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With him dwelt his dark-eyed daughter,
Wayward as the Minnehaha,
With her moods of shade and sunshine,
Eyes that smiled and frowned alternate,
Feet as rapid as the river,
Tresses flowing like the water,
And as musical as laughter;
And he named her from the river,
From the waterfall he named her,
Minnehaha, Laughing Water.

Was it then for heads of arrows,
Arrow-heads of chalcedony,
Arrow-heads of flint and jasper,
That my Hiawatha halted
In the land of the Dacotahs?

Was it not to see the maiden,
See the face of Laughing Water
Peeping from behind the curtain,
Hear the rustling of her garments
From behind the waving curtain,
As one sees the Minnehaha
Gleaming, glancing through the branches,
As one hears the Laughing Water
From behind its screen of branches?

Who shall say what brains and visions
Fill the fiery thoughts of young men ?
Who shall say what dreams of beauty
Filled the heart of Hiawatha?
All he told to old Nokomis,
When he reached the lodge at sunset,
Was the meeting with his father,
Was his fight with Mudjekeewis;
Not a word he said of arrows,
Not a word of Laughing Water!"

Like a knight of the Old World, the hero of the New commences his career with penances-he fasts. This is national and appropriate. The carnivorous hunter must first learn the negative accomplishment-to do without his dinner. We cannot find fault with Hiawatha's performance in this respect. Nor does he seem weakened by the discipline-but he has got a lesson; and no sooner is he released from the inhospitable lodge he is self-confined in, and has proved himself incapable of breaking his parole with himself by lifting the latch of his own door, than he sets about making a canoe, with an eye to fishing. The canoe constructed, he essays an experimental trip, and finally addresses himself to the piscatorial art. But-as if to show how different the sporting adventures of uncivilised life are from those we have been accustomed to hear recounted in the Waltonian world-he has scarcely let down his line when the royal old sturgeon he has in his eye turns the tables on him, and swallows the sportsman instead of the bait! But Jonah was nothing to him; for whereas that prophet addressed him

VOL. XLVII.-NO. CCLXXVII.

self from within the fish to penitential observances with a view to escape, our patriarch of the West took the more decided course of belabouring the stomach and adjacent parts of the monster with his mittens, Minjekawun -succeeding in turning the former, and sending its owner staggering through the water. His escape was singular. The fish, after gasping and quivering awhile, found he had to deal with a thoroughly indigestible morsel, and resigned the contest, "drifting landward,

"Till he grated on the pebbles,
Till the listening Hiawatha
Heard him grate upon the margin,
Felt him strand upon the pebbles,
Knew that Nahma, King of Fishes,
Lay there dead upon the margin.

Then he heard a clang and flapping,
As of many wings assembling,
Heard a screaming and confusion,
As of birds of prey contending,
Saw a gleam of light above him,
Shining through the ribs of Nahma,
Saw the glittering eyes of sea-gulls,
Of Kayoshk, the sea-gulls, peering,
Gazing at him through the opening,
Heard them saying to each other,
"Tis our brother, Hiawatha !'

And he shouted from below them,
Cried exulting from the caverns:
'O ye sea-gulls! O my brothers!
I have slain the sturgeon, Nahma;
Make the rifts a little larger,
With your claws the openings widen,
Set me free from this dark prison,
And henceforward and for ever
Men shall speak of your achievements,
Calling you, Kayoshk, the sea-gulls,
Yes, Kayoshk, the Noble Scratchers!'

And the wild and clamorous sea-gulls
Toiled with beak and claws together,
Made the rifts and openings wider
In the mighty ribs of Nahma,
And from peril and from prison,
From the body of the sturgeon,
From the peril of the water,
Was released my Hiawatha."

But to follow the adventures of "our Hiawatha "would be to sing the "song" from beginning to end. Enough, that he wooed and won the arrow-maker's daughter, Minnehaha, Laughing Water-wooed her gracefully, in a few words

"Let your heart speak, Minnehaha !" was accepted in as few

"I will follow you, my husband!" The marriage feast-at which what remained of the sturgeon, Nahma, after

H

the gulls, was cooked and eaten-gave occasion meet to the gentle Chibiabos to "sing his song of love and longing;" to the handsome Pau-Puk-keewis to exhibit his feats of dancing, his head adorned with swan's-down plumes, his heels garnished with foxes' tails, a feather fan in one hand and a pipe in the other; and to Nokomis's friend, Iagoo, the marvellous story-teller, the boastful Iagoo, to outdo himself in "downeastern" tales. The banquet had an end, so had the singing, dancing, and even Iagoo's tales and the guests departed,

"Leaving Hiawatha happy

With the night and Minnehaha."

But shadows begin to descend on the page. The song strikes into a minor key. The flat third is introduced. The penumbra of the white man projects itself upon the page, and his uncomfortable presence is felt in those solitudes, before he has quitted the port of Palos. The sweet singer, Chibiabos, dies; Pau-Puk-keewis, the handsome Yenadizze, performs some mischievous pranks to the discomposure of Hiawatha, and has to be put an end to as a dangerous nuisance. Another friend of Hiawatha's, whom we have not alluded to, "the very strong man, Kwasind," comes to grief-the Pukwudjies, or Little People, stoning, or rather coning him to death with the fruit of the fir. In short, in that country, where neighbours are not too plenty, a considerable gap is made in the social circle of Hiawatha.

Misfortunes accumulate. We will not ask our reader's opinion of the simile which opens the chapter we have arrived at, for we can believe we address intelligent heads and tender hearts, and to such it can only speak one language

"Never stoops the soaring vulture

On his quarry in the desert,
On the sick or wounded bison,
But another vulture, watching
From his high aerial look-out,

Sees the downward plunge, and follows;
And a third pursues the second,
Coming from the invisible ether,
First a speck, and then a vulture,
Till the air is dark with pinions.

So disasters come not singly;
But as if they watched and waited,
Scanning one another's motions,
When the first descends, the others
Follow, follow, gathering flock-wise
Round their victim, sick and wounded,

First a shadow, then a sorrow, Till the air is dark with anguish."

Winter has arrived. Ghosts come, and crouch down in the wigwam of Nokomis, wherein Minnehaha one evening awaits the return of Hiawatha, There they crouch, and establish themselves, even after her lord's appearance, saying nothing, but doing much, seizing upon everything of the best, without leave or license, and making themselves horribly at home.

They are gone; but two yet more dreadful guests take their place

"As silent

As the ghosts were, and as gloomy,
Waited not to be invited,
Did not parley at the doorway,
Sat there without word of welcome
In the seat of Laughing Water;
Looked with haggard eyes and hollow
At the face of Laughing Water.

And the foremost said: 'Behold me!
I am Famine, Bukadawin!'
And the other said: Behold me!
I am Fever, Ahkosewin!'

And the lovely Minnehaha
Shuddered as they looked upon her,
Shuddered at the words they uttered,
Lay down on her bed in silence,
Hid her face, but made no answer;
Lay there trembling, freezing, burning
At the looks they cast upon ber,
At the fearful words they uttered.

Forth into the empty forest
Rushed the maddened Hiawatha,
In his heart was deadly sorrow,
In his face a stony firmness;
On his brow the sweat of anguish
Started, but it froze and fell not.

Wrapped in furs and armed for hunting,
With his mighty bow of ash-tree,
With his quiver full of arrows,
With his mittens, Minjekahwun,
Into the vast and vacant forest
On his snow-shoes strode he forward,
'Gitche Manito, the Mighty!
Cried he with his face uplifted
In that bitter hour of anguish,
'Give your children food, O father!
Give us food, or we must perish!
Give me food for Minnehaha,
For my dying Minnehaha !'

Through the far-resounding forest,
Through the forest vast and vacant
Rang that cry of desolation,
But there came no other answer
Than the echo of his crying,
Than the echo of the woodlands,
'Minnehaha! Minnehaha!'

All day long roved Hiawatha
In that melancholy forest,
Through the shadow of whose thickets,
In the pleasant days of Summer,
Of that ne'er forgotten Summer,

He had brought his young wife homeward
From the land of the Dacotahs;
When the birds sang in the thickets,

And the streamlets laughed and glistened,
And the air was full of fragrance,
And the lovely Laughing Water

Said with voice that did not tremble,

'I will follow you, my husband!'

In the wigwam with Nokomis,

With those gloomy guests, that watched her,
With the Famine and the Fever,
She was lying, the Beloved,
She the dying Minnehaha.

'Hark!' she said; 'I hear a rushing,
Hear a roaring and a rushing,
Hear the Falls of Minnehaha
Calling to me from a distance !'
'No, my child!' said old Nokomis,
"Tis the night-wind in the pine-trees!'
'Look!' she said; 'I see my father
Standing lonely at his doorway,
Beckoning to me from his wigwam
In the land of the Dacotahs!'
'No, my child!' said old Nokomis,

"Tis the smoke, that waves and beckons !'

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'Ah!' she said, the eyes of Pauguk Glare upon me in the darkness,

I can feel his icy fingers

Clasping mine amid the darkness!
Hiawatha! Hiawatha!'

And the desolate Hiawatha,
Far away amid the forest,
Miles away among the mountains,
Heard that sudden cry of anguish,
Heard the voice of Minnehaha
Calling to him in the darkness,
'Hiawatha! Hiawatha!'

Over snow-fields waste and pathless,
Under snow-encumbered branches,
Homeward hurried Hiawatha,
Empty-handed, heavy-hearted,
Heard Nokomis moaning, wailing:
'Wahonomin! Wahonomin!
Would that I had perished for you,
Would that I were dead as you are!
Wahonomin! Wahonomin!"

And he rushed into the wigwam,
Saw the old Nokomis slowly
Rocking to and fro and moaning,
Saw his lovely Minnehaha
Lying dead and cold before him."

The white man arrives-appears-astonishes the natives. The disconsolate Hiawatha alone is neither surprised nor disconcerted. He has seen him already in a vision, and by the vision foretells the secrets of the future, the scattering of the nations which have neglected his counsels and warred with and weakened each other, the westward sweep of the remnant of the people, into the wilderness and oblivion!

In the last scene "the Black-Robe Chief, the Prophet," has preached unto

the people, seated with others of his colour and creed, before the wigwam of their host, Hiawatha. He has

"Told his message to the people,
Told the purport of his mission,
Told them of the Virgin Mary,
And her blessed Son, the Saviour,
How in distant lands and ages
He had lived on earth as we do;
How he fasted, prayed, and laboured;
How the Jews, the tribe accursed,
Mocked him, scourged him, crucified him;
How he rose from where they laid him,
Walked again with his disciples,
And ascended into heaven."

The village population departed. Evening set in over the landscape, in its dusk and coolness

"And the long and level sunbeams
Shot their spears into the forest,
Breaking through its shields of shadow,
Rushed into each secret ambush,
Searched each thicket, dingle, hollow."

The guests of Hiawatha slept in the wigwam. Then did the solitary Chief announce to all but the white strangers who slumbered within, his final resolve

"I am going, O Nokomis,
On a long and distant journey,
To the portals of the Sunset,
To the regions of the home-wind,
Of the Northwest wind, Keewaydin.
But these guests I leave behind me,
In your watch and ward I leave them;
See that never harm comes near them,
See that never fear molests them,
Never danger nor suspicion,
Never want of food or shelter,
In the lodge of Hiawatha !'

Forth into the village went he,
Bade farewell to all the warriors,
Bade farewell to all the young men,
Spake persuading, spake in this wise:
'I am going, O my people,
On a long and distant journey;
Many moons and many winters
Will have come, and will have vanished,
Ere I come again to see you.
But my guests I leave behind me;
Listen to their words of wisdom,
Listen to the truth they tell you,
For the Master of Life has sent them
From the land of light and morning!'

On the shore stood Hiawatha, Turned and waved his hand at parting; On the clear and luminous water Launched his birch-canoe for sailing, From the pebbles of the margin Shoved it forth into the water; Whispered to it, Westward! westward!' And with speed it darted forward.

6

And the evening sun descending

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Set the clouds on fire with redness,
Burned the broad sky, like a prairie,
Left upon the level water

One long track and trail of splendour,
Down whose stream, as down a river,
Westward, westward Hiawatha
Sailed into the fiery sunset,
Sailed into the purple vapours,
Sailed into the dusk of evening.

And the people from the margin
Watched him floating, rising, sinking,
Till the birch-canoe seemed lifted
High into that sea of splendour,
Till it sank into the vapours,
Like the new moon slowly, slowly
Sinking in the purple distance.

And they said Farewell for ever!' Said, Farewell, O Hiawatha!'

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And the forests, dark and lonely,

Moved through all their depths of darkness,
Sighed, Farewell, O Hiawatha!'
And the waves upon the margin
Rising, rippling on the pebbles,
Sobbed, Farewell, O Hiawatha!"
And the heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah,
From her haunts among the fen-lands,
Screamed, Farewell, O Hiawatha!'
Thus departed Hiawatha,
Hiawatha the Beloved,
In the glory of the sunset,
In the purple mists of evening,
To the regions of the home-wind,
Of the Northwest wind Keewaydin,
To the Islands of the Blessed,
To the kingdom of Ponemah
To the land of the Hereafter !"

Some idea of the story, and its meaning, may be caught from this outline. Enough has been given, it is hoped, to justify our estimate of the performance, both as a specimen and as an earnest of our author's powers. That a bold plunge has been made into untrodden tracts, may be safely affirm. ed. That these regions teem with the productions of a virgin soil, there is as little reason to deny ;-that they present rather the promise of a return to further and future enterprise, than the substantial fruits of a full cultivation, the intelligent reader will, perhaps, have already discovered for himself. The adventurous woodsman at times presents but a sorry figure, as he stumbles over such roots as Kabibonokka, Kayoshik, "the noble scratchers," Nebanawbaigs, Megissogwon, from which he lamely delivers his readers by the expedient of a glossary; and can but provoke a laugh when the necessities of his verse force him upon the briars of such lines as

"I will put his smouldering fire out!" "Sought for bird or beast, and found none !"

Nor can he quarrel with us if we side with the

"Handsome men with belts of wampum, Handsome men with paint and feathers,”

who refuse to be affected to tears by the tenderness of the strain

"Ah, showain nemeshin, nosa!"

The game of bowl and counters puts harmony to the blush. Chibiabos could have made nothing of it. Nevertheless, Mr. Longfellow has

"Four round pieces, Ozawabeeks,

And three Sheshebwug or ducklings.
All were made of bone and painted,
All except the Ozawabeeks;
These were brass, on one side burnished,
And were black upon the other."

Why did not the poet himself take the hint conveyed in the following distich

"I can even give you lessons

On your game of bowl and counters !"

But enough of this fault-finding. Can it be fairly called so? The faults lie on the surface. They are few, but easily gathered; and invite the hand. We have caught them, in reaching for the beauties more thickly scattered. Had we leisure, we could bear away a tolerable armful of these. How sure are the lights of heaven to inspire the poet! He rises above himself whenever he looks at them.

"On the morrow and the next day, When the sun through heaven descendig, Like a red and burning cinder From the hearth of the Great Spirit, Fell into the western waters, Came Mondamin for the trial, For the strife with Hiawatha; Came as silent as the dew comes, From the empty air appearing, Into empty air returning, Taking shape when earth it touches, But invisible to all men

In its coming and its going."

And again :

"Fiercely the red sun descending Burned his way along the heavens, Set the sky on fire behind him, As war-parties, when retreating, Burn the prairies on their war-trail; And the moon, the Night-Sun, eastward, Suddenly starting from his ambush, Followed fast those bloody footprints, Followed in that fiery war-trail, With its glare upon his features.";

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"The black muffle of his nostrils."

The noble simile we have already quoted, in which the descent of disasters is compared to the gathering of birds of prey around their victim, may be cited as a specimen of Longfellow's best style. It would, indeed, do credit to any poem, and sparkles in this like a diamond upon a dusky brow.

All we have extracted, and all we have left behind, combine to prove how completely unimpaired are the powers of a genuine living poet; and likewise conspire to show how greatly

more remains to be done in the same field. Beauties now detached would then be continuous. Legend would underlie narrative, instead of overflowing it. Metrical effects would enhance the interest and pathos, which would call for more finished and less Finnish harmonies.

What scope there is for the genius of America upon her own soil! Let Longfellow, who has now established himself on the outskirts of all previous imaginative exploration in this direction, not content himself with reproducing the legends of the past, but repeople it. Look at Uncas, and Chingachgook, and Wah-ha-wah. These are real characters, only not historical, because all history has been lost. Will Mexico furnish him with no hu

man interest? Here were incidents unparalleled for poetical suggestiveness. Here were races possessing the elements of greatness, with distinctiveness of character enough to court the artist's hand. Does a Mexican nomenclature defy the conventionalities of rythm? Let him turn to Peru. The sorrow of Atahualpa might well draw forth the powers of the poet; or, if a real and massive foundation be necessary for the imaginative superstructure, let him follow in the track of Stephens, and penetrate into the thickets of Uxmal or Palenque, where the growth of oblivion has kept pace with that of vegetation, and strangled tradition, as that has grasped and wrenched the very pillars of the palaces of the past out of their sockets. Here is a middle ground, untrammelled by objections, and open to the peopling of the brain, where there will only be need to reintroduce at those lofty portals personages worthy of the ruins they must have constructed. Why, so rife has been the idea of a populous past in those mysterious parts, that a city has been imagined, discovered, entered, mapped down, and described in our own day - its very inhabitants produced before our eyes, and made to speak the tongue which baffles us upon the monoliths and entablatures of Copan! If imposture can do so much, what might not imagination achieve?

We

For our own part, we take upon ourselves to assign Longfellow his future function amid these scenes. forbid him, with friendly severity, all access to the Old World. We close

up

the Atlantic against him. Having high regard for his real fame, implicit faith in his powers, and a warm, brotherly interest in the progress and destiny of his country's literature, we would say to him-Abide where you are-build a wigwam where you have pitched a tent-settle yourself down where you have hunted-and make acquaintance with the men, as well as the myths, of primeval America.

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