Thinking about Yvette's song reminded me of this one I found in a book I've got on my shelf called The Unwritten Song. It's an anthology of songs (without tunes) from oral cultures all over the world, gathered from all sorts of anthropological reports and so forth. This one is Inuit, from Canada. It's about surviving:

And I thought over again
My small adventures
As with a shore-wind I drifted out
In my kayak
And thought I was in danger.

My fears,
Those small ones
That I thought so big
For all the vital things
I had to get and to reach.

And yet, there is only
One great thing,
The only thing:
To live to see in huts and on journeys
The great day that dawns
And the light that fills the world.