| |
| OH the long and dreary Winter! | |
| Oh the cold and cruel Winter! | |
| Ever thicker, thicker, thicker | |
| Froze the ice on lake and river, | |
| Ever deeper, deeper, deeper | 5 |
| Fell the snow o’er all the landscape, | |
| Fell the covering snow, and drifted | |
| Through the forest, round the village. | |
| Hardly from his buried wigwam | |
| Could the hunter force a passage; | 10 |
| With his mittens and his snow-shoes | |
| Vainly walked he through the forest, | |
| Sought for bird or beast and found none, | |
| Saw no track of deer or rabbit, | |
| In the snow beheld no footprints, | 15 |
| In the ghastly, gleaming forest | |
| Fell, and could not rise from weakness, | |
| Perished there from cold and hunger. | |
| Oh the famine and the fever! | |
| Oh the wasting of the famine! | 20 |
| Oh the blasting of the fever! | |
| Oh the wailing of the children! | |
| Oh the anguish of the women! | |
| All the earth was sick and famished; | |
| Hungry was the air around them, | 25 |
| Hungry was the sky above them, | |
| And the hungry stars in heaven | |
| Like the eyes of wolves glared at them! | |
| Into Hiawatha’s wigwam | |
| Came two other guests, as silent | 30 |
| As the ghosts were, and as gloomy, | |
| Waited not to be invited, | |
| Did not parley at the doorway, | |
| Sat there without word of welcome | |
| In the seat of Laughing Water; | 35 |
| Looked with haggard eyes and hollow | |
| At the face of Laughing Water. | |
| And the foremost said: “Behold me! | |
| I am Famine, Bukadawin!” | |
| And the other said: “Behold me! | 40 |
| I am Fever, Ahkosewin!” | |
| And the lovely Minnehaha | |
| Shuddered as they looked upon her, | |
| Shuddered at the words they uttered, | |
| Lay down on her bed in silence, | 45 |
| Hid her face, but made no answer; | |
| Lay there trembling, freezing, burning | |
| At the looks they cast upon her, | |
| At the fearful words they uttered. | |
| Forth into the empty forest | 50 |
| Rushed the maddened Hiawatha; | |
| In his heart was deadly sorrow, | |
| In his face a stony firmness; | |
| On his brow the sweat of anguish | |
| Started, but it froze and fell not. | 55 |
| Wrapped in furs and armed for hunting, | |
| With his mighty bow of ash-tree, | |
| With his quiver full of arrows, | |
| With his mittens, Minjekahwun, | |
| Into the vast and vacant forest | 60 |
| On his snow-shoes strode he forward. | |
| “Gitche Manito, the Mighty!” | |
| Cried he with his face uplifted | |
| In that bitter hour of anguish, | |
| “Give your children food, O father! | 65 |
| Give us food, or we must perish! | |
| Give me food for Minnehaha, | |
| For my dying Minnehaha!” | |
| Through the far-resounding forest, | |
| Through the forest vast and vacant | 70 |
| Rang that cry of desolation, | |
| But there came no other answer | |
| Than the echo of his crying, | |
| Than the echo of the woodlands, | |
| “Minnehaha! Minnehaha!” | 75 |
| All day long roved Hiawatha | |
| In that melancholy forest, | |
| Through the shadow of whose thickets, | |
| In the pleasant days of Summer, | |
| Of that ne’er forgotten Summer, | 80 |
| He had brought his young wife homeward | |
| From the land of the Dacotahs; | |
| When the birds sang in the thickets, | |
| And the streamlets laughed and glistened, | |
| And the air was full of fragrance, | 85 |
| And the lovely Laughing Water | |
| Said with voice that did not tremble, | |
| “I will follow you, my husband!” | |
| In the wigwam with Nokomis, | |
| With those gloomy guests that watched her, | 90 |
| With the Famine and the Fever, | |
| She was lying, the Beloved, | |
| She, the dying Minnehaha. | |
| “Hark!” she said; “I hear a rushing, | |
| Hear a roaring and a rushing, | 95 |
| Hear the Falls of Minnehaha | |
| Calling to me from a distance!” | |
| “No, my child!” said old Nokomis, | |
| “’T is the night-wind in the pine-trees!” | |
| “Look!” she said; “I see my father | 100 |
| Standing lonely at his doorway, | |
| Beckoning to me from his wigwam | |
| In the land of the Dacotahs!” | |
| “No, my child!” said old Nokomis. | |
| “’T is the smoke, that waves and beckons!” | 105 |
| “Ah!” said she, “the eyes of Pauguk | |
| Glare upon me in the darkness, | |
| I can feel his icy fingers | |
| Clasping mine amid the darkness! | |
| Hiawatha! Hiawatha!” | 110 |
| And the desolate Hiawatha, | |
| Far away amid the forest, | |
| Miles away among the mountains, | |
| Heard that sudden cry of anguish, | |
| Heard the voice of Minnehaha | 115 |
| Calling to him in the darkness, | |
| “Hiawatha! Hiawatha!” | |
| Over snow-fields waste and pathless, | |
| Under snow-encumbered branches, | |
| Homeward hurried Hiawatha, | 120 |
| Empty-handed, heavy-hearted, | |
| Heard Nokomis moaning, wailing: | |
| “Wahonowin! Wahonowin! | |
| Would that I had perished for you, | |
| Would that I were dead as you are! | 125 |
| Wahonowin! Wahonowin!” | |
| And he rushed into the wigwam, | |
| Saw the old Nokomis slowly | |
| Rocking to and fro and moaning, | |
| Saw his lovely Minnehaha | 130 |
| Lying dead and cold before him, | |
| And his bursting heart within him | |
| Uttered such a cry of anguish, | |
| That the forest moaned and shuddered, | |
| That the very stars in heaven | 135 |
| Shook and trembled with his anguish. | |
| Then he sat down, still and speechless, | |
| On the bed of Minnehaha, | |
| At the feet of Laughing Water, | |
| At those willing feet, that never | 140 |
| More would lightly run to meet him, | |
| Never more would lightly follow. | |
| With both hands his face he covered, | |
| Seven long days and nights he sat there, | |
| As if in a swoon he sat there, | 145 |
| Speechless, motionless, unconscious | |
| Of the daylight or the darkness. | |
| Then they buried Minnehaha; | |
| In the snow a grave they made her, | |
| In the forest deep and darksome, | 150 |
| Underneath the moaning hemlocks; | |
| Clothed her in her richest garments, | |
| Wrapped her in her robes of ermine, | |
| Covered her with snow, like ermine; | |
| Thus they buried Minnehaha. | 155 |
| And at night a fire was lighted, | |
| On her grave four times was kindled, | |
| For her soul upon its journey | |
| To the Islands of the Blessed. | |
| From his doorway Hiawatha | 160 |
| Saw it burning in the forest, | |
| Lighting up the gloomy hemlocks; | |
| From his sleepless bed uprising, | |
| From the bed of Minnehaha, | |
| Stood and watched it at the doorway, | 165 |
| That it might not be extinguished, | |
| Might not leave her in the darkness. | |
| “Farewell!” said he, “Minnehaha! | |
| Farewell, O my Laughing Water! | |
| All my heart is buried with you, | 170 |
| All my thoughts go onward with you! | |
| Come not back again to labor, | |
| Come not back again to suffer, | |
| Where the Famine and the Fever | |
| Wear the heart and waste the body. | 175 |
| Soon my task will be completed, | |
| Soon your footsteps I shall follow | |
| To the Islands of the Blessed, | |
| To the Kingdom of Ponemah, | |
| To the Land of the Hereafter!” | 180 |
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