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Should you ask me, whence these stories?
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Whence these legends and traditions,
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With the odors of the forest
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With the dew and damp of meadows,
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With the curling smoke of wigwams,
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With the rushing of great rivers,
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With their frequent repetitions,
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And their wild reverberations
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As of thunder in the mountains?
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I should answer, I should tell you,
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"From the forests and the prairies,
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From the great lakes of the Northland,
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From the land of the Ojibways,
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From the land of the Dacotahs,
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From the mountains, moors, and fen-lands
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Where the heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah,
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Feeds among the reeds and rushes.
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I repeat them as I heard them
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From the lips of Nawadaha,
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The musician, the sweet singer."
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Should you ask where Nawadaha
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Found these songs so wild and wayward,
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Found these legends and traditions,
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I should answer, I should tell you,
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"In the bird's-nests of the forest,
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In the lodges of the beaver,
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In the hoof-prints of the bison,
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In the eyry of the eagle!
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"All the wild-fowl sang them to him,
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In the moorlands and the fen-lands,
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In the melancholy marshes;
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Chetowaik, the plover, sang them,
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Mahng, the loon, the wild-goose, Wawa,
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The blue heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah,
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And the grouse, the Mushkodasa!"
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If still further you should ask me,
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Saying, "Who was Nawadaha?
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Tell us of this Nawadaha,"
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I should answer your inquiries
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Straightway in such words as follow.
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"In the vale of Tawasentha,
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In the green and silent valley,
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By the pleasant water-courses,
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Dwelt the singer Nawadaha.
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Round about the Indian village
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Spread the meadows and the corn-fields,
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And beyond them stood the forest,
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Stood the groves of singing pine-trees,
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Green in Summer, white in Winter,
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Ever sighing, ever singing.
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"And the pleasant water-courses,
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You could trace them through the valley,
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By the rushing in the Spring-time,
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By the alders in the Summer,
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By the white fog in the Autumn,
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By the black line in the Winter;
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And beside them dwelt the singer,
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In the vale of Tawasentha,
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In the green and silent valley.
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"There he sang of Hiawatha,
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Sang the Song of Hiawatha,
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Sang his wondrous birth and being,
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How he prayed and how be fasted,
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How he lived, and toiled, and suffered,
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That the tribes of men might prosper,
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That he might advance his people!"
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Ye who love the haunts of Nature,
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Love the sunshine of the meadow,
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Love the shadow of the forest,
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Love the wind among the branches,
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And the rain-shower and the snow-storm,
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And the rushing of great rivers
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Through their palisades of pine-trees,
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And the thunder in the mountains,
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Whose innumerable echoes
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Flap like eagles in their eyries;--
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Listen to these wild traditions,
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To this Song of Hiawatha!
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Ye who love a nation's legends,
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Love the ballads of a people,
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That like voices from afar off
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Call to us to pause and listen,
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Speak in tones so plain and childlike,
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Scarcely can the ear distinguish
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Whether they are sung or spoken;--
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Listen to this Indian Legend,
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To this Song of Hiawatha!
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Ye whose hearts are fresh and simple,
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Who have faith in God and Nature,
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Who believe that in all ages
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Every human heart is human,
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That in even savage bosoms
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There are longings, yearnings, strivings
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For the good they comprehend not,
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That the feeble hands and helpless,
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Groping blindly in the darkness,
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Touch God's right hand in that darkness
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And are lifted up and strengthened;--
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Listen to this simple story,
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To this Song of Hiawatha!
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Ye, who sometimes, in your rambles
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Through the green lanes of the country,
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Where the tangled barberry-bushes
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Hang their tufts of crimson berries
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Over stone walls gray with mosses,
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Pause by some neglected graveyard,
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For a while to muse, and ponder
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On a half-effaced inscription,
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Written with little skill of song-craft,
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Homely phrases, but each letter
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Full of hope and yet of heart-break,
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Full of all the tender pathos
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Of the Here and the Hereafter;--
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Stay and read this rude inscription,
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