Hiawatha...newbie Collector.

...by C P Ravilious.

Then to matters philatelic
Turned my learned Hiawatha;
Turned to proofs and duplex cancels,
postal flscals, Used-abroad and first-day covers
All this lore of postal history
Pondered then my Hiawatha.

Where the meeting-tree rose skyward,
Where the merchants brought their bundles
To attract the eager buyer,
Hiawatha bought an album,
Bought a spring-back loose-leaf album
To preserve his stamp collection;
Bought a quantity of hinges
Double-gummed for easy peeling),
Bought a gauge for perforations.
These did Hiawatha purchase.


Then, much daring, Hiawatha
Sent for medium-priced approvals,
Choice approvals (suit beginner),
Quality all-world approvals
To augment his stamp collection.
All impatience Hiawatha
Waited then the postman's coming;
Rose while yet the dawn was stealing
Moccasined across the water
By the shores of Gitche Gumee;
Rose to wait the postman's coming.

Full of joy was Hiawatha,
as he handled those approvals,
Choice approvals (suit beginner):
Ajman paintings, Ras al Khaima,
Christmas triptych from Anguilla,
Fifty Munich, fifty moonshots,
Fifty nudes from Abu Dhabi;
Plus—the high spot of the package—
Giant free-form stamps of Tonga,
Free to introduce approvals.
Guaranteed five-star approvals
(Mainly singles and thematics),
Choice approvals (suit beginner).

These did Hiawatha purchase,
Mailing off a postal order
To the dealer in approvals,
Quality all-world approvals.
Guaranteed five-star approvals,
Choice approvals (suit beginner).
But the careful Minnehaha
Raised her voice in vengeful anger.
"Did our fathers ever purchase
Bits of paper from a dealer,
Bits of paper almost worthless.
Wasting all this time and money?"
Thus the outraged Minnehaha.
Hiawatha bowed his tresses,
All his war plumes drooping sadly
At these words of Minnehaha;
Till a thought caressed his fancy.
Roused him like a distant war-drum.
"Could not I become a dealer?"
(Thus the thought caressed his fancy.)
"Could not I by drive and know-how
Make my hobby self-supporting.
Prosper as a part-time dealer?"

que pasa Rod?

Completely useless and non-philatelic information follows:

Did you know Longfellow used the meter from the Finnish epic poem Kalevala for The Song of Hiawatha? As the Finnish language uses a stress scheme which accents pretty much every other syllable in a word, a shopping list can be set to trochaic tetrameter without any trouble.

Dave
Inanorum Datorum Rex

Long live your useless information Dave

That was interesting, of course I still don't understand
entirely, but certainly the pace at which one reads
this lovely (original) poem, it always seems to percolate along
like a burbling V8 engine, not stilted like a lot of poems.
So we now know (or think we know)the reason.

It is a rare occaision where stress is a good thing

"a shopping list can be set to trochaic tetrameter without any trouble."
Maybe we commit to memory in such a fashion our "want lists"
for our next stamp bourse.

Dave, if you are interested in tonal patterns,
check out this infinite piece of music on a tiny stamp.

I don't understand it, but it may just tickle your fancy.

Nice job of the Longfellow take off.

By the way the poem covers words from at least 3 different Native American languages, Hiawatha is Iroquoian, Gichee-gume the Chippewa name for Lake Superior & Minnehaha, which was not mentioned here is derived from Dakota(Sioux)meaning "laughing water".

I guess if it sound native it was usable in the poem.

Thanks for that warrehouse,
those words/phrases are the ones that remain
long after the poem has been read, and it's nice
to hear the genesis.
Stamp collecting re-united me with another poem
I read as a kid, I had no idea what it meant,
but the words just fascinated me.
Some years ago, I re met the poem when I chanced upon
"Chimborazo Cotopaxi" (and Popocatapetl)again, and was a delight to find it is a volcano in Ecuador.