Rhymes of a Rolling Stone

Little Moccasins

     Come out, O Little Moccasins, and frolic on the snow!
     Come out, O tiny beaded feet, and twinkle in the light!
     I'll play the old Red River reel, you used to love it so:
     Awake, O Little Moccasins, and dance for me to-night!

     Your hair was all a gleamy gold, your eyes a corn-flower blue;
     Your cheeks were pink as tinted shells, you stepped light as a fawn;
     Your mouth was like a coral bud, with seed pearls peeping through;
     As gladdening as Spring you were, as radiant as dawn.

     Come out, O Little Moccasins!  I'll play so soft and low,
     The songs you loved, the old heart-songs that in my mem'ry ring;
     O child, I want to hear you now beside the campfire glow!
     With all your heart a-throbbing in the simple words you sing.

     For there was only you and I, and you were all to me;
     And round us were the barren lands, but little did we fear;
     Of all God's happy, happy folks the happiest were we. . . .
     (Oh, call her, poor old fiddle mine, and maybe she will hear!)

     Your mother was a half-breed Cree, but you were white all through;
     And I, your father was — but well, that's neither here nor there;
     I only know, my little Queen, that all my world was you,
     And now that world can end to-night, and I will never care.

     For there's a tiny wooden cross that pricks up through the snow:
     (Poor Little Moccasins! you're tired, and so you lie at rest.)
     And there's a grey-haired, weary man beside the campfire glow:
     (O fiddle mine! the tears to-night are drumming on your breast.)