From his shoulder Hiawatha Took the camera of rosewood, Made of sliding, folding rosewood; Neatly put it all together. In its case it lay compactly, Folded into nearly nothing; But he opened out the hinges Till it looked all squares and oblongs, Like a complicated figure In the Second Book of Euclid.

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "From his shoulder Hiawatha Took the camera of rosewood, Made of sliding, folding rosewood; Neatly put it all together. In its case it lay compactly, Folded into nearly nothing; But he opened out the hinges Till it looked all squares and oblongs, Like a complicated figure In the Second Book of Euclid." in the context of "Lewis Carroll, Hiawatha's Photographing (1857), reprinted in Phantasmagoria and Other Poems (London, 1911): "In an age of imitation, I can claim no special merit for this slight attempt at doing what is known to be so easy. Any fairly practised writer, with the slightest ear for rhythm, could compose, for hours together, in the easy running metre of The Song of Hiawatha. Having then distinctly stated that I challenge no attention in the following little poem to its merely verbal jingle, I must beg the candid reader to confine his criticism to its treatment of the subject."" to mean that wisdom is timeless.