“But great Cawtantowit, on his pinions still, O’er the lone earth majestically sprung, And whispered to the mountain, vale and hill, And with new life the teeming regions rung; The feathered songsters tune their carols shrill, Herds upon herds the plain and mountain throng; In the still pools the cunning beavers toil, And the armed seseks[5] their strong folds uncoil. [5] Sesek--rattlesnake. XIX. “Yet man was not.--Then great Cawtantowit spoke To the hard mountain crags and called for man: And sculptured, breathing, from the cleaving rock, Sprang the armed warrior, and a strife began With living things.--Hard as his native block, Was his stone heart, and through it ran Blood cold as ice--and the Great Spirit struck This cruel man, and him to atoms broke. XX. “Then He the oak, of fibre hard and fine, With the first red man’s soul and form endowed, And woman made he of the tapering pine, Which ’neath that oak in peaceful beauty bowed; She on the red man’s bosom did recline, Like the bright rainbow on the thunder-cloud. And the Great Spirit saw his work divine, And on the pair let fall His smile benign. XXI. “He gave them all these forests far and near, The forms that fly, and those that creeping go, The healthful fountains, and the rivers clear, And all the broods that sport the waves below; Then gave he man the swiftness of the deer, And armed his hands with arrows and the bow, And bade him shelter still his consort dear, And tread his large domain without a peer. XXII. “Then did he send Yotaanit on high, (For Gods he fashioned as he formed the land,) And bade him star with fires the azure sky, And kindle the round blaze of Keesuckquand; And then, to cheer by night the hunter’s eye, Bright Nanapaushat sprung from Wamponand; Thus with his will the manittoos comply, And every region knows its deity.[6] [6] See note. XXIII. “All things thus were formed from what was good, And the foul refuse every evil had; But it had felt the influence of the God, (How should it not?) and a black demon, sad And stern and cruel, loving strife and blood, Filled with all malice, and with fury mad, Sprang into life:--such was fell Chepian’s birth, The hate of gods, and terror of the earth. XXIV. “Then to the south-west the Great Spirit flew, Whence the soft breezes of the summer come, And from the depths Sowaniu’s[7] island drew, And bade its fields with lasting verdure bloom. O’er it he bent another welkin blue, Which never night nor clouds nor tempests gloom, And kindled suns the lofty arches through, And bade them shine with glory ever new. [7] Sowaniu--here of three syllables--was written by Williams, “Sowwainiu.” XXV.