The Song of Hiawatha   ::   Longfellow Henry Wadsworth

From his wanderings far to eastward,

From the regions of the morning,

From the shining land of Wabun,

Homeward now returned Iagoo,

The great traveller, the great boaster,

Full of new and strange adventures,

Marvels many and many wonders.

And the people of the village

Listened to him as he told them

Of his marvellous adventures,

Laughing answered him in this wise:

"Ugh! it is indeed Iagoo!

No one else beholds such wonders!"

He had seen, he said, a water

Bigger than the Big-Sea-Water,

Broader than the Gitche Gumee,

Bitter so that none could drink it!

At each other looked the warriors,

Looked the women at each other,

Smiled, and said, "It cannot be so!"

Kaw!" they said, "it cannot be so!"

O'er it, said he, o'er this water

Came a great canoe with pinions,

A canoe with wings came flying,

Bigger than a grove of pine-trees,

Taller than the tallest tree-tops!

And the old men and the women

Looked and tittered at each other;

"Kaw!" they said, "we don't believe it!"

From its mouth, he said, to greet him,

Came Waywassimo, the lightning,

Came the thunder, Annemeekee!

And the warriors and the women

Laughed aloud at poor Iagoo;

"Kaw!" they said, "what tales you tell us!"

In it, said he, came a people,

In the great canoe with pinions

Came, he said, a hundred warriors;

Painted white were all their faces

And with hair their chins were covered!

And the warriors and the women

Laughed and shouted in derision,

Like the ravens on the tree-tops,

Like the crows upon the hemlocks.

"Kaw!" they said, "what lies you tell us!

Do not think that we believe them!"

Only Hiawatha laughed not,

But he gravely spake and answered

To their jeering and their jesting:

"True is all Iagoo tells us;

I have seen it in a vision,

Seen the great canoe with pinions,

Seen the people with white faces,

Seen the coming of this bearded

People of the wooden vessel

From the regions of the morning,

From the shining land of Wabun.