The Song of Hiawatha   ::   Longfellow Henry Wadsworth

Through the roof looked Hiawatha,

Cried aloud, "O Pau-Puk-Keewis

Vain are all your craft and cunning,

Vain your manifold disguises!

Well I know you, Pau-Puk-Keewis!"

With their clubs they beat and bruised him,

Beat to death poor Pau-Puk-Keewis,

Pounded him as maize is pounded,

Till his skull was crushed to pieces.

Six tall hunters, lithe and limber,

Bore him home on poles and branches,

Bore the body of the beaver;

But the ghost, the Jeebi in him,

Thought and felt as Pau-Puk-Keewis,

Still lived on as Pau-Puk-Keewis.

And it fluttered, strove, and struggled,

Waving hither, waving thither,

As the curtains of a wigwam

Struggle with their thongs of deer-skin,

When the wintry wind is blowing;

Till it drew itself together,

Till it rose up from the body,

Till it took the form and features

Of the cunning Pau-Puk-Keewis

Vanishing into the forest.

But the wary Hiawatha

Saw the figure ere it vanished,

Saw the form of Pau-Puk-Keewis

Glide into the soft blue shadow

Of the pine-trees of the forest;

Toward the squares of white beyond it,

Toward an opening in the forest.

Like a wind it rushed and panted,

Bending all the boughs before it,

And behind it, as the rain comes,

Came the steps of Hiawatha.

To a lake with many islands

Came the breathless Pau-Puk-Keewis,

Where among the water-lilies

Pishnekuh, the brant, were sailing;

Through the tufts of rushes floating,

Steering through the reedy Islands.

Now their broad black beaks they lifted,

Now they plunged beneath the water,

Now they darkened in the shadow,

Now they brightened in the sunshine.

"Pishnekuh!" cried Pau-Puk-Keewis,

"Pishnekuh! my brothers!" said he,

"Change me to a brant with plumage,

With a shining neck and feathers,

Make me large, and make me larger,

Ten times larger than the others."

Straightway to a brant they changed him,

With two huge and dusky pinions,

With a bosom smooth and rounded,

With a bill like two great paddles,

Made him larger than the others,

Ten times larger than the largest,

Just as, shouting from the forest,

On the shore stood Hiawatha.