The flashing death-strokes gleam afar,
Spear rings on spear, flight urges flight,
And drowning victims plunge to night;
Check'd by the torrent-tide of blood,
Backward Menai rolls his flood;
The mailéd warriors on the shore,
With carnage strew'd, and dyed with gore,
In awful anguish drag their mangled forms along,
And high the slaughter'd throng
Is heap'd, the King's red chiefs before.