Page:Song of Hiawatha (1855).djvu/68

58 For his heart was hot within him,

Like a living coal his heart was.

But the ruler of the West-Wind

Blew the fragments backward from him,

With the breathing of his nostrils,

With the tempest of his anger,

Blew them back at his assailant;

Seized the bulrush, the Apukwa,

Dragged it with its roots and fibres

From the margin of the meadow,

From its ooze, the giant bulrush;

Long and loud laughed Hiawatha!

Then began the deadly conflict,

Hand to hand among the mountains;

From his eyrie screamed the eagle,

The Keneu, the great War-Eagle;

Sat upon the crags around them,

Wheeling flapped his wings above them.

Like a tall tree in the tempest

Bent and lashed the giant bulrush;