The Song of Hiawatha   ::   Longfellow Henry Wadsworth

Oh the famine and the fever!

Oh the wasting of the famine!

Oh the blasting of the fever!

Oh the wailing of the children!

Oh the anguish of the women!

All the earth was sick and famished;

Hungry was the air around them,

Hungry was the sky above them,

And the hungry stars in heaven

Like the eyes of wolves glared at them!

Into Hiawatha's wigwam

Came two other guests, as silent

As the ghosts were, and as gloomy,

Waited not to be invited

Did not parley at the doorway

Sat there without word of welcome

In the seat of Laughing Water;

Looked with haggard eyes and hollow

At the face of Laughing Water.

And the foremost said: "Behold me!

I am Famine, Bukadawin!"

And the other said: "Behold me!

I am Fever, Ahkosewin!"

And the lovely Minnehaha

Shuddered as they looked upon her,

Shuddered at the words they uttered,

Lay down on her bed in silence,

Hid her face, but made no answer;

Lay there trembling, freezing, burning

At the looks they cast upon her,

At the fearful words they uttered.

Forth into the empty forest

Rushed the maddened Hiawatha;

In his heart was deadly sorrow,

In his face a stony firmness;

On his brow the sweat of anguish

Started, but it froze and fell not.

Wrapped in furs and armed for hunting,

With his mighty bow of ash-tree,

With his quiver full of arrows,

With his mittens, Minjekahwun,

Into the vast and vacant forest

On his snow-shoes strode he forward.