Maui’s Fish.
(After the Maori Legend.)
[1]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,
- ↑ Maui (pronounce approximately Mow’-ee): The Polynesian Hercules, with a certain spice of Mercury, also of Prometheus. He clipped the wings of the Sun, stole fire from the Fire Goddess, fished up New Zealand from the sea, as here related, and all but conquered the Goddess of Death.
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