The Song of Hiawatha   ::   Longfellow Henry Wadsworth

Still the hunter sees its traces

Scattered far o'er hill and valley;

Sees the giant bulrush growing

By the ponds and water-courses,

Sees the masses of the Wawbeek

Lying still in every valley.

Homeward now went Hiawatha;

Pleasant was the landscape round him,

Pleasant was the air above him,

For the bitterness of anger

Had departed wholly from him,

From his brain the thought of vengeance,

From his heart the burning fever.

Only once his pace he slackened,

Only once he paused or halted,

Paused to purchase heads of arrows

Of the ancient Arrow-maker,

In the land of the Dacotahs,

Where the Falls of Minnehaha

Flash and gleam among the oak-trees,

Laugh and leap into the valley.

There the ancient Arrow-maker

Made his arrow-heads of sandstone,

Arrow-heads of chalcedony,

Arrow-heads of flint and jasper,

Smoothed and sharpened at the edges,

Hard and polished, keen and costly.

With him dwelt his dark-eyed daughter,

Wayward as the Minnehaha,

With her moods of shade and sunshine,

Eyes that smiled and frowned alternate,

Feet as rapid as the river,

Tresses flowing like the water,

And as musical a laughter:

And he named her from the river,

From the water-fall he named her,

Minnehaha, Laughing Water.

Was it then for heads of arrows,

Arrow-heads of chalcedony,

Arrow-heads of flint and jasper,

That my Hiawatha halted

In the land of the Dacotahs?

Was it not to see the maiden,

See the face of Laughing Water

Peeping from behind the curtain,

Hear the rustling of her garments

From behind the waving curtain,

As one sees the Minnehaha

Gleaming, glancing through the branches,

As one hears the Laughing Water

From behind its screen of branches?

Who shall say what thoughts and visions

Fill the fiery brains of young men?

Who shall say what dreams of beauty

Filled the heart of Hiawatha?

All he told to old Nokomis,

When he reached the lodge at sunset,

Was the meeting with his father,

Was his fight with Mudjekeewis;

Not a word he said of arrows,

Not a word of Laughing Water.