Pau-Puck Kee-wis
When the day is airy, and dust is in your eyes,
Then the Indian fairy Pau-puck-kee-wis flies,
Hurling, whirling, curling, twirling,
Puffing, snuffing, fluffing, stuffing
Dust into your eyes.
Where the snow is flurrying. Pau-puck-kee-wis spins;
Skurrying and worrying, all his work begins;
Spluttering, fluttering, cluttering, puttering,
Bustling, justling, justling, rustling,
Round the snow he spins.
Where the smoke is rising, Pau-puck-kee-wis spreads;
All the world despising, he goes above their heads;
Blowing, flowing, growing, going,
Shading, fading, masquerading,
In the smoke he spreads.
Where the river’s falling, Pau-puck-kee-wis gleams;
In its noisy brawling, in its flashing beams;
Thumping, bumping, plumping, jumping,
Flashing, dashing, crashing, plashing,
In the leaping streams.
Where the pines are moaning with one long old Huron word,
All the summer droning, when by breezes stirred,
Humming, drumming, softly strumming,
With a murmured, muttering, thrumming,
Like a storm forever coming,
Is the Indian fairy heard.
ex Mother Pitcher’s Poems for Little People (Philadephia: Frederick Leypoldt, 1864) : 49-50
via archive.org : link
LoC : permalink
Charles Godfrey Leland (1824-1903), “humorist and folklorist”
wikipedia : link
Mother Pitcher’s Poems — “written expressly for my youngest sister, Emily” — is mentioned in Leland’s Memoirs (1894) : 251
via google books : link
4 March 2026