Such the spell I cast upon you,
Such the magic power of passion,
I could straightway draw you to me!”
  Then the figure of the maiden
Sleeping, and the lover near her,
Whispering to her in her slumbers,
Saying, “Though you were far from me
In the land of Sleep and Silence,
Still the voice of love would reach you!”
  And the last of all the figures
Was a heart within a circle,
Drawn within a magic circle;
And the image had this meaning: 
“Naked lies your heart before me,
To your naked heart I whisper!”
  Thus it was that Hiawatha,
In his wisdom, taught the people
All the mysteries of painting,
All the art of Picture-Writing,
On the smooth bark of the birch-tree,
On the white skin of the reindeer,
On the grave-posts of the village.

XV

HIAWATHA’S LAMENTATION

In those days the Evil Spirits,
All the Manitos of mischief,
Fearing Hiawatha’s wisdom,
And his love for Chibiabos,
Jealous of their faithful friendship,
And their noble words and actions,
Made at length a league against them,
To molest them and destroy them. 
  Hiawatha, wise and wary,
Often said to Chibiabos,
“O my brother! do not leave me,
Lest the Evil Spirits harm you!”
Chibiabos, young and heedless,
Laughing shook his coal-black tresses,
Answered ever sweet and childlike,
“Do not fear for me, O brother! 
Harm and evil come not near me!”
  Once when Peboan, the Winter,
Roofed with ice the Big-Sea-Water,
When the snow-flakes, whirling downward,
Hissed among the withered oak-leaves,
Changed the pine-trees into wigwams,
Covered all the earth with silence,—­
Armed with arrows, shod with snow-shoes,
Heeding not his brother’s warning,
Fearing not the Evil Spirits,
Forth to hunt the deer with antlers
All alone went Chibiabos. 
  Right across the Big-Sea-Water
Sprang with speed the deer before him. 
With the wind and snow he followed,
O’er the treacherous ice he followed,
Wild with all the fierce commotion
And the rapture of the hunting. 
  But beneath, the Evil Spirits
Lay in ambush, waiting for him,
Broke the treacherous ice beneath him,
Dragged him downward to the bottom,
Buried in the sand his body. 
Unktahee, the god of water,
He the god of the Dacotahs,
Drowned him in the deep abysses
Of the lake of Gitche Gumee. 
  From the headlands Hiawatha
Sent forth such a wail of anguish,
Such a fearful lamentation,
That the bison paused to listen,
And the wolves howled from the prairies,
And the thunder in the distance
Starting answered “Baim-wawa!”
  Then his face with black he painted,
With his robe his head he covered,
In his wigwam sat lamenting,
Seven long weeks he sat lamenting,
Uttering still this moan of sorrow:—­