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ARBOR DA Y MANUAL. 



Lay the great trunk of an oak tree, 



Buried half in leaves and mosses, 



Mouldering, crumbling, huge and hollow. 



And Osseo, when he saw it, 



Gave a shout, a cry of anguish, 



Leaped into its yawning cavern, 



At one end went in an old man, 



Wasted, wrinkled, old and ugly, 



From the other came a young man, 



Tall and straight and strong and handsome, 



" Thus Osseo was transfigured, 

 Thus restored to youth and beauty." 



Heard them laughing like the blue jays, 

 Heard them singing like the robins. 



And whene'er some lucky maiden 

 Found a red ear in the husking, 

 Found a maize-ear red as blood is, 

 " Nushka ! " cried they altogether, 

 " Nushka ! you shall have a sweetheart, 

 You shall have a handsorne husband ! " 

 " Ugh ! " the old men all responded, 

 From their seats beneath the pine trees. 



BLESSING THE CORN FIELDS. 



Once when all the maize was planted, 

 Hiawatha, wise and thoughtful, 

 Spake and said to Minnehaha, 

 To his wife, the Laughing Water : 

 " You shall bless to-night the corn-fields. 

 Draw a magic circle round them, 



To protect them from destruction." 



***** 



On the tree-tops near the corn-fields 

 Sat the hungry crows and ravens, 

 Kahgahgee, the King of Ravens, 

 With his band of black marauders, 

 And they laughed at Hiawatha, 

 Till the tree-tops shook with laughter, 

 With their melancholy laughter, 



At the words of Hiawatha. 



***** 



And the merry Laughing Water 

 Went rejoicing from the wigwam, 

 With Nokomis, old and wrinkled, 

 And they called the women round them, 

 Called the young men and the maidens, 

 To the harvest of the corn-fields, 

 To the husking of the maize-ear. 

 On the border of the forest, 

 Underneath the fragrant pine trees, 

 Sat the old men and the warriors 

 Smoking in the pleasant shadow. 

 In uninterrupted silence 

 Looked they at the gamesome labor 

 Of the young men and the women; 

 Listened to their noisy talking. 

 To their laughter and their singing, 

 Heard them chattering like the magpies, 



PICTURE WRITING. 



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. 



HIAWATHA'S LAMENTATION. 



Death of Chibiabos. 



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. 



***** 



But beneath, the Evil Spirits, 

 Lay in ambush, waiting for him, 

 Broke the treacherous ice beneath him, 



Dragged him downward to the bottom, 

 ***** 



Drowned him in the deep abysses 

 Of the lake of Gitchie Gumee. 

 From the headlands Hiawatha 



