Page:Song of Hiawatha (1855).djvu/186

176 Built the birch canoe for sailing,

Caught the fish in lake and river,

Shot the deer and trapped the beaver;

Unmolested worked the women,

Made their sugar from the maple,

Gathered wild rice in the meadows,

Dressed the skins of deer and beaver.

All around the happy village

Stood the maize-fields, green and shining,

Waved the green plumes of Mondamin,

Waved his soft and sunny tresses,

Filling all the land with plenty.

'T was the women who in Spring-time

Planted the broad fields and fruitful,

Buried in the earth Mondamin;

'T was the women who in Autumn

Stripped the yellow husks of harvest,

Stripped the garments from Mondamin,

Even as Hiawatha taught them.

Once, when all the maize was planted,