The Path on the Rainbow, edited by George W. Cronyn, [1918], at sacred-texts.com
FROM THE YOKUT
BEING THE SONG OF A MAN AND A WOMAN WHO MIGHT HAVE LOVED
"Fir tree leaneth to fir,
The wind-blown willows mingle;
"Had we been less we had loved;
We had stooped and been tender;
"But our hands are under the earth
For the travail of her harvests,
Upholding the rain-sleeked fields
And the long, brown, fruitful furrow.
Terror taketh the earth
When the Mountains move together.
"But ever as winds of Spring
Set the meadow grasses caressing,
And the coo-dove's call.
To the coo-dove's mate
Resounds in the oak-wood valleys,
We shall thrill with the brooding earth,
We shall turn, touch hands, and remember,
Had we been less, how much we had loved
How nobly we might have been tender."
184:* Kunaë: Supreme One.