Broader than the Gitche Gumee,
Bitter so that none could drink it!
At each other looked the warriors,
Looked the women at each other,
Smiled, and said, "It cannot be so!
Kaw!" they said, "it cannot be so!"
O'er it, said he, o'er this water
Came a great canoe with pinions,
A canoe with wings came flying,
Bigger than a grove of pine-trees,
Taller than the tallest tree-tops!
And the old men and the women
Looked and tittered at each other;
"Kaw!" they said, "we don't believe it."
From its mouth, he said, to greet him,
Came Waywassimo, the lightning,
Came the thunder, Annemeekee!
And the warriors and the women
Laughed aloud at poor Iagoo;
"Kaw!" they said, "what tales you tell us!"
In it, said he, came a people,
In the great canoe with pinions
Came, he said, a hundred warriors;
Painted white were all their faces,
And with hair their chins were cover'd!
And the warriors and the women
Laughed and shouted in derision,
Like the ravens on the tree-tops,
Like the crows upon the hemlock.
"Kaw!" they said, "what lies you tell us!
Do not think that we believe them!"
Only Hiawatha laughed not,
But he gravely spake and answer'd
To their jeering and their jesting:
"True is all Iagoo tells us;
I have seen it in a vision,
Seen the great canoe with pinions,
Seen the people with white faces,
Seen the coming of this bearded
People of the wooden vessel
From the regions of the morning,
From the shining land of Wabun.
"Gitche Manito the mighty,
The Great Spirit, the Creator,
Sends them hither on his errand,
Sends them to us with his message.
Wheresoe'er they move, before them
Swarms the stinging fly, the Ahmo,
Swarms the bee, the honey-maker;
Wheresoe'er they tread, beneath them
Springs a flower unknown among us,
Springs the White-man's Foot in blossom.
"Let us welcome, then, the strangers,
Hail them as our friends and brothers,
And the heart's right hand of friendship
Give them when they come to see us.
Gitche Manito, the Mighty,
Said this to me in my vision.
"I beheld, too, in that vision
All the secrets of the future,
Of the distant days that shall be.
I beheld the westward marches
Of the unknown, crowded nations.
All the land was full of people,
Restless, struggling, toiling, striving,
Speaking many tongues, yet feeling
But one heart-beat in their bosoms.
In the woodlands rang
their axes,
Smoked their towns in all the valleys,
Over all the lakes and rivers
Rushed their great canoes of thunder.
"Then a darker, drearier vision,
Passed before me, vague and cloud-like;
I beheld our nations scatter'd,
All forgetful of my counsels,
Weaken'd, warring with each other;
Saw the remnants of our people
Sweeping westward, wild and woeful,
Like the cloud-rack of a tempest,
Like the wither'd leaves of autumn!"
By Miss LANDON (L. E. L.) Crofton Croker gives this account of it: "I furnished her some years since (1835) with a literal translation of this ballad, and a few days afterwards, that accomplished and lamented lady sent me the following versification of it, which I cannot say in its translation from the Irish into English has lost any of its original merit.” He sleeps within his lonely grave
There sweeps the wind-there swells the wave-
All other sounds are still.
And strange and mournfully sound they ;
Each seems a funeral cry,
O'er life that long has past away,
O'er ages long gone by.
One winged minstrel's left to sing
O'er him who lies beneath-
The humming bee, that seeks, in spring,
Its honey from the heath.
It is the sole familiar sound
That ever rises there;
For silent is the haunted ground,
And silent is the air.
There never comes the merry bird,
There never bounds the deer,
But during night strange sounds are heard,
The day may never hear:
For there the shrouded Banshee stands,
Scarce seen amid the gloom,
And wrings her dim and shadowy hands,
And chants her song of doom.
Seven pillars, grey with time and moss,
On dark Sleive Monard meet;
They stand to tell a nation's loss-
A king is at their feet.
A lofty mount denotes the place
Where sleep in slumber cold
The mighty of a mighty race-
The giant kings of old.
There Gollah sleeps-the golden band
About his head is bound;
His javelin in his red right hand,
His feet upon his hound.
And twice three golden rings are placed
Upon that hand of fear;
The smallest would go round the waist
Of any maiden here.
And plates of gold are on his breast,
And gold doth bind him round;
A king, he taketh kingly rest
Beneath that royal mound.
But wealth no more the mountain fills,
As in the days of yore:
Gone are those days; the wave distils
Its liquid gold no more.
The days of yore-still let my harp
Their memories repeat-
The days when every sword was sharp,
And every song was sweet:
The warrior slumbers on the hill,
The stranger rules the plain;
Glory and gold are gone; but still
They live in song again.
We take these from The Criterion, an American Literary Journal of
"LIKE music softly come and go,
Ye sighing summer days:
On the darkest moment life may know,
This torch shall cast a rosy glow
And starry blaze."
So sang Love when life was fair,
Waving his torch on the idle air.
"O why should man or woman weep!"
Still singing thro' the night-
But Time came on the silence deep,
And his wide wing with windy sweep
Blew out the light.
"In darkness now are all bright things,
O I forgot that Time had wings!"
From Christian Ballads, by ARTHUR CLEVELAND CONE, Rector of Grace Church, Baltimore.
I LOVE the Church-the holy Church,
The Saviour's spotless bride;
And, oh! I love her palaces
Through all the land so wide!
The cross-topped spire amid the trees,
The holy bell of prayer;
The music of our Mother's voice,
Our Mother's home is there.
The village tower-'tis joy to me:
the Lord is here!
The village bells-they fill my soul:
They more than fill mine ear!
O'er kingdoms to the Saviour won,
Their triumph-peal is hurl'd;
Their sound is now in all the earth,
Their words throughout the world.
And here-eternal ocean cross'd,
And long, long ages, past,
In climes beyond the setting sun,
They preach the Lord at last;
And here, Redeemer, are Thy priests
Unbroken in array,
Far from Thine Holy Sepulchre,
And Thine Ascension-day!
Unbroken in their lineage:
Their warrants clear as when
Thou, Saviour, didst go up on high,
And give good gifts to men;
Here, clothed in innocence they stand,
To shed thy mercy wide,
Baptising to the Trinal Name,
With waters from Thy side.
And here-confessors of Thy cross,
Thine holy orders three,
The bishop, and the elders too,
And lowly deacons be;
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