Part 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.
- "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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