And he came to look upon her,
And he look'd at her and said,
"Bring the dress and put it on her
That she wore when she was wed."
Then her people, softly treading,
Bore to earth her body, drest
In the dress that she was wed in,
That her spirit might have rest.
Alfred Tennyson.
Hiawatha's Childhood.
"Hiawatha" needs no commendation. Hundreds of thousands of children in our land know snatches of it. It is a child's poem, every line of it. One summer in Boston more than 50,000 people went to take a peep at the poet's house. (1807-82.)
By the shores of Gitche Gumee,
By the shining Big-Sea-Water,
Stood the wigwam of Nokomis,
Daughter of the Moon, Nokomis.
Dark behind it rose the forest,
Rose the black and gloomy pine-trees,
Rose the firs with cones upon them;
Bright before it beat the water,
Beat the clear and sunny water,
Beat the shining Big-Sea-Water.
There the wrinkled old Nokomis
Nursed the little Hiawatha,
Rocked him in his linden cradle,
Bedded soft in moss and rushes,
