The Flint Arrowhead

(album: From Sea To Shining Sea - 1968)

While traveling this land from border to border and from sea to sea
There have a few occasions to leave the beaten path and to find the place
And quiet that's good for thought and just walking through a trackless forest
Or exploring ruins of the earliest settlers or walking along a creekbed
Hoping to find a relic such as a tomahawk an axe
Or even an arrowhead left by a race of long since vanished Indians
There's a great thrill and it's a wonderful feeling to find a flint arrowhead

Over fields of new turned sod and in communion with my God I walked alone
In a furrow bed I found an arrowhead chiseled from stone
I don't know how long ago some redman drew his bow on its last fight
Or did he drop it here afraid white men were near to attack at night
I do know this one thing beyond all questioning it was made to kill
And proof of a master trade is in this arrowhead he made fashioned with skill
That I inherited this ground is denied by this stone I've found but when and by who
Come join me in my tracks then let's stop and look back to the vale and through
In love and peace we'll see the shadows and the trees and voices too
But quietly slowly tread this home of the forgotten dead whose bones are dust
I'm proud that their craftsmen's skill survives the ages still left in my trust