Never once had Hiawatha By a word or look reproved them;Never once had old Nokomis Made a gesture of impatience;Never once had Laughing Water Shown resentment at the outrage.
All had they endured in silence, That the rights of guest and stranger, That the virtue of free-giving, By a look might not be lessened, By a word might not be broken.
Once at midnight Hiawatha, Ever wakeful, ever watchful, In the wigwam, dimly lighted By the brands that still were burning, By the glimmering, flickering firelight Heard a sighing, oft repeated, Heard a sobbing, as of sorrow.
From his couch rose Hiawatha, From his shaggy hides of bison, Pushed aside the deer-skin curtain, Saw the pallid guests, the shadows, Sitting upright on their couches, Weeping in the silent midnight.
And he said: "O guests! why is it That your hearts are so afflicted, That you sob so in the midnight?
Has perchance the old Nokomis, Has my wife, my Minnehaha, Wronged or grieved you by unkindness, Failed in hospitable duties?"Then the shadows ceased from weeping, Ceased from sobbing and lamenting, And they said, with gentle voices:
"We are ghosts of the departed, Souls of those who once were with you.
From the realms of Chibiabos Hither have we come to try you, Hither have we come to warn you.
"Cries of grief and lamentation Reach us in the Blessed Islands;Cries of anguish from the living, Calling back their friends departed, Sadden us with useless sorrow.
Therefore have we come to try you;
No one knows us, no one heeds us.
We are but a burden to you, And we see that the departed Have no place among the living.
"Think of this, O Hiawatha!
Speak of it to all the people, That henceforward and forever They no more with lamentations Sadden the souls of the departed In the Islands of the Blessed.
"Do not lay such heavy burdens In the graves of those you bury, Not such weight of furs and wampum, Not such weight of pots and kettles, For the spirits faint beneath them.
Only give them food to carry, Only give them fire to light them.
"Four days is the spirit's journey To the land of ghosts and shadows, Four its lonely night encampments;Four times must their fires be lighted.
Therefore, when the dead are buried, Let a fire, as night approaches, Four times on the grave be kindled, That the soul upon its journey May not lack the cheerful firelight, May not grope about in darkness.
"Farewell, noble Hiawatha!
We have put you to the trial, To the proof have put your patience, By the insult of our presence, By the outrage of our actions.
We have found you great and noble.
Fail not in the greater trial, Faint not in the harder struggle."When they ceased, a sudden darkness Fell and filled the silent wigwam.
Hiawatha heard a rustle As of garments trailing by him, Heard the curtain of the doorway Lifted by a hand he saw not, Felt the cold breath of the night air, For a moment saw the starlight;But he saw the ghosts no longer, Saw no more the wandering spirits From the kingdom of Ponemah, From the land of the Hereafter.
XX
THE FAMINE
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.