MY KINFOLKS OF KY AND BEYOND
POEMS, JOKES & TIDBITS
PAGE 7
THE INDIAN'S TWENTY-THIRD PSALM
Frank Bird Linderman
1869 - 1938
The Great Father above is a Shepherd Chief.
I am His and with Him I want not.
He throws out to me a rope,
and the name of the rope is Love,
and He draws me, and He draws me,
and He draws me to where the grass is green
and the waters not dangerous,
and I eat and lie down satisfied.
Sometimes my heart is very weak and falls down,
He lifts it up again and draws me into a good road.
His name is Wonderful.
Sometime, it may be very soon, it may be longer,
it may be a long, long time,
He will draw me into a place between mountains.
It is dark there, but I'll draw back not.
I'll be afraid not, for it is in there between these mountains
that the Shepherd Chief will meet me, and the hunger I have felt
in my heart all through this life will be satisfied.
Sometimes He makes the love rope into a whip,
but afterwards, He give me a staff to lean on.
He spreads a table before me
with all kinds of food.
He puts His hands upon my head,
and all the "tired" is gone.
My cup He fills till it runs over.
What I tell you is true. I lie not.
These roads that are "away ahead" will stay with me through this life,
and afterward I will go to live in the "Big Teepee"
and sit down with the Shepherd Chief forever.
The Indian language is not easily subject to translations, and in their communications with one another, the various tribes use a sign language, which they have evolved. Mr. Linderman had spent much of his life amoung the Indians and wrote about them extensively.
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