The Song of Hiawatha   ::   Longfellow Henry Wadsworth

But the fearless Hiawatha

Cried aloud, and spake in this wise,

"Let me pass my way, Kenabeek,

Let me go upon my journey!"

And they answered, hissing fiercely,

With their fiery breath made answer:

"Back, go back! O Shaugodaya!

Back to old Nokomis, Faint-heart!"

Then the angry Hiawatha

Raised his mighty bow of ash-tree,

Seized his arrows, jasper-headed,

Shot them fast among the serpents;

Every twanging of the bow-string

Was a war-cry and a death-cry,

Every whizzing of an arrow

Was a death-song of Kenabeek.

Weltering in the bloody water,

Dead lay all the fiery serpents,

And among them Hiawatha

Harmless sailed, and cried exulting:

"Onward, O Cheemaun, my darling!

Onward to the black pitch-water!"

Then he took the oil of Nahma,

And the bows and sides anointed,

Smeared them well with oil, that swiftly

He might pass the black pitch-water.

All night long he sailed upon it,

Sailed upon that sluggish water,

Covered with its mould of ages,

Black with rotting water-rushes,

Rank with flags and leaves of lilies,

Stagnant, lifeless, dreary, dismal,

Lighted by the shimmering moonlight,

And by will-o'-the-wisps illumined,

Fires by ghosts of dead men kindled,

In their weary night-encampments.

All the air was white with moonlight,

All the water black with shadow,

And around him the Suggema,

The mosquito, sang his war-song,

And the fire-flies, Wah-wah-taysee,

Waved their torches to mislead him;

And the bull-frog, the Dahinda,

Thrust his head into the moonlight,

Fixed his yellow eyes upon him,

Sobbed and sank beneath the surface;

And anon a thousand whistles,

Answered over all the fen-lands,

And the heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah,

Far off on the reedy margin,

Heralded the hero's coming.

Westward thus fared Hiawatha,

Toward the realm of Megissogwon,

Toward the land of the Pearl-Feather,

Till the level moon stared at him

In his face stared pale and haggard,

Till the sun was hot behind him,

Till it burned upon his shoulders,

And before him on the upland

He could see the Shining Wigwam

Of the Manito of Wampum,

Of the mightiest of Magicians.

Then once more Cheemaun he patted,

To his birch-canoe said, "Onward!"

And it stirred in all its fibres,

And with one great bound of triumph

Leaped across the water-lilies,

Leaped through tangled flags and rushes,

And upon the beach beyond them

Dry-shod landed Hiawatha.