The Song of Hiawatha   ::   Longfellow Henry Wadsworth

"

Then the figure seated, singing,

Playing on a drum of magic,

And the interpretation, "Listen!

`T Is my voice you hear, my singing!"

Then the same red figure seated

In the shelter of a wigwam,

And the meaning of the symbol,

"I will come and sit beside you

In the mystery of my passion!"

Then two figures, man and woman,

Standing hand in hand together

With their hands so clasped together

That they seemed in one united,

And the words thus represented

Are, "I see your heart within you,

And your cheeks are red with blushes!"

Next the maiden on an island,

In the centre of an Island;

And the song this shape suggested

Was, "Though you were at a distance,

Were upon some far-off island,

Such the spell I cast upon you,

Such the magic power of passion,

I could straightway draw you to me!"

Then the figure of the maiden

Sleeping, and the lover near her,

Whispering to her in her slumbers,

Saying, "Though you were far from me

In the land of Sleep and Silence,

Still the voice of love would reach you!"

And the last of all the figures

Was a heart within a circle,

Drawn within a magic circle;

And the image had this meaning:

"Naked lies your heart before me,

To your naked heart I whisper!"

Thus it was that Hiawatha,

In his wisdom, taught the people

All the mysteries of painting,

All the art of Picture-Writing,

On the smooth bark of the birch-tree,

On the white skin of the reindeer,

On the grave-posts of the village.



XV

Hiawatha's Lamentation

In those days the Evil Spirits,

All the Manitos of mischief,

Fearing Hiawatha's wisdom,

And his love for Chibiabos,

Jealous of their faithful friendship,

And their noble words and actions,

Made at length a league against them,

To molest them and destroy them.

Hiawatha, wise and wary,

Often said to Chibiabos,

"O my brother! do not leave me,

Lest the Evil Spirits harm you!"

Chibiabos, young and heedless,

Laughing shook his coal-black tresses,

Answered ever sweet and childlike,

"Do not fear for me, O brother!

Harm and evil come not near me!"

Once when Peboan, the Winter,

Roofed with ice the Big-Sea-Water,

When the snow-flakes, whirling downward,

Hissed among the withered oak-leaves,

Changed the pine-trees into wigwams,

Covered all the earth with silence,

Armed with arrows, shod with snow-shoes,

Heeding not his brother's warning,

Fearing not the Evil Spirits,

Forth to hunt the deer with antlers

All alone went Chibiabos.

Right across the Big-Sea-Water

Sprang with speed the deer before him.

With the wind and snow he followed,

O'er the treacherous ice he followed,

Wild with all the fierce commotion

And the rapture of the hunting.

But beneath, the Evil Spirits

Lay in ambush, waiting for him,

Broke the treacherous ice beneath him,

Dragged him downward to the bottom,

Buried in the sand his body.

Unktahee, the god of water,

He the god of the Dacotahs,

Drowned him in the deep abysses

Of the lake of Gitche Gumee.