Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The Song of Hiawatha
In the entire history of American poetry, Longfellow's Hiawatha is unique in the equal favor it has found with the critics and with the public. At its first publication, nearly half a century ago, it was hailed by the best critics, not only in this country but in Europe, as the finest work of its author, and, in the phrase of one, ' the most considerable poem that has appeared for some years in the English tongue,' and this when the great Victorian group was in its prime. Its popular reception was even more remarkable, more than fifty thousand copies being sold in the first two years, while since then its readers have reached well into the millions. It has become one of the best-loved poems in the language, one of the imaginative treasures of the English race.
This new popular edition, illustrated by three artists famous for their success in dealing with Indian characters and scenes, Messrs. Frederic Remington, N. C. Wyeth, and Maxfield Parrish, will, it is to be hoped, find favor with readers new and old.
4 Park Street, Boston September, 1911
INTRODUCTION
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, Bead this Song of Hiawatha!
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
