Poems for a Wedding

Amongst the rest, one pest'lent fine(His beard no bigger, though, than thine)Walked on before the rest;Our landlord looks like nothing to him;The king (God bless him!) 'twould undo himShould he go still so drest.

At Course-a-park, without all doubt,He should have first been taken outBy all the maids i' th' town:Though lusty Roger there had been,Or little George upon the green,Or Vincent of the Crown.

But wot you what? The youth was goingTo make an end of all his wooing;The parson for him staid:Yet by his leave (for all his haste),He did not so much wish all past,(Perchance) as did the maid.

The maid (and thereby hangs a tale)For such a maid no Whitsun-aleCould ever yet produce:No grape that's kindly ripe, could beSo round, so plump, so soft, as she,Nor half so full of juice.

Her finger was so small, the ringWould not stay on which they did bring;It was too wide a peck:And to say truth (for out it must)It looked like the great collar (just)About our young colt's neck.

Her feet beneath her petticoatLike little mice stole in and out,As if they feared the light:But oh, she dances such a way!No sun upon an Easter-dayIs half so fine a sight.

Her cheeks so rare a white was on,No daisy makes comparison;Who sees them is undone;For streaks of red were mingled there,Such as are on a Cath'rine pear,The side that's next the sun.

Her lips were red; and one was thinCompared to that was next her chin(Some bee had stung it newly);But, Dick, her eyes so guard her face,I durst no more upon them gaze,Than on the sun in July.

Her mouth so small, when she does speak,Thou'dst swear her teeth her words did break,That they might passage get;But she so handled still the matter,They came as good as ours, or better,And are not spent a whit.

Passion o' me! how I run on!There's that that would be thought upon,I trow, besides the bride:The business of the kitchen's great,For it is fit that men should eat;Nor was it there denied.

Just in the nick the cook knocked thrice,And all the waiters in a triceHis summons did obey;Each serving-man, with dish in hand,Marched boldly up, like our trained-band,Presented and away.

When all the meat was on the table,What man of knife, or teeth, was ableTo stay to be intreated?And this the very reason was,Before the parson could say grace,The company was seated.

Now hats fly off, and youths carouse;Healths first go round, and then the house,The bride's come thick and thick;And when 'twas named another's health,Perhaps he made it hers by stealth,(And who could help it, Dick?)

O' th' sudden up they rise and dance;Then sit again, and sigh, and glance;Then dance again, and kiss.Thus sev'ral ways the time did pass,Till ev'ry woman wished her place,And ev'ry man wished his.

By this time all were stol'n asideTo counsel and undress the bride;But that he must not know:But yet 'twas thought he guessed her mind,And did not mean to stay behindAbove an hour or so.

Your offer, kind shepherd, is civil, I own;But I see no great danger in going alone;Nor yet can I hinder, the road being freeFor one as another, for you as for me.

No danger in going alone, it is true,But yet a companion is pleasanter, too;And if you could like - (now the swain he took heart) -Such a sweetheart as me, why we never would part.O that's a long word, said the shepherdess then,I've often heard say there's no minding you men.You'll say and unsay, and you'll flatter, 'tis true!Then to leave a young maiden's the first thing you do.

O judge not so harshly, the shepherd replied,To prove what I say, I will make you my bride.To-morrow the parson - (well-said, little swain!) -Shall join both our hands, and make one of us twain.Then what the nymph answered to this isn't said,The very next morn, to be sure, they were wed.Sing hey-diddle, - ho-diddle, - hey-diddle-down, -Now when shall we see such a wedding in town?

Blest was the sun of joy that shone,Nor less the blinding shower;The bud of fifty years agoneIs love's perfected flower.

O memory, ope thy mystic door;O dream of youth, return;And let the light that gleamed of yoreBeside this altar burn.The past is plain; 'twas love designedE'en sorrow's iron chain;And, mercy's shining thread has twinedWith the dark warp of pain.

So be it still. O Thou who hastThat younger bridal blest,Till the May-morn of love has passedTo evening's golden west;Come to this later Cana, Lord,And, at thy touch divine,The water of that earlier boardTo-night shall turn to wine.

Yes, from their door by Mill-tail-Shallow,And up Styles-Lane, and by Front-Street houses,Where stood maids, bachelors, and spouses,Who cheered the songs that we knew how to play.

I bowed the treble before her father,Michael the tenor in front of the lady,The bass-viol Reub—and right well played he!—The serpent Jim; ay, to church and back.

I thought the bridegroom was flurried rather,As we kept up the tune outside the chancel,While they were swearing things none can cancelInside the walls to our drumstick’s whack.

“Too gay!” she pleaded. “Clouds may gather,And sorrow come.” But she gave in, laughing,And by supper-time when we’d got to the quaffingHer fears were forgot, and her smiles weren’t slack.

A grand wedding ’twas! And what would followWe never thought. Or that we should have buried herOn the same day with the man that married her,A day like the first, half hazy, half clear.

Yes: little fogs were in every hollow,Though the purple hillocks enjoyed fine weather,When we went to play ’em to church together,And carried ’em there in an after year.

Sumptuous was the feast NokomisMade at Hiawatha’s wedding;All the bowls were made of bass-wood,White and polished very smoothly,All the spoons of horn of bison,Black and polished very smoothly.

She had sent through all the villageMessengers with wands of willow,As a sign of invitation,As a token of the feasting;And the wedding guests assembled,Clad in all their richest raiment,Robes of fur and belts of wampum,Splendid with their paint and plumage,Beautiful with beads and tassels.

First they ate the sturgeon, Nahma,And the pike, the Maskenozha,Caught and cooked by old Nokomis;Then on pemican they feasted,Pemican and buffalo marrow,Haunch of deer and hump of bison,Yellow cakes of the Mondamin,And the wild rice of the river.

But the gracious Hiawatha,And the lovely Laughing Water,And the careful old Nokomis,Tasted not the food before them,Only waited on the othersOnly served their guests in silence.

And when all the guests had finished,Old Nokomis, brisk and busy,From an ample pouch of otter,Filled the red-stone pipes for smokingWith tobacco from the South-land,Mixed with bark of the red willow,And with herbs and leaves of fragrance.

Then she said, “O Pau-Puk-Keewis,Dance for us your merry dances,Dance the Beggar’s Dance to please us,That the feast may be more joyous,That the time may pass more gayly,And our guests be more contented!”

Then the handsome Pau-Puk-Keewis,He the idle Yenadizze,He the merry mischief-maker,Whom the people called the Storm-Fool,Rose among the guests assembled.

Skilled was he in sports and pastimes,In the merry dance of snow-shoes,In the play of quoits and ball-play;Skilled was he in games of hazard,In all games of skill and hazard,Pugasaing, the Bowl and Counters,Kuntassoo, the Game of Plum-stones.Though the warriors called him Faint-Heart,Called him coward, Shaugodaya,Idler, gambler, Yenadizze,Little heeded he their jesting,Little cared he for their insults,For the women and the maidensLoved the handsome Pau-Puk-Keewis.

He was dressed in shirt of doeskin,White and soft, and fringed with ermine,All inwrought with beads of wampum;He was dressed in deer-skin leggings,Fringed with hedgehog quills and ermine,And in moccasins of buck-skin,Thick with quills and beads embroidered.On his head were plumes of swan’s down,On his heels were tails of foxes,In one hand a fan of feathers,And a pipe was in the other.

Barred with streaks of red and yellow,Streaks of blue and bright vermilion,Shone the face of Pau-Puk-Keewis.From his forehead fell his tresses,Smooth, and parted like a woman’s,Shining bright with oil, and plaited,Hung with braids of scented grasses,As among the guests assembled,To the sound of flutes and singing,To the sound of drums and voices,Rose the handsome Pau-Puk-Keewis,And began his mystic dances.

First he danced a solemn measure,Very slow in step and gesture,In and out among the pine-trees,Through the shadows and the sunshine,Treading softly like a panther.Then more swiftly and still swifter,Whirling, spinning round in circles,Leaping o’er the guests assembled,Eddying round and round the wigwam,Till the leaves went whirling with him,Till the dust and wind togetherSwept in eddies round about him.

Then along the sandy marginOf the lake, the Big-Sea-Water,On he sped with frenzied gestures,Stamped upon the sand, and tossed itWildly in the air around him;Till the wind became a whirlwind,Till the sand was blown and siftedLike great snowdrifts o’er the landscape,Heaping all the shores with Sand Dunes,Sand Hills of the Nagow Wudjoo!

Thus the merry Pau-Puk-KeewisDanced his Beggar’s Dance to please them,And, returning, sat down laughingThere among the guests assembled,Sat and fanned himself serenelyWith his fan of turkey-feathers.

Then they said to Chibiabos,To the friend of Hiawatha,To the sweetest of all singers,To the best of all musicians,“Sing to us, O Chibiabos!Songs of love and songs of longing,That the feast may be more joyous,That the time may pass more gayly,And our guests be more contented!”

And the gentle ChibiabosSang in accents sweet and tender,Sang in tones of deep emotion,Songs of love and songs of longing;Looking still at Hiawatha,Looking at fair Laughing Water,Sang he softly, sang in this wise:

“Onaway! Awake, beloved!Thou the wild-flower of the forest!Thou the wild-bird of the prairie!Thou with eyes so soft and fawn-like!

“If thou only lookest at me,I am happy, I am happy,As the lilies of the prairie,When they feel the dew upon them!

“Sweet thy breath is as the fragranceOf the wild-flowers in the morning,As their fragrance is at evening,In the Moon when leaves are falling.

“Does not all the blood within meLeap to meet thee, leap to meet thee,As the springs to meet the sunshine,In the Moon when nights are brightest?

“Onaway! my heart sings to thee,Sings with joy when thou art near me,As the sighing, singing branchesIn the pleasant Moon of Strawberries!

“When thou art not pleased, beloved,Then my heart is sad and darkened,As the shining river darkensWhen the clouds drop shadows on it!

“When thou smilest, my beloved,Then my troubled heart is brightened,As in sunshine gleam the ripplesThat the cold wind makes in rivers.

“Smiles the earth, and smile the waters,Smile the cloudless skies above us,But I lose the way of smilingWhen thou art no longer near me!

“I myself, myself! behold me!Blood of my beating heart, behold me!Oh awake, awake, beloved!Onaway! awake, beloved!”

Thus the gentle ChibiabosSang his song of love and longing;And Iagoo, the great boaster,He the marvellous story-teller,He the friend of old Nokomis,Jealous of the sweet musician,Jealous of the applause they gave him,Saw in all the eyes around him,Saw in all their looks and gestures,That the wedding guests assembledLonged to hear his pleasant stories,His immeasurable falsehoods.

Very boastful was Iagoo;Never heard he an adventureBut himself had met a greater;Never any deed of daringBut himself had done a bolder;Never any marvellous storyBut himself could tell a stranger.

Would you listen to his boasting,Would you only give him credence,No one ever shot an arrowHalf so far and high as he had;Ever caught so many fishes,Ever killed so many reindeer,Ever trapped so many beaver!

None could run so fast as he could,None could dive so deep as he could,None could swim so far as he could;None had made so many journeys,None had seen so many wonders,As this wonderful Iagoo,As this marvellous story-teller!Thus his name became a by-wordAnd a jest among the people;And whene’er a boastful hunterPraised his own address too highly,Or a warrior, home returning,Talked too much of his achievements,All his hearers cried, “Iagoo!Here’s Iagoo come among us!”

He it was who carved the cradleOf the little Hiawatha,Carved its framework out of linden,Bound it strong with reindeer sinews;He it was who taught him laterHow to make his bows and arrows,How to make the bows of ash-tree,And the arrows of the oak-tree.So among the guests assembledAt my Hiawatha’s weddingSat Iagoo, old and ugly,Sat the marvellous story-teller.

And they said, “O good Iagoo,Tell us now a tale of wonder,Tell us of some strange adventure,That the feast may be more joyous,That the time may pass more gayly,And our guests be more contented!”

And Iagoo answered straightway,“You shall hear a tale of wonder,You shall hear the strange adventuresOf Osseo, the Magician,From the Evening Star descending.”

Waken again to thunderclap and clamourThe wonder of our sundering and the song,Or break our hearts with thine hell-shattering hammerBut leave a shade between us all day long.

Shade of high shame and honourable blindnessWhen youth, in storm of dizzy and distant things,Finds the wild windfall of a little kindnessAnd shakes to think that all the world has wings.When the one head that turns the heavens in turningMoves yet as lightly as a lingering bird,And red and random, blown astray but burning,Like a lost spark goes by the glorious word.

Make not this sex, this other side of things,A thing less distant than the world's desire;What colour to the end of evening clingsAnd what far cry of frontiers and what fireFallen too far beyond the sun for seeking,Let it divide us though our kingdom come;With a far signal in our secret speakingTo hang the proud horizon in our home.

Once we were one, a shapeless cloud that lingersLoading the seas and shutting out the skies,One with the woods, a monster of myriad fingers,You laid on me no finger of surprise.One with the stars, a god with myriad eyes,I saw you nowhere and was blind for scorn:One till the world was riven and the riseOf the white days when you and I were born.

Darkens the world: the world-old fetters rattle;And these that have no hope behind the sunMay feed like bondmen and may breed like cattle,One in the darkness as the dead are one;Us if the rended grave give up its gloryTrumpets shall summon asunder and face to face:We will be strangers in so strange a storyAnd wonder, meeting in so wild a place.

Ah, not in vain or utterly for lossCome even the black flag and the battle-hordes,If these grey devils flee the sign of the crossEven in the symbol of the crossing swords.Nor shall death doubt Who made our souls aliveSwords meeting and not stakes set side by side,Bade us in the sunburst and the thunder thriveEarthquake and Dawn; the bridegroom and the bride.

Death and not dreams or doubt of things undying,Of whose the holy hearth or whose the sword;Though sacred spirits dissever in strong cryingInto Thy hands, but Thy two hands, O Lord,Though not in Earth as once in Eden standingSo plain again we see Thee what thou art,As in this blaze, the blasting and the brandingOf this wild wedding where we meet and part.