The Downing legends : Stories in Rhyme :: :: University of Virginia Library

At last our rider reached the border
Of stony steeps that fenced the plains,
And plunged amid a grim disorder
Of arid gorges delved by rains;
When suddenly he spied before him
A living hill of shaggy hair,
Equipped with mighty tusks to gore him
And trunk to fling him into air.

This was the pest of early races,
The Giant Bull of Indian creed,
The mastodon of college cases,
The finis of his precious breed.
No words can tell how vast a creature
He was in height and length and girth,
How terrible in mien and feature,
And how his trampling shook the earth.
His orbits, broad as coffee-saucers,
Shot flames from under grisly locks;
His codex, thick as frigate-hawsers,
Uprooted oaks and splintered rocks.

No doubt the boundless brute had frighted
Most heroes into fits of fear;
And Downing's self was scarce delighted
To see a mastodon so near.
In haste he waved his hat and helloed
To make the monster clear the path;
The monster stood his ground, and bellowed
As loud as Etna in its wrath.
The courser disappeared in terror

So quick and slick that Downing thought
That he perchance had been in error
In holding that a horse he brought.
But there was little time for wonder
Because his pony flew—or ran;
The mammoth roared again like thunder,
And charged as only mammoths can.