The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Генри Уодсуорт Лонгфелло
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СКАЧАТЬ And stirred with accents deep and loud The hearts of all the listening crowd.

      A gray old man, the third and last, Sang in cathedrals dim and vast, While the majestic organ rolled Contrition from its mouths of gold.

      And those who heard the Singers three Disputed which the best might be; For still their music seemed to start Discordant echoes in each heart,

      But the great Master said, "I see No best in kind, but in degree; I gave a various gift to each, To charm, to strengthen, and to teach.

      "These are the three great chords of might, And he whose ear is tuned aright Will hear no discord in the three, But the most perfect harmony."

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      Take them, O Death! and bear away

       Whatever thou canst call thine own!

      Thine image, stamped upon this clay,

       Doth give thee that, but that alone!

      Take them, O Grave! and let them lie

       Folded upon thy narrow shelves,

      As garments by the soul laid by,

       And precious only to ourselves!

      Take them, O great Eternity!

       Our little life is but a gust

      That bends the branches of thy tree,

       And trails its blossoms in the dust!

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      Christ to the young man said: "Yet one thing more;

       If thou wouldst perfect be,

      Sell all thou hast and give it to the poor,

       And come and follow me!"

      Within this temple Christ again, unseen,

       Those sacred words hath said,

      And his invisible hands to-day have been

       Laid on a young man's head.

      And evermore beside him on his way

       The unseen Christ shall move,

      That he may lean upon his arm and say,

       "Dost thou, dear Lord, approve?"

      Beside him at the marriage feast shall be,

       To make the scene more fair;

      Beside him in the dark Gethsemane

       Of pain and midnight prayer.

      O holy trust! O endless sense of rest!

       Like the beloved John

      To lay his head upon the Saviour's breast,

       And thus to journey on!

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      THE SONG OF HIAWATHA [Notes from HIAWATHA follow]

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      Should you ask me, whence these stories?

      Whence these legends and traditions,

      With the odors 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 fen-lands

      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 bird's-nests of the forest,

      In the lodges of the beaver,

      In the hoof-prints of the bison,

      In the eyry of the eagle!

       "All the wild-fowl sang them to him,

      In the moorlands and the fen-lands,

      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 СКАЧАТЬ