The Song of Hiawatha | Page 8

Wenonah,?Of her birth upon the meadow,?Of her death, as old Nokomis?Had remembered and related.
And he cried, "O Mudjekeewis,?It was you who killed Wenonah,?Took her young life and her beauty,?Broke the Lily of the Prairie,?Trampled it beneath your footsteps;?You confess it! you confess it!"?And the mighty Mudjekeewis?Tossed upon the wind his tresses,?Bowed his hoary head in anguish,?With a silent nod assented.
Then up started Hiawatha,?And with threatening look and gesture?Laid his hand upon the black rock,?On the fatal Wawbeek laid it,?With his mittens, Minjekahwun,?Rent the jutting crag asunder,?Smote and crushed it into fragments,?Hurled them madly at his father,?The remorseful Mudjekeewis,?For his heart was hot within him,?Like a living coal his heart was.
But the ruler of the West-Wind?Blew the fragments backward from him,?With the breathing of his nostrils,?With the tempest of his anger,?Blew them back at his assailant;?Seized the bulrush, the Apukwa,?Dragged it with its roots and fibres?From the margin of the meadow,?From its ooze the giant bulrush;?Long and loud laughed Hiawatha!
Then began the deadly conflict,?Hand to hand among the mountains;?From his eyry screamed the eagle,?The Keneu, the great war-eagle,?Sat upon the crags around them,?Wheeling flapped his wings above them.
Like a tall tree in the tempest?Bent and lashed the giant bulrush;?And in masses huge and heavy?Crashing fell the fatal Wawbeek;?Till the earth shook with the tumult?And confusion of the battle,?And the air was full of shoutings,?And the thunder of the mountains,?Starting, answered, "Baim-wawa!"
Back retreated Mudjekeewis,?Rushing westward o'er the mountains,?Stumbling westward down the mountains,?Three whole days retreated fighting,?Still pursued by Hiawatha?To the doorways of the West-Wind,?To the portals of the Sunset,?To the earth's remotest border,?Where into the empty spaces?Sinks the sun, as a flamingo?Drops into her nest at nightfall?In the melancholy marshes.
"Hold!" at length cried Mudjekeewis,?"Hold, my son, my Hiawatha!?'T is impossible to kill me,?For you cannot kill the immortal?I have put you to this trial,?But to know and prove your courage;?Now receive the prize of valor!
"Go back to your home and people,?Live among them, toil among them,?Cleanse the earth from all that harms it,?Clear the fishing-grounds and rivers,?Slay all monsters and magicians,?All the Wendigoes, the giants,?All the serpents, the Kenabeeks,?As I slew the Mishe-Mokwa,?Slew the Great Bear of the mountains.
"And at last when Death draws near you,?When the awful eyes of Pauguk?Glare upon you in the darkness,?I will share my kingdom with you,?Ruler shall you be thenceforward?Of the Northwest-Wind, Keewaydin,?Of the home-wind, the Keewaydin."
Thus was fought that famous battle?In the dreadful days of Shah-shah,?In the days long since departed,?In the kingdom of the West-Wind.?Still the hunter sees its traces?Scattered far o'er hill and valley;?Sees the giant bulrush growing?By the ponds and water-courses,?Sees the masses of the Wawbeek?Lying still in every valley.
Homeward now went Hiawatha;?Pleasant was the landscape round him,?Pleasant was the air above him,?For the bitterness of anger?Had departed wholly from him,?From his brain the thought of vengeance,?From his heart the burning fever.
Only once his pace he slackened,?Only once he paused or halted,?Paused to purchase heads of arrows?Of the ancient Arrow-maker,?In the land of the Dacotahs,?Where the Falls of Minnehaha?Flash and gleam among the oak-trees,?Laugh and leap into the valley.
There the ancient Arrow-maker?Made his arrow-heads of sandstone,?Arrow-heads of chalcedony,?Arrow-heads of flint and jasper,?Smoothed and sharpened at the edges,?Hard and polished, keen and costly.
With him dwelt his dark-eyed daughter,?Wayward as the Minnehaha,?With her moods of shade and sunshine,?Eyes that smiled and frowned alternate,?Feet as rapid as the river,?Tresses flowing like the water,?And as musical a laughter:?And he named her from the river,?From the water-fall he named her,?Minnehaha, Laughing Water.
Was it then for heads of arrows,?Arrow-heads of chalcedony,?Arrow-heads of flint and jasper,?That my Hiawatha halted?In the land of the Dacotahs?
Was it not to see the maiden,?See the face of Laughing Water?Peeping from behind the curtain,?Hear the rustling of her garments?From behind the waving curtain,?As one sees the Minnehaha?Gleaming, glancing through the branches,?As one hears the Laughing Water?From behind its screen of branches?
Who shall say what thoughts and visions?Fill the fiery brains of young men??Who shall say what dreams of beauty?Filled the heart of Hiawatha??All he told to old Nokomis,?When he reached the lodge at sunset,?Was the meeting with his father,?Was his fight with Mudjekeewis;?Not a word he said of arrows,?Not a word of Laughing Water.
V
Hiawatha's Fasting
You shall hear how Hiawatha?Prayed and fasted in the forest,?Not for greater skill in hunting,?Not for greater craft in fishing,?Not for triumphs in the battle,?And renown among the warriors,?But for profit of the people,?For advantage of the nations.
First he built a lodge for fasting,?Built a wigwam in the forest,?By the shining Big-Sea-Water,?In the blithe and pleasant Spring-time,?In the Moon of Leaves he built it,?And, with dreams and visions many,?Seven whole days and nights he fasted.
On the first day of his fasting?Through the leafy woods he wandered;?Saw the deer start from the thicket,?Saw the rabbit in his burrow,?Heard the pheasant, Bena, drumming,?Heard the squirrel, Adjidaumo,?Rattling in his hoard of acorns,?Saw the