The Song of Hiawatha   ::   Longfellow Henry Wadsworth

Suddenly upon the greensward

All alone stood Hiawatha,

Panting with his wild exertion,

Palpitating with the struggle;

And before him breathless, lifeless,

Lay the youth, with hair dishevelled,

Plumage torn, and garments tattered,

Dead he lay there in the sunset.

And victorious Hiawatha

Made the grave as he commanded,

Stripped the garments from Mondamin,

Stripped his tattered plumage from him,

Laid him in the earth, and made it

Soft and loose and light above him;

And the heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah,

From the melancholy moorlands,

Gave a cry of lamentation,

Gave a cry of pain and anguish!

Homeward then went Hiawatha

To the lodge of old Nokomis,

And the seven days of his fasting

Were accomplished and completed.

But the place was not forgotten

Where he wrestled with Mondamin;

Nor forgotten nor neglected

Was the grave where lay Mondamin,

Sleeping in the rain and sunshine,

Where his scattered plumes and garments

Faded in the rain and sunshine.

Day by day did Hiawatha

Go to wait and watch beside it;

Kept the dark mould soft above it,

Kept it clean from weeds and insects,

Drove away, with scoffs and shoutings,

Kahgahgee, the king of ravens.

Till at length a small green feather

From the earth shot slowly upward,

Then another and another,

And before the Summer ended

Stood the maize in all its beauty,

With its shining robes about it,

And its long, soft, yellow tresses;

And in rapture Hiawatha

Cried aloud, "It is Mondamin!

Yes, the friend of man, Mondamin!"

Then he called to old Nokomis

And Iagoo, the great boaster,

Showed them where the maize was growing,

Told them of his wondrous vision,

Of his wrestling and his triumph,

Of this new gift to the nations,

Which should be their food forever.

And still later, when the Autumn

Changed the long, green leaves to yellow,

And the soft and juicy kernels

Grew like wampum hard and yellow,

Then the ripened ears he gathered,

Stripped the withered husks from off them,

As he once had stripped the wrestler,

Gave the first Feast of Mondamin,

And made known unto the people

This new gift of the Great Spirit.