The Song of Hiawatha   ::   Longfellow Henry Wadsworth

VII

Hiawatha's Sailing

"Give me of your bark, O Birch-tree!

Of your yellow bark, O Birch-tree!

Growing by the rushing river,

Tall and stately in the valley!

I a light canoe will build me,

Build a swift Cheemaun for sailing,

That shall float on the river,

Like a yellow leaf in Autumn,

Like a yellow water-lily!

"Lay aside your cloak, O Birch-tree!

Lay aside your white-skin wrapper,

For the Summer-time is coming,

And the sun is warm in heaven,

And you need no white-skin wrapper!"

Thus aloud cried Hiawatha

In the solitary forest,

By the rushing Taquamenaw,

When the birds were singing gayly,

In the Moon of Leaves were singing,

And the sun, from sleep awaking,

Started up and said, "Behold me!

Gheezis, the great Sun, behold me!"

And the tree with all its branches

Rustled in the breeze of morning,

Saying, with a sigh of patience,

"Take my cloak, O Hiawatha!"

With his knife the tree he girdled;

Just beneath its lowest branches,

Just above the roots, he cut it,

Till the sap came oozing outward;

Down the trunk, from top to bottom,

Sheer he cleft the bark asunder,

With a wooden wedge he raised it,

Stripped it from the trunk unbroken.

"Give me of your boughs, O Cedar!

Of your strong and pliant branches,

My canoe to make more steady,

Make more strong and firm beneath me!"

Through the summit of the Cedar

Went a sound, a cry of horror,

Went a murmur of resistance;

But it whispered, bending downward,

"Take my boughs, O Hiawatha!"

Down he hewed the boughs of cedar,

Shaped them straightway to a frame-work,

Like two bows he formed and shaped them,

Like two bended bows together.

"Give me of your roots, O Tamarack!

Of your fibrous roots, O Larch-tree!

My canoe to bind together,

So to bind the ends together

That the water may not enter,

That the river may not wet me!"

And the Larch, with all its fibres,

Shivered in the air of morning,

Touched his forehead with its tassels,

Slid, with one long sigh of sorrow.