MAUI’S FISH
As he draws from his mat the carv’d fish-hook,
The jaw-bone well carv’d of his heroine ancestress.
Bright in the sunlight the paua that lined it,
The hair that adorn’d it waved bright in the wind.
“Ha, ha, ha!” laughs Maui the Fisher,
The Sun and the Sea also laugh, when they look on that hook!
But—where was the bait?
“O my Brothers,” says Maui, “Behold
To what catch I encouraged you hither!
Can we verily take it all home? See the gunwale, how low in the water!
Spare me, spare me one morsel of all these great fish of your fishing
For bait to my hook.”
But they jeer’d im delight: “Aha! So art thou caught, little [1]Pipi?
O friend! what is the use of fine fish-hooks, and ever so fine,
Without bait?” And they gave him no bait.
So then Maui bethought him.
He smote on his nostril. The blood of his head ran out, copious and living—
With his blood he baited his hook.
And, now laughing no longer, but grave, and firm of attention,
He casts the hook into the Sea.
“Prosper it, O [2]Tangaroa!”
And Tangaroa,
Lord of the deep and the surface,
Lurer to enterprise, lover of daring adventure,
Heard!
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