The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow - Генри Уодсуорт Лонгфелло

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on its way,

      Blue skies, and silver clouds, and gentle winds,

      The swelling upland, where the sidelong sun

      Aslant the wooded slope, at evening, goes,

      Groves, through whose broken roof the sky looks in,

      Mountain, and shattered cliff, and sunny vale,

      The distant lake, fountains, and mighty trees,

      In many a lazy syllable, repeating

      Their old poetic legends to the wind.

       And this is the sweet spirit, that doth fill

      The world; and, in these wayward days of youth,

      My busy fancy oft embodies it,

      As a bright image of the light and beauty

      That dwell in nature; of the heavenly forms

      We worship in our dreams, and the soft hues

      That stain the wild bird's wing, and flush the clouds

      When the sun sets. Within her tender eye

      The heaven of April, with its changing light,

      And when it wears the blue of May, is hung,

      And on her lip the rich, red rose. Her hair

      Is like the summer tresses of the trees,

      When twilight makes them brown, and on her cheek

      Blushes the richness of an autumn sky,

      With ever-shifting beauty. Then her breath,

      It is so like the gentle air of Spring,

      As, front the morning's dewy flowers, it comes

      Full of their fragrance, that it is a joy

      To have it round us, and her silver voice

      Is the rich music of a summer bird,

      Heard in the still night, with its passionate cadence.

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      On sunny slope and beechen swell, The shadowed light of evening fell; And, where the maple's leaf was brown, With soft and silent lapse came down, The glory, that the wood receives, At sunset, in its golden leaves.

      Far upward in the mellow light Rose the blue hills. One cloud of white, Around a far uplifted cone, In the warm blush of evening shone; An image of the silver lakes, By which the Indian's soul awakes.

      But soon a funeral hymn was heard Where the soft breath of evening stirred The tall, gray forest; and a band Of stern in heart, and strong in hand, Came winding down beside the wave, To lay the red chief in his grave.

      They sang, that by his native bowers He stood, in the last moon of flowers, And thirty snows had not yet shed Their glory on the warrior's head; But, as the summer fruit decays, So died he in those naked days.

      A dark cloak of the roebuck's skin Covered the warrior, and within Its heavy folds the weapons, made For the hard toils of war, were laid; The cuirass, woven of plaited reeds, And the broad belt of shells and beads.

      Before, a dark-haired virgin train Chanted the death dirge of the slain; Behind, the long procession came Of hoary men and chiefs of fame, With heavy hearts, and eyes of grief, Leading the war-horse of their chief.

      Stripped of his proud and martial dress, Uncurbed, unreined, and riderless, With darting eye, and nostril spread, And heavy and impatient tread, He came; and oft that eye so proud Asked for his rider in the crowd.

      They buried the dark chief; they freed Beside the grave his battle steed; And swift an arrow cleaved its way To his stern heart! One piercing neigh Arose, and, on the dead man's plain, The rider grasps his steed again.

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      Ye voices, that arose After the Evening's close, And whispered to my restless heart repose!

      Go, breathe it in the ear Of all who doubt and fear, And say to them, "Be of good cheer!"

      Ye sounds, so low and calm, That in the groves of balm Seemed to me like an angel's psalm!

      Go, mingle yet once more With the perpetual roar Of the pine forest dark and hoar!

      Tongues of the dead, not lost But speaking from deaths frost, Like fiery tongues at Pentecost!

      Glimmer, as funeral lamps, Amid the chills and damps Of the vast plain where Death encamps!

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      "Speak! speak I thou fearful guest

       Who, with thy hollow breast

       Still in rude armor drest,

       Comest to daunt me!

       Wrapt not in Eastern balms,

       Bat with thy fleshless palms

       Stretched, as if asking alms,

       Why dost thou haunt me?"

      Then, from those cavernous eyes

      Pale flashes seemed to rise,

      As when the Northern skies

       Gleam in December;

      And, like the water's flow

      Under December's snow,

      Came a dull voice of woe

       From the heart's chamber.

      "I was a Viking old!

      My deeds, though manifold,

      No Skald in song has told,

       No Saga taught thee!

      Take heed, that in thy verse

      Thou dost the tale rehearse,

      Else dread a dead man's curse;

       For this I sought thee.

      "Far in the Northern Land,

      By the wild Baltic's strand,

      I, with my childish hand,

       Tamed the gerfalcon;

      And, with my skates fast-bound,

      Skimmed the half-frozen Sound,

       That the poor whimpering hound

      Trembled to walk on.

      "Oft to his frozen lair

      Tracked I the grisly bear,

      While from my path the hare

       Fled like a shadow;

      Oft through the forest dark

      Followed the were-wolf's bark,

      Until the soaring lark

       Sang from the meadow.

      "But

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