Prince Henry. Oft on this terrace, when the day
Was closing, have I stood and gazed,
And seen the landscape fade away,
And the white vapours rise and drown
Hamlet and vineyard, tower and town,
While far above the hill-tops blazed.
But then another hand than thine
Was gently held and clasped in mine;
Another head upon my breast
Was laid, as thine is now, at rest.
Why dost thou lift those tender eyes
With so much sorrow and surprise?
A minstrel's, not a maiden's hand,
Was that which in my own was pressed.
A manly form usurped thy place,
A beautiful, but bearded face
That now is in the Holy Land,
Yet in my memory from afar
Is shining on us like a star.
But linger not. For while I speak,
A sheeted spectre, white and tall,
The cold mist climbs the castle wall,
And lays his hand upon thy cheek!
(They go in.)

EPILOGUE.

THE TWO RECORDING ANGELS ASCENDING.

The Angel of Good Deeds (with closed book).
God sent his messenger the rain,

And said unto the mountain brook,
"Rise up, and from thy caverns look,

And leap, with naked, snow-white feet,
From the cool hills into the heat,

Of the broad, arid plain."

God sent his messenger of faith,

And whispered in the maiden's heart,

"Rise up, and look from where thou art, And scatter with unselfish hands

Thy freshness on the barren sands

And solitudes of Death."

O beauty of holiness,

Of self-forgetfulness, of lowliness!

O power of meekness,

Whose very gentleness and weakness

Are like the yielding, but irresistible air!

Upon the pages

Of the sealed volume that I bear,

The deed divine

Is written in characters of gold

That never shall grow old,

But through all ages
Burn and shine

With soft effulgence!

O God! it is thy indulgence

That fills the world with the bliss
Of a good deed like this.

The Angel of Evil Deeds (with open book).
Not yet, not yet

Is the red sun wholly set,

But evermore recedes,

While open still I bear

The Book of Evil Deeds,

To let the breathings of the upper air
Visit its pages and erase

The records from its face!
Fainter and fainter as I gaze
In the broad blaze

The glimmering landscape shines,
And below me the black river
Is hidden by wreaths of vapour!
Fainter and fainter the black lines

Lo! over the mountain steeps

A dark, gigantic shadow sweeps

Beneath my feet;

A blackness inwardly brightening

With sullen heat,

As a storm-cloud lurid with lightning,

And a cry of lamentation,

Repeated and again repeated

Deep and loud

As the reverberation

Of cloud answering unto cloud,

Swells and rolls away in the distance,

As if the sheeted

Lightning retreated,

Baffled and thwarted by the wind's resistance.

THIS Indian Edda-if I may so call it-is founded on a tradition prevalent among the North American Indians, of a personage of miraculous birth, who was sent among them to clear their rivers, forests, and fishing-grounds, and to teach them the arts of peace. He was known among different tribes by the several names of Michabou, Chiabo, Manabozo, Tarenyawagon, and Hiawatha. Mr Schoolcraft gives an account of him in his Algic Researches, vol. i. p. 134: and in his History, Condition, and Prospects of the Indian Tribes of the United States, Part iii. p. 314, may be found the Iroquois form of the tradition, derived from the verbal narrations of an Onondaga chief.

Into this old tradition I have woven other curious Indian legends, drawn chiefly from the various and valuable writings of Mr Schoolcraft, to whom the literary world is greatly indebted for his indefatigable zeal in rescuing from oblivion so much of the legendary lore of the Indians.

The scene of the poem is among the Ojibways on the southern shore of Lake Superior, in the region between the Pictured Rocks and the Grand Sable.

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,
With 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?

I 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,

From the mountains, moors, and fenlands,

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."

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 birds' nests of the forests,

In the lodges of the beaver,

In the hoof-prints of the bison,

In the eyrie of the eagle!

"All the wild-fowl sang them to him,
In the moorlands and the fenlands,
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!"
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.
"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

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.

"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,
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,
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,
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,
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

* This valley, now called Norman's Kill, is in Albany County, New York.