"Gitche Manito, the Mighty!" Through the far-resounding forest, All day long roved Hiawatha Through the shadow of whose thickets, 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 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!" 66 No, my child!" said old Nokomis, In the land of the Dacotahs !" No, my child!" said old Nokomis, ""Tis the smoke, that waves and beckons !" "Ah!" she said, "the eyes of Pauguk Glare upon me in the darkness, I can feel his icy fingers Clasping mine amid the darkness! And the desolate Hiawatha, Over snow-fields waste and pathless, Would that I had perished for you, And he rushed into the wigwam, Lying dead and cold before him, 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, With both hands his face he covered, Then 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 labour, 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!" XXI. THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT. IN his lodge beside a river, White his hair was as a snow-drift; Dull and low his fire was burning, And the old man shook and trembled, In his tattered white-skin-wrapper, |