The Song of Hiawatha   ::   Longfellow Henry Wadsworth

XIII

Blessing the Cornfields

Sing, O Song of Hiawatha,

Of the happy days that followed,

In the land of the Ojibways,

In the pleasant land and peaceful!

Sing the mysteriesof Mondamin,

Sing the Blessing of the Cornfields!

Buried was the bloody hatchet,

Buried was the dreadful war-club,

Buried were all warlike weapons,

And the war-cry was forgotten.

There was peace among the nations;

Unmolested roved the hunters,

Built the birch canoe for sailing,

Caught the fish in lake and river,

Shot the deer and trapped the beaver;

Unmolested worked the women,

Made their sugar from the maple,

Gathered wild rice in the meadows,

Dressed the skins of deer and beaver.

All around the happy village

Stood the maize-fields, green and shining,

Waved the green plumes of Mondamin,

Waved his soft and sunny tresses,

Filling all the land with plenty.

`T was the women who in Spring-time

Planted the broad fields and fruitful,

Buried in the earth Mondamin;

`T was the women who in Autumn

Stripped the yellow husks of harvest,

Stripped the garments from Mondamin,

Even as Hiawatha taught them.

Once, when all the maize was planted,

Hiawatha, wise and thoughtful,

Spake and said to Minnehaha,

To his wife, the Laughing Water:

"You shall bless to-night the cornfields,

Draw a magic circle round them,

To protect them from destruction,

Blast of mildew, blight of insect,

Wagemin, the thief of cornfields,

Paimosaid, who steals the maize-ear.

"In the night, when all Is silence,'

In the night, when all Is darkness,

When the Spirit of Sleep, Nepahwin,

Shuts the doors of all the wigwams,

So that not an ear can hear you,

So that not an eye can see you,

Rise up from your bed in silence,

Lay aside your garments wholly,

Walk around the fields you planted,

Round the borders of the cornfields,

Covered by your tresses only,

Robed with darkness as a garment.