Analysis of Hiawatha's Wedding-Feast
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 1807 (Portland) – 1882 (Cambridge)
You shall hear how Pau-Puk-Keewis,
How the handsome Yenadizze
Danced at Hiawatha's wedding;
How the gentle Chibiabos,
He the sweetest of musicians,
Sang his songs of love and longing;
How Iagoo, the great boaster,
He the marvellous story-teller,
Told his tales of strange adventure,
That the feast might be more joyous,
That the time might pass more gayly,
And the guests be more contented.
Sumptuous was the feast Nokomis
Made 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 village
Messengers 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 others
Only 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 smoking
With 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 maidens
Loved 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 together
Swept in eddies round about him.
Then along the sandy margin
Of the lake, the Big-Sea-Water,
On he sped with frenzied gestures,
Stamped upon the sand, and tossed it
Wildly in the air around him;
Till the wind became a whirlwind,
Till the sand was blown and sifted
Like great snowdrifts o'er the landscape,
Heaping all the shores with Sand Dunes,
Sand Hills of the Nagow Wudjoo!
Thus the merry Pau-Puk-Keewis
Danced his Beggar's Dance to please them,
And, returning, sat down laughing
There among the guests assembled,
Sat and fanned himself serenely
With his fan of turkey-feathers.
Scheme | AABAABCCCADEABFDGDHDGBIEJHAJKALCGGCMCANAAOACBPDAAAAADEAACDIAADQQAARSABAAAGGJAGTQUAACDGAAAEAIBAAACCAVCCAIWXCXGCAYXZL1 AHANBIDA |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1111111 10101 11110 10101 10101010 11111010 11011 1011010 11111010 10111110 1011111 00111010 101011 11110 10101111 10101010 10111110 10101010 11111010 1001111 1011010 10101010 00101010 1011101 11101110 10111010 1001101 1110101 00101 101111 111110 101010 11101110 101101 00111010 1010010 00101010 001011 10101011 10101010 10111010 01101110 111010 11101110 10111110 1011011 1111011 01101110 1111111 11111010 1011111 10111110 1011111 010111010 1010111 10101 10101010 10101011 10101010 1110101 00101111 00111011 11101110 01111010 101010 101111 101001111 11101 100101 1010111 10111101 10100010 1010111 1110111 10101110 1111110 11101110 1111010 00100111 11101010 11101111 11101110 01101110 00110010 11111010 11101010 1011111 11101110 10101010 10111010 11111010 10101010 10111010 10111010 1010111 00111010 11101010 10101010 00101011 101001 10101010 11100110 10101010 101001010 1101010 10111011 10101010 10101011 10101010 10101110 11111010 10101011 10001011 1010101 10111010 1111001 10101111 111011 1010111 1111111 00101110 10101010 101010100 11111010 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 4,240 |
Words | 712 |
Sentences | 19 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 124 |
Lines Amount | 124 |
Letters per line (avg) | 27 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 3,329 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 711 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on May 02, 2023
- 3:35 min read
- 142 Views
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"Hiawatha's Wedding-Feast" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 7 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/18629/hiawatha%27s-wedding-feast>.
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