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. 
  And the evening sun descending
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 splendor,
Down whose stream, as down a river,
Westward, westward Hiawatha
Sailed into the fiery sunset,
Sailed into the purple vapors,
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 splendor,
Till it sank into the vapors
Like the new moon slowly, slowly
Sinking in the purple distance. 
  And they said, “Farewell forever!”
Said, “Farewell, O Hiawatha!”
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!

NOTES THE SONG OF HIAWATHA.

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.