The Song of Hiawatha   ::   Longfellow Henry Wadsworth

To the beavers Pau-Puk-Keewis

Spake entreating, said in this wise:

"Very pleasant Is your dwelling,

O my friends! and safe from danger;

Can you not, with all your cunning,

All your wisdom and contrivance,

Change me, too, into a beaver?"

"Yes!" replied Ahmeek, the beaver,

He the King of all the beavers,

"Let yourself slide down among us,

Down into the tranquil water."

Down into the pond among them

Silently sank Pau-Puk-Keewis;

Black became his shirt of deer-skin,

Black his moccasins and leggings,

In a broad black tail behind him

Spread his fox-tails and his fringes;

He was changed into a beaver.

"Make me large," said Pau-Puk-Keewis,

"Make me large and make me larger,

Larger than the other beavers."

"Yes," the beaver chief responded,

"When our lodge below you enter,

In our wigwam we will make you

Ten times larger than the others."

Thus into the clear, brown water

Silently sank Pau-Puk-Keewis:

Found the bottom covered over

With the trunks of trees and branches,

Hoards of food against the winter,

Piles and heaps against the famine;

Found the lodge with arching doorway,

Leading into spacious chambers.

Here they made him large and larger,

Made him largest of the beavers,

Ten times larger than the others.

"You shall be our ruler," said they;

"Chief and King of all the beavers."

But not long had Pau-Puk-Keewis

Sat in state among the beavers,

When there came a voice, of warning

From the watchman at his station

In the water-flags and lilies,

Saying, "Here Is Hiawatha!

Hiawatha with his hunters!"

Then they heard a cry above them,

Heard a shouting and a tramping,

Heard a crashing and a rushing,

And the water round and o'er them

Sank and sucked away in eddies,

And they knew their dam was broken.

On the lodge's roof the hunters

Leaped, and broke it all asunder;

Streamed the sunshine through the crevice,

Sprang the beavers through the doorway,

Hid themselves in deeper water,

In the channel of the streamlet;

But the mighty Pau-Puk-Keewis

Could not pass beneath the doorway;

He was puffed with pride and feeding,

He was swollen like a bladder.