The Song of Hiawatha   ::   Longfellow Henry Wadsworth

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.