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Rh But it could not break the meshes

Of that magic shirt of wampum.

Till at sunset Hiawatha,

Leaning on his bow of ash-tree,

Wounded, weary, and desponding,

With his mighty war-club broken,

With his mittens torn and tattered,

And three useless arrows only,

Paused to rest beneath a pine-tree,

From whose branches trailed the mosses,

And whose trunk was coated over

With the Dead-man's Moccason-leather,

With the fungus white and yellow.

Suddenly from the boughs above him

Sang the Mama, the woodpecker:

"Aim your arrows, Hiawatha,

At the head of Megissogwon,

Strike the tuft of hair upon it,

At their roots the long black tresses;

There alone can he be wounded!"