Softly the Indian mother
24 sings—
"Woman's heart is strong,
When she works for those she loves,
Through the summer's day so long.
Hark! to the wind's wild voice, my babe—
What may its story be,
Stirring thy cradle-bed, securely laid
In the arms of the forest tree?"
"We have travelled afar, but we come again;
We have passed o'er the couch of weakness and pain;
We have seen the gifted from earth depart;
We have fanned the brow of the broken heart;
We have fled from the shrieks of the mighty in death,
From the battle's rage and the victor's breath;
We have been at the grave—at the infant's birth;
We know all the cares of the children of earth.
"Our wail is heard o'er the mighty deep,
In whose breast the loved and lost ones sleep,
When, sweeping in rage, the hurricane blast
Tosses to heaven the waters vast.
When we bear o'er the foaming and dashing main
The voices that ne'er will be heard again;
Yet we come and go at His will, who said
To the sea 'Be still!' and its waves obeyed.
"The air was still as we stayed our breath,
While the mother wept o'er her young child's death—
A fatherless child; 'twas peacefully laid,
So placid and calm, 'neath the curtain's shade.
Yet, pressing the clay to her throbbing breast,
'Oh! when,' she cried, 'will I be at rest?'
We sang for the child a requiem low,
And the mother's to sing on our way we go.
"But why should we chaunt of sorrow and gloom,
Of night and the tempest, of tears and the tomb?
Those who are parted shall meet again—
The sea yield her victims, the earth her slain;
Our mission we haste o'er ocean to bear;
We tell of his glory whose servants we are.
We quell with our tidings the idol's dark power,
That the cries of its victims be heard never more.
"We raise from the earth the spirit crushed;
At the sight of the cross its murmurs are hushed.
Our voice is heard, and the wandering son
In spirit turns to his long-left home.
He remembers his father's voice in prayer,
And he kneels by the side of his mother there;
And he cries, while his steps are homeward trod,
'Oh! be thou mine, my father's God!'
"Alike is the charge and the mission given
To the faithful heart and the winds of heaven,
To tell how the Saviour came to earth,
How poor he was from the hour of his birth:
His own griefs unheeded, for others he sighed;
Of the life that he lived, of the death that he died.
To earth's farthest shore these tidings we bear—
All glory to Him whose servants we are."
Again the Indian mother sings—
"Woman's heart is strong,
When she works for those she loves,
Through the summer's day so long.
I would know what the wild winds said, my babe—
What could their story be,
Stirring thy cradle-bed, securely laid
In the arms of the forest tree?"