
The tender cadences of his song, fraught with human hope and human feeling, still linger, and to-day awaken echoes across the barriers of time and race.