Never more would lightly follow. 
  With both hands his face he covered,
Seven long days and nights he sat there,
As if in a swoon he sat there,
Speechless, motionless, unconscious
Of the daylight or the darkness. 
   Then they buried Minnehaha;
In the snow a grave they made her,
In the forest deep and darksome,
Underneath the moaning hemlocks;
Clothed her in her richest garments,
Wrapped her in her robes of ermine,
Covered her with snow, like ermine;
Thus they buried Minnehaha. 
   And at night a fire was lighted,
On her grave four times was kindled,
For her soul upon its journey
To the Islands of the Blessed. 
From his doorway Hiawatha
Saw it burning in the forest,
Lighting up the gloomy hemlocks;
From his sleepless bed uprising,
From the bed of Minnehaha,
Stood and watched it at the doorway,
That it might not be extinguished,
Might not leave her in the darkness. 
   “Farewell!” said he, “Minnehaha! 
Farewell, O my Laughing Water! 
All my heart is buried with you,
All my thoughts go onward with you,
Come not back again to labor,
Come not back again to suffer,
Where the Famine and the Fever
Wear the heart and waste the body. 
Soon my task will be completed,
Soon your footsteps I shall follow
To the Islands of the Blessed,
To the Kingdom of Ponemah,
To the Land of the Hereafter!”

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.

MOTHER AND POET.

    TURIN,—­AFTER NEWS FROM GAETA, 1861.

    Laura Savio of Turin, a poetess and patriot, whose sons were
    killed at Ancona and Gaeta.

Dead! one of them shot by the sea in the east,
  And one of them shot in the west by the sea. 
Dead! both my boys!  When you sit at the feast,
  And are wanting a great song for Italy free,
    Let none look at me!

Yet I was a poetess only last year,
  And good at my art, for a woman, men said. 
But this woman, this, who is agonized here,
  The east sea and west sea rhyme on in her head
    Forever instead.

What art can a woman be good at?  O, vain! 
  What art is she good at, but hurting her breast
With the milk teeth of babes, and a smile at the pain? 
  Ah, boys, how you hurt! you were strong as you pressed,
    And I proud by that test.

What art’s for a woman!  To hold on her knees
  Both darlings! to feel all their arms round her throat
Cling, struggle a little! to sew by degrees
   And ’broider the long-clothes and neat little coat! 
      To dream and to dote.

To teach them ...  It stings there.  I made them indeed
   Speak plain the word “country,” I taught them, no doubt,
That a country’s a thing men should die for at need. 
   I prated of liberty, rights, and about
      The tyrant turned out.