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. 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. Looked with haggard eyes and hollow At the face of Laughing Water. And the foremost said, "Behold me! I am Famine, Buckadawin!" 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. 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. "Gitche Manito, the Mighty!" Cried he with his face uplifted In that bitter hour of anguish, "Give your children food, O father! Give me food for Minnehaha-- For my dying Minnehaha!" All day long roved Hiawatha In that melancholy forest, Through the shadow of whose thickets, In the pleasant days of summer, Of that ne'er-forgotten summer, He had brought his young wife homeward From the land of the Dacotahs. In the wigwam with Nokomis, With those gloomy guests that watched her, She was lying, the beloved, She, the dying Minnehaha. "Hark!" she said; "I hear a rushing, Hear the falls of Minnehaha Coming to me from a distance!" "No, my child!" said old Nokomis, "'Tis the night-wind in the pine-trees!" "Look!" she said; "I see my father Beckoning, lonely, from his wigwam In the land of the Dacotahs!" "No, my child!" said old Nokomis. "'Tis the smoke that waves and beckons!" "Ah!" said she, "the eyes of Pauguk Glare upon me in the darkness; I can feel his icy fingers Clasping mine amid the darkness! Hiawatha! Hiawatha!" And the desolate Hiawatha, Miles away among the mountains, Heard that sudden cry of anguish, Heard the voice of Minnehaha Calling to him in the darkness. Over snowfields waste and pathless, Under snow-encumbered branches, Homeward hurried Hiawatha, Empty-handed, heavy-hearted; Heard Nokomis moaning, wailing, "Would that I had perished for you, Would that I were dead as you are!" And he rushed into the wigwam, Saw the old Nokomis slowly Rocking to and fro and moaning, Saw his lovely Minnehaha Lying dead and cold before him; And his bursting heart within him