joy:--her countenance
Inspired beholders with a thought that chance
Had borne her hither from some better land:--
To deck her tresses for the festive dance
Girls of the tribe would bring, with liberal hand,
Blossoms and rose-lipped shells from bower and reedy strand.

XII.

A thing of beauty is the slender vine
That wreaths its verdant arm around the oak
As if it there could safely intertwine
Shielded from ringing axe--the lightning stroke--
And like that vine the girl of whom I spoke
Clung to her companion:--scalding tears
Rained from her elk-like eyes, and sobs outbroke
From her o'er-labored bosom, while her ears
Were filled with soothing tones that did not hush her fears.

XIII.

Mourner! the hour of rescue is at hand!
This hill will tremble to its rocky base
When Ou-wee ne-you utters stern command;
Joy ere another fleeting moon the trace
Of clouding sorrow from thy brow will chase:--
Fear not!--for I am left to guard thee yet
Last of the daughters of a luckless race!
We must not in the time of grief forget
That light breaks forth anew from orbs that darkly set.

XIV.

Thus, day by day, would O-wen-do-skah strive
To cheer the drooping spirits of the maid,
And keep one glimmering spark of hope alive;
In the deep midnight for celestial aid,
While cowered the trembler at his knee, he prayed
In tones that might have touched a heart of rock:
One morn exclaimed he--"be no more afraid
Bright, peerless scion of a broken stock,
For Heaven the monster's coil is arming to unlock.

XV.

"Reserved for some high destiny despite
The downfall of our people we live on--
My dreams were of deliverance last night,
And peril of impending death withdrawn:
A light, my weeping one, begins to dawn
On the thick gloom by sorrow round us cast;
The lead-like pressure of despair is gone,
And rides a viewless courier on the blast
Who whispers--Lo! the hour of vengeance comes at last.

XVI.

"Gorged with his meal of gore unstirring sleeps
In his tremendous ring our mortal foe:
Film-veiled his savage eye no longer keeps
Grim watch for victims--warily and slow!
Follow thy lover arrived with bended bow
Of timber shaped, in many a battle tried--