The Thunderbolt. - Indian Legends.

There is an artless tradition among the Indians, related by Irving, of a warrior who saw the thunderbolt lying upon the ground, with a beautifully wrought moccasin on each side of it. Thinking he had found a prize, he put on the moccasins, but they bore him away to the land of spirits, whence he never returned.

Loud pealed the thunder

From arsenal high,

Bright flashed the lightning

Athwart the broad sky;

Fast o'er the prairie,

Through torrent and shade,

Sought the red hunter

His hut in the glade.

Deep roared the cannon

Whose forge is the sun,

And red was the chain

The thunderbolt spun;

O'er the thick wild wood

There quivered a line,

Low 'mid the green leaves

Lay hunter and pine.

Clear was the sunshine,

The hurricane past,

And fair flowers smiled in

The path of the blast;

While in the forest

Lay rent the huge tree,

Up rose the red man,

All unharmed and free.

Bright glittered each leaf

With sunlight and spray,

And close at his feet

The thunder-bolt lay,

And moccasins, wrought

With the beads that shine,

Where the rainbow hangeth

A wampum divine.

Wondered the hunter

What spirit was there,

Then donned the strange gift

With shout and with prayer;

But the stout forest

That echoed the strain,

Heard never the voice of

That red man again.

Up o'er the mountain,

As torrents roll down,

Marched he o'er dark oak

And pine's soaring crown;

Far in the bright west

The sunset grew clear,

Crimson and golden

The hunting-grounds near:

Light trod the chieftain

The tapestried plain,

There stood his good horse

He'd left with the slain;

Gone were the sandals,

And broken the spell;

A drop of clear dew

From either foot fell.

Long the dark maiden

Sought, tearful and wide;

Never the red man

Came back for his bride;

With the forked lightning

Now hunts he the deer,

Where the Great Spirit

Smiles ever and near.