Ever deeper, deeper, deeper
Fell the snow o'er all the landscape,
Fell the covering snow, and drifted
Through the forest, round the village.
There are the pitiful cries of the helpless, starving ones,
O the wailing of the children!
O the anguish of the women!
There is the hunter engaged in his bootless quest,
Vainly walked he through the forest,
Sought for bird or beast and found none,
Saw no track of deer or rabbit,
In the snow beheld no footprints.
Then came the two dread visitors, Famine and Fever, and fixed their awful gaze on Minnehaha, who
Lay there trembling, freezing, burning
At the looks they cast upon her,
At the fearful words they uttered.
Out into the forest rushes Hiawatha, crying frantically to Heaven,
"Give me food for Minnehaha,
For my dying Minnehaha!"
Through the far-resounding forest,
Through the forest vast and vacant
Rang the cry of desolation,
But there came no other answer
Than the echo of the woodlands,
"Minnehaha! Minnehaha!"
All the day he roamed the gloomy depths of the wintry woods, still vainly seeking food. When he came home empty-handed, heavy-hearted, lo! the spirit of Minnehaha had fled to the Islands of the Blessed. Her body they laid in the snow,