The Song of Hiawatha   ::   Longfellow Henry Wadsworth

"At the western sky Osseo

Gazed intent, as if imploring,

Often stopped and gazed imploring

At the trembling Star of Evening,

At the tender Star of Woman;

And they heard him murmur softly,

'Ah, showain nemeshin, Nosa!

Pity, pity me, my father!'

"'Listen!' said the eldest sister,

'He is praying to his father!

What a pity that the old man

Does not stumble in the pathway,

Does not break his neck by falling!'

And they laughed till all the forest

Rang with their unseemly laughter.

"On their pathway through the woodlands

Lay an oak, by storms uprooted,

Lay the great trunk of an oak-tree,

Buried half in leaves and mosses,

Mouldering, crumbling, huge and hollow.

And Osseo, when he saw it,

Gave a shout, a cry of anguish,

Leaped into its yawning cavern,

At one end went in an old man,

Wasted, wrinkled, old, and ugly;

From the other came a young man,

Tall and straight and strong and handsome.

"Thus Osseo was transfigured,

Thus restored to youth and beauty;

But, alas for good Osseo,

And for Oweenee, the faithful!

Strangely, too, was she transfigured.

Changed into a weak old woman,

With a staff she tottered onward,

Wasted, wrinkled, old, and ugly!

And the sisters and their husbands

Laughed until the echoing forest

Rang with their unseemly laughter.

"But Osseo turned not from her,

Walked with slower step beside her,

Took her hand, as brown and withered

As an oak-leaf is in Winter,

Called her sweetheart, Nenemoosha,

Soothed her with soft words of kindness,

Till they reached the lodge of feasting,

Till they sat down in the wigwam,

Sacred to the Star of Evening,

To the tender Star of Woman.

"Wrapt in visions, lost in dreaming,

At the banquet sat Osseo;

All were merry, all were happy,

All were joyous but Osseo.

Neither food nor drink he tasted,

Neither did he speak nor listen;

But as one bewildered sat he,

Looking dreamily and sadly,

First at Oweenee, then upward

At the gleaming sky above them.