hey loved each other more
Than the soul of an Indian loves his home;
The lodge of his wife and babes,
Or the graves,
The mossy graves,
The green and grass-covered graves,
Of his fathers mouldered and gone;
They loved each other more
Than the warrior loves the shout of his foe,
Or the festival of scalps,
Or the hunter to see the wing,
Of a plover beating the air.

Their fathers were friends;
They dwelt together in one cabin;
They hunted the woods together;
They warred together,
Raising the self-same shout of onset,
Waking the self-same song of triumph:
Their mothers were sisters;
They dwelt together in one cabin;
Together they wrought in the field of maize;
Each bent her back to the bison's flesh,
Load and load alike;
And they went to the wild wood together,
To bring home the food for the fire;
Kind were these sisters to each other;
There was always a clear sky[B] in their cabins:--
My brother hears.

One Ricara father said to his friend,
While these babes yet swung
In their baskets of bark
From the bough of the oak,
Listen!
I have a young eagle in my eyrie,
Thou hast a young dove in thy nest,
Let us mate them.
Though now they be but squabs,
There will be but twice eight chills of the lake;
And twice eight fails of the maple leaf;
And twice eight bursts of the earth from frosts;
The corn will ripen bat twice eight times,
Tall, sweet corn;
The rose will bloom but twice eight times,
Beautiful rose!
The vine will give but twice eight times
Its rich black clusters,
Sweet ripe clusters,
Grapes of the land of the Ricaras,
Ere thy squab shall be an eagle,
Ere my little dove shall wear
The feathers and plumes of a full-grown bird.
Let us pledge them now
To each other,
That when thy son has become a man,
And painted his face as a brave man paints,
Red on the cheek,
Red on the brow,
And wears but the single lock[C],
That is graced with the plumes of the Warrior-bird,
And has stolen thy bow for the field of strife,
And run away with thy spear,
And thou findest thy sheaf of arrows gone,
And nearest his shout as he follows the steps
Of his chief to the Pawnee lodge,
And my little dove,
My beautiful dove,
Sings in the grove, in the hour of eve,