Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
And he wooed her with his soft caresses, / Wooed her with his smile of sunshine, [β¦]
From his lodge went Hiawatha, / Dressed for travel, armed for hunting; / Dressed in deer-skin shirt and leggings, / Richly wrought with quills and wampum; / On his head his eagle-feathers, / Round his waist his belt of wampum, [β¦]
Buried was the bloody hatchet, / Buried was the dreadful war-club, / Buried were all warlike weapons, / And the war-cry was forgotten.
[Gitche Manito] Breathed upon the neighbouring forest, / Made its great boughs chafe together, / Till in flame they burst and kindled; [β¦]
And the rabbit from his path-way /
Leaped aside, and at a distance /
Sat erect upon his haunches.
Far below him plashed the waters, / Plashed and washed the dreamy waters; [β¦]
Thus the Birch Canoe was builded /
In the valley, by the river, /
In the bosom of the forest; /
And the forestβs life was in it, /
All its mystery and its magic, /
All the lightness of the birch-tree, /
All the toughness of the cedar, /
All the larchβs supple sinews;
I have given you roe and reindeer, / I have given you brant and beaver, / Filled the marshes full of wild-fowl, / Filled the rivers full of fishes; / Why then are you not contented? / Why then will you hunt each other?
Ah! the singing, fatal arrow, / Like a wasp it buzzed, and stung him [a roebuck]!
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