Ring out the curfew of the sun. Elsie. Listen, beloved. They are done! Dear Elsie! many years ago He heard their sound with secret pain. Prince Henry. Thou knowest the story of her ring: How, when the Court went back to Aix, And the great monarch sat serene, be? Wilt thou so love me after death? Prince Henry. In life's delight, in death's dismay, In storm and sunshine, night and day, Elsie. See yonder fire! It is the moon And makes the heart in love with night. Prince Henry. Oft on this terrace, when the day Was closing, have I stood and gazed, But linger not. For while I speak, EPILOGUE. THE TWO RECORDING ANGELS ASCENDING. The Angel of Good Deeds (with closed book). God sent his messenger the rain, God sent his messenger of faith, O beauty of holiness, Of self-forgetfulness, of lowliness! power of meekness, Whose very gentleness and weakness Of the sealed volume that I bear, Is written in characters of gold With soft effulgence! O God! it is thy indulgence That fills the world with the bliss The Angel of Evil Deeds (with open Not yet, not yet Is the red sun wholly set, The Book of Evil Deeds, To let the breathings of the upper air Fainter and fainter as I gaze The glimmering landscape shines, Along the whitening surface of the paper; Shade after shade The terrible words grow faint and fade, Has escaped the dreadful sentence, With closed Book To God do I ascend. Lo! over the mountain steeps A blackness inwardly brightening As a storm-cloud lurid with lightning, Repeated and again repeated, As the reverberation Of cloud answering unto cloud, Lightning retreated, Baffled and thwarted by the wind's resistance. It is Lucifer, The son of mystery; And since God suffers him to be, He, too, is God's minister, THE SONG OF HIAWATHA. [THIS Indian Edda-if I may so call it-is founded on a tradition prevalent among the North American Indians, of a personage of miraculous birth, who was sent among them to clear their rivers, forests, and fishing-grounds, and to teach them the arts of peace. He was known among different tribes by the several names of Michabou, Chiabo, Manabozo, Tarenyawagon, and Hiawatha. Mr. Schoolcraft gives an account of him in his Algic Researches, Vol. I. p. 134; and in his History, Condition, and Prospects of the Indian Tribes of the United States, Part III. p. 314, may be found the Iroquois form of the tradition, derived from the verbal narrations of an Onondaga chief. Into this old tradition I have woven other curious Indian legends, drawn chiefly from the various and valuable writings of Mr. Schoolcraft, to whom the literary world is greatly indebted for his indefatigable zeal in rescuing from oblivion so much of the legendary lore of the Indians. The scene of the poem is among the Ojibways on the southern shore of Lake Superior, in the region between the Pictured Rocks and the Grand Sable.] Whence these legends and traditions, 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 fenlands, Where the heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah, Should you ask where Nawadaha Found these songs, so wild and wayward, Found these legends and traditions, "All the wild-fowl sang them to him, In the moorlands and the fenlands, 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, Ye who love the haunts of Nature, storm, And the rushing of great rivers Ye who love a nation's legends, 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 dark ness And are lifted up and strengthened ;Listen to this simple story, This valley, now called Norman's Kill, is in Albany County, New York. 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! I. THE PEACE-PIPE. On the Mountains of the Prairie, (14) From his footprints flowed a river, 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 neighbouring forest, Made its great boughs chafe together, Till in flame they burst and kindled; And erect upon the mountains, Gitche Manito, the mighty, Smoked the calumet, the Peace-Pipe, As a signal to the nations. And the smoke rose slowly, slowly, Through the tranquil air of morning, First a single line of darkness,! And the Prophets of the nations Down the rivers, o'er the prairies, Came the warriors of the nations, Came the Delawares and Mohawks, Came the Choctaws and Camanches, Came the Shoshonies and Blackfeet, Came the Pawnees and Omawhaws, Came the Mandans and Dacotahs, Came the Hurons and Ojibways, All the warriors drawn together By the signal of the Peace-Pipe, To the Mountains of the Prairie, To the great Red Pipe-stone Quarry. And they stood there on the meadow, With their weapons and their war-gear, Painted like the leaves of Autumn, Painted like the sky of morning, Wildly glaring at each other; In their faces stern defiance, In their hearts the feuds of ages, The hereditary hatred, The ancestral thirst of vengeance. Gitche Manito, the Mighty, The creator of the nations, Looked upon them with compassion, With paternal love and pity; Looked upon their wrath and wrangling But as quarrels among children, But as feuds and fights of children! Over them he stretched his right hand, To subdue their stubborn natures, To allay, their thirst and fever, "I am weary of your quarrels, "I will send a Prophet to you, A Deliverer of the nations, Who shall guide you and shall teach you, Who shall toil and suffer with you. If you listen to his counsels, You will multiply and prosper; If his warnings pass unheeded, You will fade away and perish! "Bathe now in the stream before you, Wash the war-paint from your faces, Wash the blood-stains from your fingers, Bury your war-clubs and your weapons, Break the red stone from this quarry, Mould and make it into Peace-Pipes, Take the reeds that grow beside you, Deck them with your brightest feathers, Smoke the calumet together. And as brothers live henceforward!" Then upon the ground the warriors Threw their cloaks and shirts of deerskin, Threw their weapons and their wargear, Leaped into the rushing river, Clear and limpid from the footprints As if blood were mingled with it! On the banks their clubs they buried, And in silence all the warriors Broke the long reeds by the river, Decked them with their brightest feathers, And departed each one homeward, "HONOUR be to Mudjekeewis!" He had stolen the belt of Wampum, |