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106

THE FAMINE.

it's not my fault: I didn't lend the umbrella. Caudle, are you asleep? (A loud snore is heard.) Oh, what a brute a man is! Oh! dear, dear, d-e-a-r!”

THE FAMINE.-H. W. LONGFELLOW.

O

THE long and dreary Winter!

O 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 walk'd 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,
Perish'd there from cold and hunger.

O the famine and the fever!
O the wasting of the famine!
O the blasting of the fever!
O the wailing of the children!
O the anguish of the women!
All the earth was sick and famish'd;
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

THE FAMINE.

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
Shudder'd as they look'd upon her,
Shudder'd at the words they utter'd,
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 utter'd.

Forth into the empty forest
Rushed the madden'd 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.
Wrapp'd in furs and arm'd for hunting,
With his mighty bow of ash-tree,
With his quiver full of arrows,
With his mittens, Minjekah wun,
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!"

107

108

THE FAMINE.

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 laugh'd and glisten'd,
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 watch'd 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,
""Tis 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,

""Tis the smoke that waves and beckons!"

[blocks in formation]

Over snow-fields waste and pathless,
Under snow-encumber'd branches,
Homeward hurried Hiawatha,
Empty-handed, heavy-hearted,
Heard Nokomis moaning, wailing:
"Wahonowin! Wahonowin!
Would that I had perish'd for you,
Would that I were dead as you are!
Wahonowin! Wahonowin!"
And he rush'd 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
Utter'd such a cry of anguish,

That the forest moan'd and shudder'd,

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.

109

110

THE FAMINE.

With both hands his face he cover'd,
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;
Wrapp'd her in her robes of ermine,
Cover'd 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 watch'd it at the doorway,
That it might not be extinguish'd,
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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