From “The Song of Hiawatha”
Prologue
Should you ask me, whence these stories?
Whence these legends and traditions,
With the odours of the forest,
With the dew and damp of meadows,
5With 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?
10I 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, (1)
15From the mountains, moors, and fenlands, (2)
Where the heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah, (3)
Feeds among the reeds and rushes.
I repeat them as I heard them
From the lips of Nawadaha,
20The musician, the sweet singer.’
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,
25And the rain-shower and the snowstorm,
And the rushing of great rivers
Through their palisades (4) of pine-trees,
And the thunder in the mountains,
Whose innumerable echoes
30Flap like eagles in their eyries; (5)
Listen to these wild traditions,
To this Song of Hiawatha!
Ye who love a nation’s legends,
Love the ballads of a people,
35That 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!
The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls
By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The tide rises, the tide falls.
The twilight darkens, the curlew (1) calls;
Along the sea sands damp and brown
The traveler hastens toward the town,
5And the tide rises, the tide falls.
Darkness settles on roofs and walls,
But the sea, the sea in the darkness calls:
The little waves, with their soft, white hands,
Efface the footprints in the sands,
10And the tide rises, the tide falls.
The morning breaks; the steeds in their stalls
Stamp and neigh, as the hostler (2) calls:
The day returns, but nevermore
Returns the traveler to the shore,
15 And the tide rises, the tide falls.
Thanatopsis
By William Cullen Bryant
To him who in the love of Nature holds
Communion (1) with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language; for his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
5 And eloquence of beauty, and she glides
Into his darker musings, with a mild
And healing sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness, ere (2) he is aware. When thoughts
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight
10Over thy spirit, and sad images
Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house, (3)
Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart—
Go forth, under the open sky, and list
15To Nature’s teachings, while from all around—
Earth and her waters, and the depths of air—
Comes a still voice—Yet a few days, and thee
The all-beholding sun shall see no more
In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground,
20Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears,
Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist
Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim
Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again,
And, lost each human trace, surrendering up
25Thine individual being, shalt thou go
To mix forever with the elements,
To be a brother to the insensible rock
And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain
Turns with his share, (4) and treads upon. The oak
30Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mold.
Yet not to thine eternal resting place
Shalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish
Couch (5) more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down
With patriarchs of the infant world—with kings,
35The powerful of the earth—the wise, the good,
Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past,
All in one mighty sepulcher. (6) The hills
Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun—the vales
Stretching in pensive quietness between;
40The venerable woods—rivers that move
In majesty, and the complaining brooks
That make the meadows green; and, poured round all,
ld Ocean’s gray and melancholy waste—
Are but the solemn decorations all
45Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun,
The planets, all the infinite host of heaven,
Are shining on the sad abodes of death,
Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread
The globe are but a handful to the tribes
50That slumber in its bosom. Take the wings
Of morning, (7) pierce the Barcan (8) wilderness,
Or lose thyself in the continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregon, (9) and hears no sound,
Save his own dashings—yet the dead are there:
55And millions in those solitudes, since first
The flight of years began, have laid them down
In their last sleep—the dead reign there alone.
So shalt thou rest, and what if thou withdraw
In silence from the living, and no friend
60Take note of thy departure? All that breathe
Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh
When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care
Plod on, and each one as before will chase
His favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave
65Their mirth and their employments, and shall come
And make their bed with thee. As the long train
Of ages glide away, the sons of men,
The youth in life’s green spring, and he who goes
In the full strength of years, matron and maid,
70The speechless babe, and the gray-headed man—
Shall one by one be gathered to thy side,
By those, who in their turn shall follow them.
So live, that when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan, which moves
75To that mysterious realm, where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,
Scourged (10) to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave,
80Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.