The Song of Hiawatha   ::   Longfellow Henry Wadsworth

Straight he took his bow of ash-tree,

On the sand one end he rested,

With his knee he pressed the middle,

Stretched the faithful bow-string tighter,

Took an arrow, jasperheaded,

Shot it at the Shining Wigwam,

Sent it singing as a herald,

As a bearer of his message,

Of his challenge loud and lofty:

"Come forth from your lodge, Pearl-Feather!

Hiawatha waits your coming!"

Straightway from the Shining Wigwam

Came the mighty Megissogwon,

Tall of stature, broad of shoulder,

Dark and terrible in aspect,

Clad from head to foot in wampum,

Armed with all his warlike weapons,

Painted like the sky of morning,

Streaked with crimson, blue, and yellow,

Crested with great eagle-feathers,

Streaming upward, streaming outward.

"Well I know you, Hiawatha!"

Cried he in a voice of thunder,

In a tone of loud derision.

"Hasten back, O Shaugodaya!

Hasten back among the women,

Back to old Nokomis, Faint-heart!

I will slay you as you stand there,

As of old I slew her father!"

But my Hiawatha answered,

Nothing daunted, fearing nothing:

"Big words do not smite like war-clubs,

Boastful breath is not a bow-string,

Taunts are not so sharp as arrows,

Deeds are better things than words are,

Actions mightier than boastings!"

Then began the greatest battle

That the sun had ever looked on,

That the war-birds ever witnessed.

All a Summer's day it lasted,

From the sunrise to the sunset;

For the shafts of Hiawatha

Harmless hit the shirt of wampum,

Harmless fell the blows he dealt it

With his mittens, Minjekahwun,

Harmless fell the heavy war-club;

It could dash the rocks asunder,

But it could not break the meshes

Of that magic shirt of wampum.

Till at sunset Hiawatha,

Leaning on his bow of ash-tree,

Wounded, weary, and desponding,

With his mighty war-club broken,

With his mittens torn and tattered,

And three useless arrows only,

Paused to rest beneath a pine-tree,

From whose branches trailed the mosses,

And whose trunk was coated over

With the Dead-man's Moccasin-leather,

With the fungus white and yellow.