| |
|
VII
"Give me of your bark, O Birch-tree!
Of your yellow
bark, O Birch-tree!
Growing by the rushing river,
Tall and stately in the valley!
I a light canoe
will build me,
Build a swift Cheemaun for sailing,
That shall float on the river,
Like a yellow
leaf in Autumn,
Like a yellow water-lily!
"Lay
aside your cloak, O Birch-tree!
Lay aside your
white-skin wrapper,
For the Summer-time is coming,
And the sun is warm in heaven,
And you need no
white-skin wrapper!"
Thus aloud cried Hiawatha
In
the solitary forest,
By the rushing Taquamenaw,
When the birds were singing gayly,
In the Moon of
Leaves were singing,
And the sun, from sleep
awaking,
Started up and said, "Behold me!
Gheezis, the great Sun, behold me!"
And the tree with
all its branches
Rustled in the breeze of morning,
Saying, with a sigh of patience,
"Take my cloak,
O Hiawatha!"
With his knife the tree he girdled;
Just beneath its lowest branches,
Just above the
roots, he cut it,
Till the sap came oozing outward;
Down the trunk, from top to bottom,
Sheer he cleft
the bark asunder,
With a wooden wedge he raised it,
Stripped it from the trunk unbroken.
"Give me of
your boughs, O Cedar!
Of your strong and pliant
branches,
My canoe to make more steady,
Make
more strong and firm beneath me!"
Through the summit
of the Cedar
Went a sound, a cry of horror,
Went
a murmur of resistance;
But it whispered, bending
downward,
'Take my boughs, O Hiawatha!"
Down he
hewed the boughs of cedar,
Shaped them straightway
to a frame-work,
Like two bows he formed and shaped
them,
Like two bended bows together.
"Give me of
your roots, O Tamarack!
Of your fibrous roots, O
Larch-tree!
My canoe to bind together,
So to
bind the ends together
That the water may not enter,
That the river may not wet me!"
And the Larch,
with all its fibres,
Shivered in the air of morning,
Touched his forehead with its tassels,
Slid,
with one long sigh of sorrow.
"Take them all, O
Hiawatha!"
From the earth he tore the fibres,
Tore the tough roots of the Larch-tree,
Closely
sewed the hark together,
Bound it closely to the
frame-work.
"Give me of your balm, O Fir-tree!
Of
your balsam and your resin,
So to close the seams
together
That the water may not enter,
That the
river may not wet me!"
And the Fir-tree, tall and
sombre,
Sobbed through all its robes of darkness,
Rattled like a shore with pebbles,
Answered
wailing, answered weeping,
"Take my balm, O
Hiawatha!"
And he took the tears of balsam,
Took
the resin of the Fir-tree,
Smeared therewith each
seam and fissure,
Made each crevice safe from water.
"Give me of your quills, O Hedgehog!
All your
quills, O Kagh, the Hedgehog!
I will make a necklace
of them,
Make a girdle for my beauty,
And two
stars to deck her bosom!"
From a hollow tree the
Hedgehog
With his sleepy eyes looked at him,
Shot his shining quills, like arrows,
Saying with a
drowsy murmur,
Through the tangle of his whiskers,
"Take my quills, O Hiawatha!"
From the ground the
quills he gathered,
All the little shining arrows,
Stained them red and blue and yellow,
With the
juice of roots and berries;
Into his canoe he
wrought them,
Round its waist a shining girdle,
Round its bows a gleaming necklace,
On its breast
two stars resplendent.
Thus the Birch Canoe was
builded
In the valley, by the river,
In the bosom
of the forest;
And the forest's 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 larch's supple sinews;
And it floated on the
river
Like a yellow leaf in Autumn,
Like a
yellow water-lily.
Paddles none had Hiawatha,
Paddles none he had or needed,
For his thoughts as
paddles served him,
And his wishes served to guide
him;
Swift or slow at will he glided,
Veered to
right or left at pleasure.
Then he called aloud to
Kwasind,
To his friend, the strong man, Kwasind,
Saying, "Help me clear this river
Of its sunken logs
and sand-bars."
Straight into the river Kwasind
Plunged as if he were an otter,
Dived as if he were
a beaver,
Stood up to his waist in water,
To his
arm-pits in the river,
Swam and scouted in the
river,
Tugged at sunken logs and branches,
With
his hands he scooped the sand-bars,
With his feet
the ooze and tangle.
And thus sailed my Hiawatha
Down the rushing Taquamenaw,
Sailed through all its
bends and windings,
Sailed through all its deeps and
shallows,
While his friend, the strong man, Kwasind,
Swam the deeps, the shallows waded.
Up and down
the river went they,
In and out among its islands,
Cleared its bed of root and sand-bar,
Dragged
the dead trees from its channel,
Made its passage
safe and certain,
Made a pathway for the people,
From its springs among the mountains,
To the waters
of Pauwating,
To the bay of Taquamenaw.
|
|
|
