The Song of Hiawatha

I read Evangeline this month and fell immediately in love with Longfellow. He is dramatically overlooked. Frost gets too much credit as the premier American author. No one, no one I have ever read, conveys the spirit and sense of the American idyllic landscape like Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. I would not know or care about poetry if it were not for this man.

This is a spiritual blog right? So why am I talking about poetry? Christians need to reclaim good poetry and song-writing. We, of all people, should know and have the deepest and most dramatic feelings for the things God has made. We should love the creation and be fluent in praising God for it, because it was His idea. Good verse, for some reason I don't understand yet, communicates the beautiful and the terrible stronger even than does good prose.

This said, I just finished The Song of Hiawatha. It is a poem I heartily recommend. It is a beautiful and intricate introduction into the idolatrous workings of the American Indians and, in a way, communicates the tragedy of our having destroyed them. It is also a masterpiece of idyllic writing taking place next to Lake Superior (Gitche Gumee) and basically throughout America. Passages like this are what made me fall in love with poetry,

"By the shore of Gitche Gummee,
By the shining Big-Sea-Water,
At the doorway of his wigwam,
In the pleasant Summer morning,
Hiawatha stood and waited.
All the air was full of freshness,
All the earth was bright and joyous,
And before him, through the sunshine,
Westward toward the neighboring forest,
Passed in golden swarms the Ahmo,
Passed the bees, the honey-makers,
Burning, singing, in the sunshine.
Bright above him shone the heavens,
Level spread the lake before him;
From its bosom leaped the sturgeon,
Sparkling, flashing in the sunshine;
On its margin the great forest
Stood reflected in the water,
Every tree top had its shadow,
Motionless beneath the water."

Incredible. This reflects every sense and every emotion I have ever felt in the wilderness of the Great Lakes and pushes down into my deepest thoughts with its beautiful meter and rythmic explanations. I have seen the fish glisten in sunshine, the bees buzz through the forest, and felt the summer morning fresh in its new dawning. We ought to re-embrace poetry of this sort and claim it for the glory of God. We ought to write poetry that makes people say, "I've been there," and long to be there again.

Soli Deo Gloria,

R. D. Thompson