The Song of Hiawatha

Never stoops the soaring vulture

On his quarry in the desert,

On the sick or wounded bison,

But another vulture, watching

From his high aerial look-out,

Sees the downward plunge, and follows;

And a third pursues the second,

Coming from the invisible ether,

First a speck, and then a vulture,

Till the air is dark with pinions.

So disasters come not singly;

But as if they watched and waited,

Scanning one another’s motions,

When the first descends, the others

Follow, follow, gathering flock-wise

Round their victim, sick and wounded,

First a shadow, then a sorrow,

Till the air is dark with anguish.

Now, o’er all the dreary North-land,

Mighty Peboan, the Winter,

Breathing on the lakes and rivers,

Into stone had changed their waters.

From his hair he shook the snow-flakes,

Till the plains were strewn with whiteness,

One uninterrupted level,

As if, stooping, the Creator

With his hand had smoothed them over.

Through the forest, wide and wailing,

Roamed the hunter on his snow-shoes;

In the village worked the women,

Pounded maize, or dressed the deer-skin;

And the young men played together

On the ice the noisy ball-play,

On the plain the dance of snow-shoes.

One dark evening, after sundown,

In her wigwam Laughing Water

Sat with old Nokomis, waiting

For the steps of Hiawatha

Homeward from the hunt returning.

On their faces gleamed the firelight,

Painting them with streaks of crimson,

In the eyes of old Nokomis

Glimmered like the watery moonlight,

In the eyes of Laughing Water

Glistened like the sun in water;

And behind them crouched their shadows

In the corners of the wigwam,

And the smoke in wreaths above them

Climbed and crowded through the smoke-flue.

Then the curtain of the doorway

From without was slowly lifted;

Brighter glowed the fire a moment,

And a moment swerved the smoke-wreath,

As two women entered softly,

Passed the doorway uninvited,

Without word of salutation,

Without sign of recognition,

Sat down in the farthest corner,

Crouching low among the shadows.

From their aspect and their garments,

Strangers seemed they in the village;

Very pale and haggard were they,

As they sat there sad and silent,

Trembling, cowering with the shadows.

Was it the wind above the smoke-flue,

Muttering down into the wigwam?

Was it the owl, the Koko-koho,

Hooting from the dismal forest?

Sure a voice said in the silence:

“These are corpses clad in garments,

These are ghosts that come to haunt you,

From the kingdom of Ponemah,

From the land of the Hereafter!”

Homeward now came Hiawatha

From his hunting in the forest,

With the snow upon his tresses,

And the red deer on his shoulders.

At the feet of Laughing Water

Down he threw his lifeless burden;

Nobler, handsomer she thought him,

Than when first he came to woo her,

First threw down the deer before her,

As a token of his wishes,

As a promise of the future.

Then he turned and saw the strangers,

Cowering, crouching with the shadows;

Said within himself, “Who are they?

What strange guests has Minnehaha?”

But he questioned not the strangers,

Only spake to bid them welcome

To his lodge, his food, his fireside.

When the evening meal was ready,

And the deer had been divided,

Both the pallid guests, the strangers,

Springing from among the shadows,

Seized upon the choicest portions,

Seized the white fat of the roebuck,

Set apart for Laughing Water,

For the wife of Hiawatha;

Without asking, without thanking,

Eagerly devoured the morsels,

Flitted back among the shadows

In the corner of the wigwam.

Not a word spake Hiawatha,

Not a motion made Nokomis,

Not a gesture Laughing Water;

Not a change came o’er their features;

Only Minnehaha softly

Whispered, saying, “They are famished;

Let them do what best delights them;

Let them eat, for they are famished.”

Many a daylight dawned and darkened,

Many a night shook off the daylight

As the pine shakes off the snow-flakes

From the midnight of its branches;

Day by day the guests unmoving

Sat there silent in the wigwam;

But by night, in storm or starlight,

Forth they went into the forest,

Bringing fire-wood to the wigwam,

Bringing pine-cones for the burning,

Always sad and always silent.

And whenever Hiawatha

Came from fishing or from hunting,

When the evening meal was ready,

And the food had been divided,

Gliding from their darksome corner,

Came the pallid guests, the strangers,

Seized upon the choicest portions

Set aside for Laughing Water,

And without rebuke or question

Flitted back among the shadows.

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,

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.