Of warring elks that struggle for the does,
They lashed the wave to clouds of spray and foam,
Through which their forms uncouth, like buffaloes
Seen dimly through a morning mist, did loom,
Or isles at twilight rising from the shore.
Though we were thirty, they at least fourscore,
We rushed upon them, and a midnight pall
Over the seething lake our pinions spread,
’Neath which our gleaming arrows thickly sped,
As shooting stars that in the rice-moon fall.