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XX
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
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;
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,
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!
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,
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
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;
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!
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,
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
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.
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
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!
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
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!"
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,
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,
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,
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,
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
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!"
"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!"
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
Calling
to him in the darkness,
"Hiawatha! Hiawatha!"
Over
snow-fields waste and pathless,
Under snow-encumbered
branches,
Homeward hurried Hiawatha,
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!
Wahonowin!.
Wahonowin!"
And he rushed into the wigwam,
Saw the
old Nokomis slowly
Rocking to and fro and moaning,
Saw his lovely Minnehaha
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
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
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,
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
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.
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
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,
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,
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.
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!"
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