Henry Longfellow - The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

A gray old man, the third and last, Sang in cathedrals dim and vast, While the majestic organ rolled Contrition from its mouths of gold.

And those who heard the Singers three Disputed which the best might be; For still their music seemed to start Discordant echoes in each heart,

But the great Master said, "I see No best in kind, but in degree; I gave a various gift to each, To charm, to strengthen, and to teach.

"These are the three great chords of might, And he whose ear is tuned aright Will hear no discord in the three, But the most perfect harmony."

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Take them, O Death! and bear away

Whatever thou canst call thine own!

Thine image, stamped upon this clay,

Doth give thee that, but that alone!

Take them, O Grave! and let them lie

Folded upon thy narrow shelves,

As garments by the soul laid by,

And precious only to ourselves!

Take them, O great Eternity!

Our little life is but a gust

That bends the branches of thy tree,

And trails its blossoms in the dust!

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Christ to the young man said: "Yet one thing more;

If thou wouldst perfect be,

Sell all thou hast and give it to the poor,

And come and follow me!"

Within this temple Christ again, unseen,

Those sacred words hath said,

And his invisible hands to-day have been

Laid on a young man's head.

And evermore beside him on his way

The unseen Christ shall move,

That he may lean upon his arm and say,

"Dost thou, dear Lord, approve?"

Beside him at the marriage feast shall be,

To make the scene more fair;

Beside him in the dark Gethsemane

Of pain and midnight prayer.

O holy trust! O endless sense of rest!

Like the beloved John

To lay his head upon the Saviour's breast,

And thus to journey on!

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THE SONG OF HIAWATHA [Notes from HIAWATHA follow]

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Should you ask me, whence these stories?

Whence these legends and traditions,

With the odors of the forest

With the dew and damp of meadows,

With the curling smoke of wigwams,

With the rushing of great rivers,

With their frequent repetitions,

And their wild reverberations

As of thunder in the mountains?

I should answer, I should tell you,

"From the forests and the prairies,

From the great lakes of the Northland,

From the land of the Ojibways,

From the land of the Dacotahs,

From the mountains, moors, and fen-lands

Where the heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah,

Feeds among the reeds and rushes.

I repeat them as I heard them

From the lips of Nawadaha,

The musician, the sweet singer."

Should you ask where Nawadaha

Found these songs so wild and wayward,

Found these legends and traditions,

I should answer, I should tell you,

"In the bird's-nests of the forest,

In the lodges of the beaver,

In the hoof-prints of the bison,

In the eyry of the eagle!

"All the wild-fowl sang them to him,

In the moorlands and the fen-lands,

In the melancholy marshes;

Chetowaik, the plover, sang them,

Mahng, the loon, the wild-goose, Wawa,

The blue heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah,

And the grouse, the Mushkodasa!"

If still further you should ask me,

Saying, "Who was Nawadaha?

Tell us of this Nawadaha,"

I should answer your inquiries

Straightway in such words as follow.

"In the vale of Tawasentha,

In the green and silent valley,

By the pleasant water-courses,

Dwelt the singer Nawadaha.

Round about the Indian village

Spread the meadows and the corn-fields,

And beyond them stood the forest,

Stood the groves of singing pine-trees,

Green in Summer, white in Winter,

Ever sighing, ever singing.

"And the pleasant water-courses,

You could trace them through the valley,

By the rushing in the Spring-time,

By the alders in the Summer,

By the white fog in the Autumn,

By the black line in the Winter;

And beside them dwelt the singer,

In the vale of Tawasentha,

In the green and silent valley.

"There he sang of Hiawatha,

Sang the Song of Hiawatha,

Sang his wondrous birth and being,

How he prayed and how he fasted,

How he lived, and toiled, and suffered,

That the tribes of men might prosper,

That he might advance his people!"

Ye who love the haunts of Nature,

Love the sunshine of the meadow,

Love the shadow of the forest,

Love the wind among the branches,

And the rain-shower and the snow-storm,

And the rushing of great rivers

Through their palisades of pine-trees,

And the thunder in the mountains,

Whose innumerable echoes

Flap like eagles in their eyries;—

Listen to these wild traditions,

To this Song of Hiawatha!

Ye who love a nation's legends,

Love the ballads of a people,

That like voices from afar off

Call to us to pause and listen,

Speak in tones so plain and childlike,

Scarcely can the ear distinguish

Whether they are sung or spoken;—

Listen to this Indian Legend,

To this Song of Hiawatha!

Ye whose hearts are fresh and simple,

Who have faith in God and Nature,

Who believe that in all ages

Every human heart is human,

That in even savage bosoms

There are longings, yearnings, strivings

For the good they comprehend not,

That the feeble hands and helpless,

Groping blindly in the darkness,

Touch God's right hand in that darkness

And are lifted up and strengthened;—

Listen to this simple story,

To this Song of Hiawatha!

Ye, who sometimes, in your rambles

Through the green lanes of the country,

Where the tangled barberry-bushes

Hang their tufts of crimson berries

Over stone walls gray with mosses,

Pause by some neglected graveyard,

For a while to muse, and ponder

On a half-effaced inscription,

Written with little skill of song-craft,

Homely phrases, but each letter

Full of hope and yet of heart-break,

Full of all the tender pathos

Of the Here and the Hereafter;—

Stay and read this rude inscription,

Read this Song of Hiawatha!

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On the Mountains of the Prairie,

On the great Red Pipe-stone Quarry,

Gitche Manito, the mighty,

He the Master of Life, descending,

On the red crags of the quarry

Stood erect, and called the nations,

Called the tribes of men together.

From his footprints flowed a river,

Leaped into the light of morning,

O'er the precipice plunging downward

Gleamed like Ishkoodah, the comet.

And the Spirit, stooping earthward,

With his finger on the meadow

Traced a winding pathway for it,

Saying to it, "Run in this way!"

From the red stone of the quarry

With his hand he broke a fragment,

Moulded it into a pipe-head,

Shaped and fashioned it with figures;

From the margin of the river

Took a long reed for a pipe-stem,

With its dark green leaves upon it;

Filled the pipe with bark of willow,

With the bark of the red willow;

Breathed upon the neighboring forest,

Made its great boughs chafe together,

Till in flame they burst and kindled;