Some guardian spirit will before me throw
A shield by human vision undescried
Should he awake in wrath, and hence our footsteps guide."

XVII.

It was I ween a sight to freeze each vein
That courses through our perishable clay
When sallied forth with muffled tread the twain;
A look of wild, unutterable dismay
Convulsed Te-yos-yu's[F] visage while the way,
A spear-length in advance, her lover led:
Reaching the portal paused he to survey
The dangerous pass through which a grisly head
Deprest to earth he saw, its mouth with murder red.

[F] Bright eye.

XVIII.

"On! On!"--he whispered--"and the sightless mole
Our footfall must not hear, or we are lost:"
Nerved to high purpose was his war-like soul
As the dark threshold of the gate he cross'd;
But fear that instant chilled his limbs with frost,
For high its swollen neck the monster raised
Gore dripping from its jaws with foam embossed,
And rimmed with fire, and circling eye-ball blazed
As light unwounding dart its horrid armor grazed.

XIX.

Sick by a foul and fetid odor made
Recoiled the champion from unequal fray;
Cut off all hope of rescue, he surveyed
Fiercely the danger like a stag at bay:
Where was Te-yos-yu?--she had swooned away,
And hoof-crushed wild-flower of the forest brown
Resembled her as soiled with mould she lay;
Long on the _seeming corpse_ the chief looked down,
For 'twas a sight the cup of his despair to crown.

XX.

Kneeling at length, upheld he with strong arm
Her beauteous head, but in the temples beat
No pulse of life:--tears gushing fast and warm
Refresh a heart, of transcient ill the seat,
As raindrops cool the summer's midday heat;
But when descends some desolating blow
That makes this world a desert, how unmeet
Is outward symbol!--and far, far below
The water-mark of grief was Oh-wen-do-skah's wo!

XXI.

In broken tones he murmured--"must the name
Of a great people be revived no more,
And like an echo pass away their fame,
Or moccasin's faint impress on the shore
Of the salt lake when billows foam and roar?
Black night enwraps my soul, for she is dead
Who was its light--desire to live is o'er!"
Scarce were these words in mournful accent said,