While the scooping whirl of the pool beneath
Seems an open throat, with its granite teeth |

But Mogg Megone never trembled yet'

Wherever his eye or his foot was set.
He is watchful : each form in the moonlight

dim,
Of rock or of tree, is seen of him :
He listens ; each sound from afar is caught,
The faintest shiver of leaf and limb :
But he sees not the, waters, which foam and

fret.
Whose moonlit spray has his moccasin wet, —
And the roar of their rushing, he hears it not

The moonlight, through the open bough

Of the gray beech, whose naked root

Coils like a serpent at his foot,
Falls, checkered, on the Indian's brow.
His head is bare, save only where
Waves in the wind one lock of hair,

Reserved for him, whoe'er he be,
More mighty than Megone in strife.
When, breast to breast and knee to kne^
Above the fallen warrior's life
Gleams, quick and keen, the scalping-knife.
Megone hath his knife and hatchet and gun.
WHITTIER'S POEMS.
293



And his gaudy and tasseled blanket on :
His knife hath a handle with gold inlaid,
And magic words on its polished blade, —
'Twas the gift of Castine to Mogg Megone,
For a scalp or twain from the Yengeese torn :
His gun was the gift of the Tarrantine,

And Modocawando's wives had strung
The brass and the beads, which tinkle and

shine
On the polished breech, and broad bright line

Of beaded wampum around it hung.
