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