Bade that the clans assemble on a day,
And Williams meet the prophet of the wood,
And in their presence front and overthrow
His strange dominion, or all hope forego.
XVIII.
I will not say that devils did enlist
To do the bidding of the grim Pawaw;
He may have been a wild ventriloquist,
Formed by rude nature; but the age which saw
The marvels that he wrought, would aye insist
His spells surpassed material nature's law;
And that the monarch of the infernal shade
Mustered his legions to the wizard's aid.
XIX.
Great was his fame; for wide the rumor went
That all the demons were at his command,
And fiends in rocks, and dens, and caverns pent,
Came to the beck of his black waving hand;
The boldest Keenomps, on resistance bent,
Could not the terror of his charms withstand;
But still would shrink and shudder at the sound,
When spoke his viewless fiends in anger round.
XX.
And it was rumored that he daily held
Communion strange with monsters of the wood,
Harked to their voices, and their meanings spelled,
And muttered answers which they understood;
That he had filled with wisdom unexcelled,
A cherished serpent of the sesesk's brood,—
Had taught his forky tongue to modulate
The voice of man, and speak impending fate.
