The Song of Hiawatha   ::   Longfellow Henry Wadsworth

For himself he kept the West-Wind,

Gave the others to his children;

Unto Wabun gave the East-Wind,

Gave the South to Shawondasee,

And the North-Wind, wild and cruel,

To the fierce Kabibonokka.

Young and beautiful was Wabun;

He it was who brought the morning,

He it was whose silver arrows

Chased the dark o'er hill and valley;

He it was whose cheeks were painted

With the brightest streaks of crimson,

And whose voice awoke the village,

Called the deer, and called the hunter.

Lonely in the sky was Wabun;

Though the birds sang gayly to him,

Though the wild-flowers of the meadow

Filled the air with odors for him;

Though the forests and the rivers

Sang and shouted at his coming,

Still his heart was sad within him,

For he was alone in heaven.

But one morning, gazing earthward,

While the village still was sleeping,

And the fog lay on the river,

Like a ghost, that goes at sunrise,

He beheld a maiden walking

All alone upon a meadow,

Gathering water-flags and rushes

By a river in the meadow.

Every morning, gazing earthward,

Still the first thing he beheld there

Was her blue eyes looking at him,

Two blue lakes among the rushes.

And he loved the lonely maiden,

Who thus waited for his coming;

For they both were solitary,

She on earth and he in heaven.

And he wooed her with caresses,

Wooed her with his smile of sunshine,

With his flattering words he wooed her,

With his sighing and his singing,

Gentlest whispers in the branches,

Softest music, sweetest odors,

Till he drew her to his bosom,

Folded in his robes of crimson,

Till into a star he changed her,

Trembling still upon his bosom;

And forever in the heavens

They are seen together walking,

Wabun and the Wabun-Annung,

Wabun and the Star of Morning.

But the fierce Kabibonokka

Had his dwelling among icebergs,

In the everlasting snow-drifts,

In the kingdom of Wabasso,

In the land of the White Rabbit.