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Maui, the Fisher, would have gone fishing In the canoe with the sons of his mother; He had a thought in his head. But these Brothers begrudged him. “He is young and audacious,” they grumbled, “and wilful; We are not too sure of his birth and his breeding; His cunning is great, and his tricks are perdition; What law does he follow? What reverence is his? He will trick us, perchance he will wreck, peradventure may drown us— He surely will scare us!” said they. “Bide thou here,” said these clever and cautious old brothers of Maui; And forth on the broad breast of Ocean Push’d the canoe, and were off To their old fishing-ground.

Maui the Fisher paced on the sea-beach, Thinking....thinking.... Working the while at the fish-hook he held in his fingers: A very old bone he was carving and fitting,