Sat there silent in the wigwam;
But by night, in storm or starlight,
Forth they went into the forest,
Bringing fire-wood to the wigwam,
Bringing pine-cones for the burning,
Always sad and always silent. 
  And whenever Hiawatha
Came from fishing or from hunting,
When the evening meal was ready,
And the food had been divided,
Gliding from their darksome corner,
Came the pallid guests, the strangers,
Seized upon the choicest portions
Set aside for Laughing Water,
And without rebuke or question
Flitted back among the shadows. 
  Never once had Hiawatha
By a word or look reproved them;
Never once had old Nokomis
Made a gesture of impatience;
Never once had Laughing Water
Shown resentment at the outrage. 
All had they endured in silence,
That the rights of guest and stranger,
That the virtue of free-giving,
By a look might not be lessened,
By a word might not be broken. 
  Once at midnight Hiawatha,
Ever wakeful, ever watchful,
In the wigwam, dimly lighted
By the brands that still were burning,
By the glimmering, flickering firelight
Heard a sighing, oft repeated,
Heard a sobbing, as of sorrow. 
  From his couch rose Hiawatha,
From his shaggy hides of bison,
Pushed aside the deer-skin curtain,
Saw the pallid guests, the shadows,
Sitting upright on their couches,
Weeping in the silent midnight. 
  And he said:  “O guests! why is it
That your hearts are so afflicted,
That you sob so in the midnight? 
Has perchance the old Nokomis,
Has my wife, my Minnehaha,
Wronged or grieved you by unkindness,
Failed in hospitable duties?”
  Then the shadows ceased from weeping,
Ceased from sobbing and lamenting,
And they said, with gentle voices: 
“We are ghosts of the departed,
Souls of those who once were with you. 
From the realms of Chibiabos
Hither have we come to try you,
Hither have we come to warn you. 
  “Cries of grief and lamentation
Reach us in the Blessed Islands;
Cries of anguish from the living,
Calling back their friends departed,
Sadden us with useless sorrow. 
Therefore have we come to try you;
No one knows us, no one heeds us. 
We are but a burden to you,
And we see that the departed
Have no place among the living. 
  “Think of this, O Hiawatha! 
Speak of it to all the people,
That henceforward and forever
They no more with lamentations
Sadden the souls of the departed
In the Islands of the Blessed. 
  “Do not lay such heavy burdens
In the graves of those you bury,
Not such weight of furs and wampum,
Not such weight of pots and kettles,
For the spirits faint beneath them. 
Only give them food to carry,
Only give them fire to light them. 
  “Four days is the spirit’s journey
To the land of ghosts and shadows,
Four its lonely night encampments;