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Nothing but the bulrush yonder,

       Nothing but the great Apukwa!”

      And as Mudjekeewis, rising,

       Stretched his hand to pluck the bulrush,

       Hiawatha cried in terror,

       Cried in well-dissembled terror,

       “Kago! kago! do not touch it!”

       “Ah, kaween!” said Mudjekeewis,

       “No indeed, I will not touch it!”

      Then they talked of other matters;

       First of Hiawatha’s brothers,

       First of Wabun, of the East-Wind,

       Of the South-Wind, Shawondasee,

       Of the North, Kabibonokka;

       Then of Hiawatha’s mother,

       Of the beautiful Wenonah,

       Of her birth upon the meadow,

       Of her death, as old Nokomis

       Had remembered and related.

      And he cried, “O Mudjekeewis,

       It was you who killed Wenonah,

       Took her young life and her beauty,

       Broke the Lily of the Prairie,

       Trampled it beneath your footsteps;

       You confess it! you confess it!”

       And the mighty Mudjekeewis

       Tossed his gray hairs to the West-Wind,

       Bowed his hoary head in anguish,

       With a silent nod assented.

      Then up started Hiawatha,

       And with threatening look and gesture

       Laid his hand upon the black rock,

       On the fatal Wawbeek laid it,

       With his mittens, Minjekahwun,

       Rent the jutting crag asunder,

       Smote and crushed it into fragments,

       Hurled them madly at his father,

       The remorseful Mudjekeewis,

       For his heart was hot within him,

       Like a living coal his heart was.

      But the ruler of the West-Wind

       Blew the fragments backward from him,

       With the breathing of his nostrils,

       With the tempest of his anger,

       Blew them back at his assailant;

       Seized the bulrush, the Apukwa,

       Dragged it with its roots and fibres

       From the margin of the meadow,

       From its ooze, the giant bulrush;

       Long and loud laughed Hiawatha!

      Then began the deadly conflict,

       Hand to hand among the mountains;

       From his eyry screamed the eagle,

       The Keneu, the great war-eagle,

       Sat upon the crags around them,

       Wheeling flapped his wings above them.

      Like a tall tree in the tempest

       Bent and lashed the giant bulrush;

       And in masses huge and heavy

       Crashing fell the fatal Wawbeek;

       Till the earth shook with the tumult

       And confusion of the battle,

       And the air was full of shoutings,

       And the thunder of the mountains,

       Starting, answered, “Baim-wawa!”

      Back retreated Mudjekeewis,

       Rushing westward o’er the mountains,

       Stumbling westward down the mountains

       Three whole days retreated fighting,

       Still pursued by Hiawatha

       To the doorways of the West-Wind,

       To the portals of the Sunset,

       To the earth’s remotest border,

       Where into the empty spaces

       Sinks the sun, as a flamingo

       Drops into her nest at nightfall,

       In the melancholy marshes.

      “Hold!” at length cried Mudjekeewis,

       “Hold, my son, my Hiawatha!

       ‘T is impossible to kill me,

       For you cannot kill the immortal.

       I have put you to this trial,

       But to know and prove your courage;

       Now receive the prize of valor!

      “Go back to your home and people,

       Live among them, toil among them,

       Cleanse the earth from all that harms it,

       Clear the fishing-grounds and rivers,

       Slay all monsters and magicians,

       All the giants, the Wendigoes,

       All the serpents, the Kenabeeks,

       As I slew the Mishe-Mokwa,

       Slew the Great Bear of the mountains.

      “And at last when Death draws near you,

       When the awful eyes of Pauguk

       Glare upon you in the darkness,

       I will share my kingdom with you,

       Ruler shall you be thenceforward

       Of the Northwest-Wind, Keewaydin,

       Of the home-wind, the Keewaydin.”

      Thus was fought that famous battle

       In the dreadful days of Shah-shah,

       In the days long since departed,

       In the kingdom of the West-Wind.

       Still the hunter sees its traces

       Scattered far o’er hill and valley;

       Sees the giant bulrush growing

       By the ponds and water-courses,

       Sees the masses of the Wawbeek

       Lying still in every valley.

      Homeward now went Hiawatha;

       Pleasant was the landscape round him,

       Pleasant was the air above him,

       For the bitterness of anger

       Had departed wholly from him,

       From his brain the thought of vengeance,

       From his heart the burning fever.

      Only once his pace he slackened,

       Only once he paused or halted,

       Paused to purchase heads of arrows

       Of the ancient Arrow-maker,

       In the land of the Dacotahs,

       Where the Falls of Minnehaha

       Flash and gleam among the oak-trees,

       Laugh and leap into the valley.

      There the ancient Arrow-maker

       Made his arrow-heads of sandstone,

       Arrow-heads of chalcedony,

       Arrow-heads of flint and jasper,

       Smoothed and sharpened at the edges,

       Hard and polished, keen

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