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The words of this song were based on the following statement current at the time the song was written, though it had probably little, if any, foundation in fact. "Among the superstitions of the Senecas is one which, for its singular beauty, is already well known. When a maiden dies, they imprison a young bird until it first begins to try its powers of song, and then loading it with kisses and caresses, they loose its bonds over her grave, in the belief that it will not fold its wings, nor close its eyes, until it has flown to the spirit land, and delivered its precious burden of affection to the loved and lost. 'It is not
infrequent,' says the Indian historian, 'to see twenty or thirty birds loosened at once over one grave.' "
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Isaac Baker Woodbury |
Isaac Baker Woodbury 71 |
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William Cullen Bryant |
Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy 72 | |
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Ye say they all have passed away From the poem Indian Names.
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Lydia Huntley Sigourney |
Wellington Guernsey 73 |
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John Boyle O’Reilly |
Karl Gottfried Wilhelm
Taubert 74 | |
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From The Song of Hiawatha.
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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow |
Charles Crozat Converse
75, 76, 77 |
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Eugene Field |
Arr. from Voigtlaender 78, 79 | |
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Phoebe Gary |
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 80, 81 | |
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James Thomas Fields |
Isaac Baker Woodbury 82, 83 | |
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Referring to the author's childhood home.
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Alice Cary |
Franz Peter Schubert 84 |
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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow |
Unknown 85 | |
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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow |
M. Lindsay 86,87,88,89 | |
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James Russell Lowell |
Arr. from the German 90 | |
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Sidney Lanier |
Old college air 91 | |
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Paul Hamilton Hayne |
Unknown 92 | |
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Eugene Field |
Giovanni Paisiello 93, 94, 95 | |
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Bayard Taylor |
Christoph Willibald Gluck 96 | |
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Sidney Lanier |
Joseph Barnby 97 Air: Sweet and Low.
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Alice Cary |
Friedrich Ludwig Seidel 98, 99 |
