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 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.

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.

THE BUGLE SONG

THE splendor falls on castle walls
And snowy summits old in story:
The long light shakes across the lakes
And the wild cataract leaps in glory.

Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

O hark, O hear! how thin and clear,
And thinner, clearer, farther going!
O sweet and far from cliff and scar

The horns of Elfland faintly blowing!
Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying:
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying

O love, they die in yon rich sky,

They faint on hill or field or river:

Our echoes roll from soul to soul,
And grow forever and forever.

Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying.

PART TWO

So nigh is grandeur to our dust,

So near is God to man,

When Duty whispers low, "Thou must,"
The youth replies, "I can."

Ralph Waldo Emerson.