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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=409713" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Ghosts</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Never stoops the soaring vulture<br>On his quarry in the desert,<br>On the sick or wounded bison,<br>But another vulture, watching<br>From his high aerial look-out,<br>Sees the downward plunge, and follows;<br>And a third pursues the second,<br>Coming from the invisible ether,<br>First a speck, and then a vulture,<br>Till the air is dark with pinions.<br> So disasters come not singly;<br>But as if they watched and waited,<br>Scanning one another's motions,<br>When the first descends, the others<br>Follow, follow, gathering flock-wise<br>Round their victim, sick and wounded,<br>First a shadow, then a sorrow,<br>Till the air is dark with anguish.<br> Now, o'er all the dreary North-land,<br>Mighty Peboan, the Winter,<br>Breathing on the lakes and rivers,<br>Into stone had changed their waters.<br>From his hair he shook the snow-flakes,<br>Till the plains were strewn with whiteness,<br>One uninterrupted level,<br>As if, stooping, the Creator<br>With his hand had smoothed them over.<br>Through the forest, wide and wailing,<br>Roamed the hunter on his snow-shoes;<br>In the village worked the women,<br>Pounded maize, or dressed the deer-skin;<br>And the young men played together<br>On the ice the noisy ball-play,<br>On the plain the dance of snow-shoes.<br> One dark evening, after sundown,<br>In her wigwam Laughing Water<br>Sat with old Nokomis, waiting<br>For the steps of Hiawatha<br>Homeward from the hunt returning.<br> On their faces gleamed the firelight,<br>Painting them with streaks of crimson,<br>In the eyes of old Nokomis<br>Glimmered like the watery moonlight,<br>In the eyes of Laughing Water<br>Glistened like the sun in water;<br>And behind them crouched their shadows<br>In the corners of the wigwam,<br>And the smoke In wreaths above them<br>Climbed and crowded through the smoke-flue.<br> Then the curtain of the doorway<br>From without was slowly lifted;<br>Brighter glowed the fire a moment,<br>And a moment swerved the smoke-wreath,<br>As two women entered softly,<br>Passed the doorway uninvited,<br>Without word of salutation,<br>Without sign of recognition,<br>Sat down in the farthest corner,<br>Crouching low among the shadows.<br> From their aspect and their garments,<br>Strangers seemed they in the village;<br>Very pale and haggard were they,<br>As they sat there sad and silent,<br>Trembling, cowering with the shadows.<br> Was it the wind above the smoke-flue,<br>Muttering down into the wigwam?<br>Was it the owl, the Koko-koho,<br>Hooting from the dismal forest?<br>Sure a voice said in the silence:<br>&quot;These are corpses clad in garments,<br>These are ghosts that come to haunt you,<br>From the kingdom of Ponemah,<br>From the land of the Hereafter!&quot;<br> Homeward now came Hiawatha<br>From his hunting in the forest,<br>With the snow upon his tresses,<br>And the red deer on his shoulders.<br>At the feet of Laughing Water<br>Down he threw his lifeless burden;<br>Nobler, handsomer she thought him,<br>Than when first he came to woo her,<br>First threw down the deer before her,<br>As a token of his wishes,<br>As a promise of the future.<br> Then he turned and saw the strangers,<br>Cowering, crouching with the shadows;<br>Said within himself, &quot;Who are they?<br>What strange guests has Minnehaha?&quot;<br>But he questioned not the strangers,<br>Only spake to bid them welcome<br>To his lodge, his food, his fireside.<br> When the evening meal was ready,<br>And the deer had been divided,<br>Both the pallid guests, the strangers,<br>Springing from among the shadows,<br>Seized upon the choicest portions,<br>Seized the white fat of the roebuck,<br>Set apart for Laughing Water,<br>For the wife of Hiawatha;<br>Without asking, without thanking,<br>Eagerly devoured the morsels,<br>Flitted back among the shadows<br>In the corner of the wigwam.<br> Not a word spake Hiawatha,<br>Not a motion made Nokomis,<br>Not a gesture Laughing Water;<br>Not a change came o'er their features;<br>Only Minnehaha softly<br>Whispered, saying, &quot;They are famished;<br>Let them do what best delights them;<br>Let them eat, for they are famished.&quot;<br> Many a daylight dawned and darkened,<br>Many a night shook off the daylight<br>As the pine shakes off the snow-flakes<br>From the midnight of its branches;<br>Day by day the guests unmoving<br>Sat there silent in the wigwam;<br>But by night, in storm or starlight,<br>Forth they went into the forest,<br>Bringing fire-wood to the wigwam,<br>Bringing pine-cones for the burning,<br>Always sad and always silent.<br> And whenever Hiawatha<br>Came from fishing or from hunting,<br>When the evening meal was ready,<br>And the food had been divided,<br>Gliding from their darksome corner,<br>Came the pallid guests, the strangers,<br>Seized upon the choicest portions<br>Set aside for Laughing Water,<br>And without rebuke or question<br>Flitted back among the shadows.<br> Never once had Hiawatha<br>By a word or look reproved them;<br>Never once had old Nokomis<br>Made a gesture of impatience;<br>Never once had Laughing Water<br>Shown resentment at the outrage.<br>All had they endured in silence,<br>That the rights of guest and stranger,<br>That the virtue of free-giving,<br>By a look might not be lessened,<br>By a word might not be broken.<br> Once at midnight Hiawatha,<br>Ever wakeful, ever watchful,<br>In the wigwam, dimly lighted<br>By the brands that still were burning,<br>By the glimmering, flickering firelight<br>Heard a sighing, oft repeated,<br> From his couch rose Hiawatha,<br>From his shaggy hides of bison,<br>Pushed aside the deer-skin curtain,<br>Saw the pallid guests, the shadows,<br>Sitting upright on their couches,<br>Weeping in the silent midnight.<br> And he said: &quot;O guests! why is it<br>That your hearts are so afflicted,<br>That you sob so in the midnight?<br>Has perchance the old Nokomis,<br>Has my wife, my Minnehaha,<br>Wronged or grieved you by unkindness,<br>Failed in hospitable duties?&quot;<br> Then the shadows ceased from weeping,<br>Ceased from sobbing and lamenting,<br>And they said, with gentle voices:<br>&quot;We are ghosts of the departed,<br>Souls of those who once were with you.<br>From the realms of Chibiabos<br>Hither have we come to try you,<br>Hither have we come to warn you.<br> &quot;Cries of grief and lamentation<br>Reach us in the Blessed Islands;<br>Cries of anguish from the living,<br>Calling back their friends departed,<br>Sadden us with useless sorrow.<br>Therefore have we come to try you;<br>No one knows us, no one heeds us.<br>We are but a burden to you,<br>And we see that the departed<br>Have no place among the living.<br> &quot;Think of this, O Hiawatha!<br>Speak of it to all the people,<br>That henceforward and forever<br>They no more with lamentations<br>Sadden the souls of the departed<br>In the Islands of the Blessed.<br> &quot;Do not lay such heavy burdens<br>In the graves of those you bury,<br>Not such weight of furs and wampum,<br>Not such weight of pots and kettles,<br>For the spirits faint beneath them.<br>Only give them food to carry,<br>Only give them fire to light them.<br> &quot;Four days is the spirit's journey<br>To the land of ghosts and shadows,<br>Four its lonely night encampments;<br>Four times must their fires be lighted.<br>Therefore, when the dead are buried,<br>Let a fire, as night approaches,<br>Four times on the grave be kindled,<br>That the soul upon its journey<br>May not lack the cheerful firelight,<br>May not grope about in darkness.<br> &quot;Farewell, noble Hiawatha!<br>We have put you to the trial,<br>To the proof have put your patience,<br>By the insult of our presence,<br>By the outrage of our actions.<br>We have found you great and noble.<br>Fail not in the greater trial,<br>Faint not In the harder struggle.&quot;<br> When they ceased, a sudden darkness<br>Fell and filled the silent wigwam.<br>Hiawatha heard a rustle<br>As of garments trailing by him,<br>Heard the curtain of the doorway<br>Lifted by a hand he saw not,<br>Felt the cold breath of the night air,<br>For a moment saw the starlight;<br>But he saw the ghosts no longer,<br>Saw no more the wandering spirits<br>From the kingdom of Ponemah,<br>From the land of the Hereafter.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Henry+Wadsworth+Longfellow">Henry Wadsworth Longfellow</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=409713" data-title="The Ghosts de Henry Wadsworth Longfellow" data-description="Never stoops the soaring vulture
On his quarry in the desert,
On the sick or wounded bison,
But another vulture, watching
From his high aerial look-out,
Sees the downward plunge, and follows;
And a third pursues the second,
Coming from the invisib..."></div>
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