The Surest Pledge Of A Deathless Name

The Morrow Was A Bright September Morn; The Earth Was Beautiful As If Newborn; There Was Nameless Splendor Everywhere, That Wild Exhilaration In The Air, Which Makes The Passers In The City Street Congratulate Each Other As They Meet.

Death Is The Chillness That Precedes The Dawn; We Shudder For A Moment, Then Awake In The Broad Sunshine Of The Other Life.

Doubtless Criticism Was Originally Benignant, Pointing Out The Beauties Of A Work Rather That Its Defects. The Passions Of Men Have Made It Malignant, As A Bad Heart Of Procreates Turned The Bed, The Symbol Of Repose, Into An Instrument Of Torture.

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!

Sit In Reverie And Watch The Changing Color Of The Waves That Break Upon The Idle Seashore Of The Mind.