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| 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, | 5 |
| 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, | 10 |
| “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 | 15 |
| 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.” | 20 |
| 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, | 25 |
| 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, | 30 |
| 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!” | 35 |
| 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. | 40 |
| “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 | 45 |
| 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. | 50 |
| “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, | 55 |
| 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, | 60 |
| 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, | 65 |
| 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, | 70 |
| 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 | 75 |
| 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, | 80 |
| 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;— | 85 |
| 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 | 90 |
| 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, | 95 |
| 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, | |
| To this Song of Hiawatha! | 100 |
| 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, | 105 |
| 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 | 110 |
| 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! | 115 |
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