e weapons of the sky.

"Lay back that weapon in its place;
Let those who bore it bear it still,
Lest thou displease the ghostly race
That float in mist from hill to hill."

"My father, I will only try
How well it sends a shaft, and then,
Be sure, this goodly bow shall lie
Among the splintered boughs again."

So to the hunting-ground he hies,
To chase till eve the forest-game,
And not a single arrow flies,
From that good bow, with erring aim.

And then he deems that they, who swim
In trains of cloud the middle air,
Perchance had kindly thoughts of him
And dropped the bow for him to bear.

He bears it from that day, and soon
Becomes the mark of every eye,
And wins renown with every moon
That fills its circle in the sky.

None strike so surely in the chase;
None bring such trophies from the fight;
And, at the council-fire, his place
Is with the wise and men of might.

And far across the land is spread,
Among the hunter tribes, his fame;
Men name the bowyer-chief with dread
Whose arrows never miss their aim.

See next his broad-roofed cabin rise
On a smooth river's pleasant side,
And she who has the brightest eyes
Of all the tribe becomes his bride.

A year has passed; the forest sleeps
In early autumn's sultry glow;
Onetho, on the mountain-steeps,
Is hunting with that trusty bow.

But they, who by the river dwell,
See the dim vapors thickening o'er
Long mountain-range and severing dell,
And hear the thunder's sullen roar.

Still darker grows the spreading cloud
From which the booming thunders sound,
And stoops and hangs a shadowy shroud
Above Onetho's hunting-ground.

Then they who, from the river-vale,
Are gazing on the distant storm,
See in the mists that ride the gale
Dim shadows of the human form--

Tall warriors, plumed, with streaming hair
And lifted arms that bear the bow,
And send athwart the murky air
The arrowy lightnings to and fro.

Loud is the tumult of an hour--
Crash of torn boughs and howl of blast,
And thunder-peal and pelting shower,
And then the storm is overpast.

Where is Onetho? what delays
His coming? why should he remain
Among the plashy woodland ways,
Swoln brooks and boughs that drip with rain?

He comes not, and the younger men
Go forth to search the forest round.
They t