When peals of thunder shook low vale and mountain-head.

XXII.

Up sprang the Chief;--and on a throne of cloud,
Robed in a snowy mantle fringed with light,
The Lord of life beheld:--the forest bowed
Its head in awe before that presence bright,
And a wild shudder at the dazzling sight
Ran through the mighty monster's knotted ring
Shaking the hill from base to rocky height;
Rose from her trance the maid with fawn-like spring,
And balanced in mid-air the bird on trembling wing.

XXIII.

"Notch on the twisted sinew of thy bow
This fatal weapon"--Ou-wee-ne-you[G] cried,
Dropping a golden shaft--"and pierce the foe
Under the rounded scale that wall his side!"
Then vanished, while again the valley wide
And mountain quaked with thunder:--from the ground
The warrior raised the gift of Heaven, and hied
On his heroic mission while around
The hill with closer clasp his train the serpent wound.

[G] Great Spirit.

XXIV.

Flame-hued and hissing played its nimble tongue
Between thick, ghastly rows of pointed bone
Round which commingled gore and venom clung:
Raging its flattened head like copper shone,
And flinty earth returned a heavy groan
Lashed by quick strokes of its resounding tail;
Heard is like uproar when the hills bleak cone
Is wildly beat by winter's icy flail,
But in that moment dire the archer did not quail.

XXV.

Firm in one hand his trusty bow he held,
And with the other to its glittering head
Drew the long shaft while full each muscle swell'd;
A twanging sound!--and on its errand sped
The messenger of vengeance:--warm and red
Gushed from a gaping wound the vital tide--
Wrenched was the granite from its ancient bed,
And pines were broken in their leafy pride,
When throes of mortal pain the monster's coil untied.

XXVI.

Down the steep hill outstretched and dead he rolled
Disgorging human heads in his descent;
Oaks that in earth had deeply fixed their hold
Like reeds by that revolving mass were bent,
Splintered their boughs as if by thunder rent:
High flung the troubled lake its glittering spray,
And far the beach with flakes of foam besprent,
When the huge carcass disappeared for aye
In depths from whence it rose to curse the beam