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THE MOTHER'S VOW
by the sight that met her gaze. Her boy lay dead. The thunder god had claimed his own.
No other children came to lighten the sorrow of the lonely woman; and every spring, when the first thunder sounded, and whenever the storm swept the land, this stricken woman climbed the hills, and there, standing alone, facing the black rolling clouds, she sang her song of sorrow and of fealty.
The words of the song are addressed to the god; but the music, in its swaying rhythm, suggests the mother's memory of the days when she soothed her little child.
The following is a free translation of the Indian words: —
E dho he ! *
Behold ! On their mighty pinions flying,
They come, the gods come once more
Sweeping o'er the land,
Sounding their call to me, to me their own.
Wa-gi-u«! f Ye on mighty pinions flying,
Look on me here, me your own,
Thinking on my vow
As ye return once more, Wa-gi-u»!
* Sighing vocables. t Dakota term for the thunder bird. |
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