Tecumseh's Death

AMID that scene, like some dark towering fiend,
With death-black eyes and hands all spotted o'er,
The fierce Tecumseh on his tall lance leaned,
Fired with much spoil and drunk with human gore
And now his blasting glance ferocious gleamed —
The chief who leads the eagles to his shore —
When, with one scream that devils might appal,
Deep in his breast he lodged the whizzing ball.

Like the quick bolt that follows on the flash
Which rends the mountain oak in fearful twain,
So springs the warrior with infernal dash
Upon the Christian writhing in his pain ;
High gleamed his hatchet, ready now to crash
Along the fibres of his swimming brain,
When from the adverse arm a bullet flew
With force resistless, and with aim too true.

The baffled Chieftain tottered, sunk, and fell,
Rage in his heart, and vengeance in his glance ;
His features ghastly pale — his breast was hell ;
One bound he made to seize his fallen lance,
But quick the death-shades o'er his vision swell,
His arm dropped nerveless, straining to advance ;
One look of hatred, and the last, he gave,
Then sunk and slumbered with the fallen brave.

Forth from the copse a hundred foemen spring,
And pounce like vultures on the bleeding clay ;
Like famished bloodhounds to the corse they cling,
And bear the fallen hero's spoils away ;
The very covering from his nerves they wring,
And gash his form, and glut them o'er their prey,
Wild hell-fiends all, and revelling at his death,
With bursting shrieks and pestilential breath.