Выбрать главу

The Song of Hiawatha

Henry W. Longfellow

Introduction

Should you ask me, whence these stories?Whence these legends and traditions,With the odors of the forestWith 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 reverberationsAs 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-landsWhere the heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah,Feeds among the reeds and rushes.I repeat them as I heard themFrom the lips of Nawadaha,The musician, the sweet singer."
Should you ask where NawadahaFound 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 hoofprint 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 inquiriesStraightway 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 villageSpread 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 be 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 riversThrough their palisades of pine-trees,And the thunder in the mountains,Whose innumerable echoesFlap 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 offCall to us to pause and listen,Speak in tones so plain and childlike,Scarcely can the ear distinguishWhether 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 agesEvery human heart is human,That in even savage bosomsThere are longings, yearnings, strivingsFor the good they comprehend not,That the feeble hands and helpless,Groping blindly in the darkness,Touch God's right hand in that darknessAnd are lifted up and strengthened;Listen to this simple story,To this Song of Hiawatha!
Ye, who sometimes, in your ramblesThrough the green lanes of the country,Where the tangled barberry-bushesHang their tufts of crimson berriesOver stone walls gray with mosses,Pause by some neglected graveyard,For a while to muse, and ponderOn a half-effaced inscription,Written with little skill of song-craft,Homely phrases, but each letterFull of hope and yet of heart-break,Full of all the tender pathosOf 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,On the great Red Pipe-stone Quarry,Gitche Manito, the mighty,He the Master of Life, descending,On the red crags of the quarryStood 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 downwardGleamed like Ishkoodah, the comet.And the Spirit, stooping earthward,With his finger on the meadowTraced a winding pathway for it,Saying to it, "Run in this way!"
From the red stone of the quarryWith his hand he broke a fragment,Moulded it into a pipe-head,Shaped and fashioned it with figures;From the margin of the riverTook 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;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,Then a denser, bluer vapor,Then a snow-white cloud unfolding,Like the tree-tops of the forest,Ever rising, rising, rising,Till it touched the top of heaven,Till it broke against the heaven,And rolled outward all around it.
From the Vale of Tawasentha,From the Valley of Wyoming,From the groves of Tuscaloosa,From the far-off Rocky Mountains,From the Northern lakes and riversAll the tribes beheld the signal,Saw the distant smoke ascending,The Pukwana of the Peace-Pipe.
And the Prophets of the nationsSaid: "Behold it, the Pukwana!By the signal of the Peace-Pipe,Bending like a wand of willow,Waving like a hand that beckons,Gitche Manito, the mighty,Calls the tribes of men together,Calls the warriors to his council!"
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 Omahas,
Came the Mandans and Dacotahs,Came the Hurons and Ojibways,All the warriors drawn togetherBy 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 stem 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 wranglingBut as quarrels among children,But as feuds and fights of children!