The Song of Hiawatha   ::   Longfellow Henry Wadsworth

"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.



XX

The Famine

Oh the long and dreary Winter!

Oh the cold and cruel Winter!

Ever thicker, thicker, thicker

Froze the ice on lake and river,

Ever deeper, deeper, deeper

Fell the snow o'er all the landscape,

Fell the covering snow, and drifted

Through the forest, round the village.

Hardly from his buried wigwam

Could the hunter force a passage;

With his mittens and his snow-shoes

Vainly walked he through the forest,

Sought for bird or beast and found none,

Saw no track of deer or rabbit,

In the snow beheld no footprints,

In the ghastly, gleaming forest

Fell, and could not rise from weakness,

Perished there from cold and hunger.