The Song of Hiawatha   ::   Longfellow Henry Wadsworth

The Great Spirit, the Creator,

Flashing light through all the heaven;

The Great Serpent, the Kenabeek,

With his bloody crest erected,

Creeping, looking into heaven;

In the sky the sun, that listens,

And the moon eclipsed and dying;

Owl and eagle, crane and hen-hawk,

And the cormorant, bird of magic;

Headless men, that walk the heavens,

Bodies lying pierced with arrows,

Bloody hands of death uplifted,

Flags on graves, and great war-captains

Grasping both the earth and heaven!

Such as these the shapes they painted

On the birch-bark and the deer-skin;

Songs of war and songs of hunting,

Songs of medicine and of magic,

All were written in these figures,

For each figure had its meaning,

Each its separate song recorded.

Nor forgotten was the Love-Song,

The most subtle of all medicines,

The most potent spell of magic,

Dangerous more than war or hunting!

Thus the Love-Song was recorded,

Symbol and interpretation.

First a human figure standing,

Painted in the brightest scarlet;

`T Is the lover, the musician,

And the meaning is, "My painting

Makes me powerful over others.