Rushing, alike untir'd and wild, Through shades that frown'd and flowers that smil'd,

Flying by every green recess

That woo'd him to its calm caress,
Yet, sometimes turning with the wind,
As if to leave one look behind,-
Oft have I thought, and thinking sigh'd,
How like to thee, thou restless tide,
May be the lot, the life of him
Who roams along thy water's brira;
Through what alternate wastes of woe
And flowers of joy my path may go ;
How many a shelter'd, calm retreat
May woo the while my weary feet,
While still pursuing, still unblest,
I wander on, nor dare to rest ;
But, urgent as the doom that calls
Thy water to its destin'd falls,

I feel the world's bewild'ring force
Hurry my heart's devoted course
From lapse to lapse, till life be done,
And the spent current cease to run.

One only prayer I dare to make, As onward thus my course I take ; — Oh, be my falls as bright as thine! May heaven's relenting rainbow shine Upon the mist that circles me, As soft as now it hangs o'er thee!

Hark! I hear the traveller's song, As he winds the woods along ;Christian, 'tis the song of fear; Wolves are round thee, night is near, And the wild thou dar'st to roamThink, 'twas once the Indian's home!!

Hither, sprites, who love to harm, Wheresoe'er you work your charm, By the creeks, or by the brakes, Where the pale witch feeds her snakes, And the cayman 2 loves to creep, Torpid, to his wintry sleep : Where the bird of carrion flits, And the shudd'ring murderer sits, 3 Lone beneath a roof of blood; While upon his poison'd food, From the corpse of him he slew Drops the chill and gory dew.

Hither bend ye, turn ye hither, Eyes that blast and wings that wither! Cross the wand'ring Christian's way, Lead him, ere the glimpse of day, Many a mile of mad'ning error, Through the maze of night and terror, Till the morn behold him lying On the damp earth, pale and dying. Mock him, when his eager sight Seeks the cordial cottage-light; Gleam then, like the lightning-bug, Tempt him to the den that's dug For the foul and famish'd brood Of the she-wolf, gaunt for blood; Or, unto the dangerous pass O'er the deep and dark morass, Where the trembling Indian brings Belts of porcelain, pipes, and rings, Tributes, to be hung in air, To the Fiend presiding there! 4

Then, when night's long labour past, Wilder'd, faint, he falls at last,

Sinking where the causeway's edge
Moulders in the slimy sedge,
There let every noxious thing
Trail its filth and fix its sting;

Let the bull-toad taint him over,
Round him let mosquitoes hover,
In his ears and eyeballs tingling,
With his blood their poison mingling,
Till, beneath the solar fires,
Rankling all, the wretch expires!

ΤΟ

THE HONOURABLE W. R. SPENCER.

FROM BUFFALO, UPON LAKE ERIE,

Nec venit ad duros musa vocata Getas.
OVID. ex Ponto, lib. i. ep. 5.

THOU oft hast told me of the happy hours
Enjoy'd by thee in fair Italia's bowers,
Where, ling'ring yet, the ghost of ancient wit
Midst modern monks profanely dares to flit,
And pagan spirits, by the pope unlaid,
Haunt every stream and sing through every shade.
There still the bard who (if his numbers be
His tongue's light echo) must have talk'd like thee,-
The courtly bard, from whom thy mind has caught
Those playful, sunshine holidays of thought,
In which the spirit baskingly reclines,

Bright without effort, resting while it shines, -
There still he roves, and laughing loves to see
How modern priests with ancient rakes agree;
How, 'neath the cowl, the festal garland shines,
And Love still finds a niche in Christian shrines.

There still, too, roam those other souls of song, With whom thy spirit hath commun'd so long, That, quick as light, their rarest gems of thought, By Memory's magic to thy lip are brought.

1 "The Five Confederated Nations (of Indians) were settled along the banks of the Susquehannah and the adjacent country, until the year 1779, when General Sullivan, with an army of 4000 men, drove them from their country to Niagara, where, being obliged to live on salted provisions, to which they were unaccustomed, great numbers of them died. Two hundred of them, it is said, were buried in one grave, where they had encamped."- Morse's American Geography.

2 The alligator, who is supposed to lie in a torpid state all the winter, in the bank of some creek or pond, having previously swallowed a large number of pine-knots, which are his only sustenance during the time.

3 This was the mode of punishment for murder (as Charlevoix tells us) among the Hurons. They laid the dead body

upon poles at the top of a cabin, and the murderer was obliged to remain several days together, and to receive all that dropped from the carcass, not only on himself but on his food."

4 "We find also collars of porcelain, tobacco, ears of maize, skins, &c. by the side of difficult and dangerous ways, on rocks, or by the side of the falls; and these are so many offerings made to the spirits which preside in these places." See Charlevoix's Letter on the Traditions and the Religion of the Savages of Canada.

Father Hennepin too mentions this ceremony; he also says, "We took notice of one barbarian, who made a kind of sacrifice upon an oak at the Cascade of St. Antony of Padua, upon the river Mississippi."— See Hennepin's Voyage into North America.

But here, alas! by Erie's stormy lake,
As, far from such bright haunts my course I take,
No proud remembrance o'er the fancy plays,
No classic dream, no star of other days
Hath left that visionary light behind,
That ling'ring radiance of immortal mind,
Which gilds and hallows even the rudest scene,
The humblest shed, where genius once has been!

All that creation's varying mass assumes Of grand or lovely, here aspires and blooms; Bold rise the mountains, rich the gardens glow, Bright lakes expand, and conquering rivers flow; But mind, immortal mind, without whose ray, This world's a wilderness and man but clay, Mind, mind alone, in barren, still repose, Nor blooms, nor rises, nor expands, nor flows. Take Christians, Mohawks, democrats, and all From the rude wig-wam to the congress-hall, From man the savage, whether slav'd or free, To man the civiliz'd, less tame than he,"Tis one dull chaos, one unfertile strife Betwixt half-polish'd and half barbarous life; Where every ill the ancient world could brew Is mix'd with every grossness of the new; Where all corrupts, though little can entice, And nought is known of luxury, but its vice!

Is this the region then, is this the clime For soaring fancies? for those dreams sublime, Which all their miracles of light reveal To heads that meditate and hearts that feel? Alas! not so-the Muse of Nature lights Her glories round; she scales the mountain heights, And roams the forests; every wondrous spot Burns with her step, yet man regards it not. She whispers round, her words are in the air, But lost, unheard, they linger freezing there, 3 Without one breath of soul, divinely strong, One ray of mind to thaw them into song.

Yet, yet forgive me, oh ye sacred few, Whom late by Delaware's green banks I knew; Whom, known and lov'd through many a social eve, 'Twas bliss to live with, and 'twas pain to leave.

1 This epithet was suggested by Charlevoix's striking description of the confluence of the Missouri with the Mississippi. "I believe this is the finest confluence in the world. The two rivers are much of the same breadth, each about half a league; but the Missouri is by far the most rapid, and seems to enter the Mississippi like a conqueror, through which it carries its white waves to the opposite shore, without mixing them: afterwards it gives its colour to the Mississippi, which it never loses again, but carries quite down to the sea."Letter xxvii.

2 Alluding to the fanciful notion of "words congealed in northern air."

3 In the society of Mr. Dennie and his friends, at Phila

Not with more joy the lonely exile scann'd
The writing trac'd upon the desert's sand,
Where his lone heart but little hop'd to find
One trace of life, one stamp of human kind,
Than did I hail the pure, th' enlighten'd zeal,
The strength to reason and the warmth to feel,
The manly polish and the illumin'd taste,
Which,'mid the melancholy, heartless waste
My foot has travers'd, — oh you sacred few!
I found by Delaware's green banks with you.

Long may you loathe the Gallic dross that runs
Through your fair country and corrupts its sons ;
Long love the arts, the glories which adorn
Those fields of freedom, where your sires were born.
Oh! if America can yet be great,

If neither chain'd by choice, nor doom'd by fate
To the mob-mania which imbrutes her now,
She yet can raise the crown'd, yet civic brow
Of single majesty,—can add the grace
Of Rank's rich capital to Freedom's base,
Nor fear the mighty shaft will feebler prove
For the fair ornament that flowers above;-
If yet releas'd from all that pedant throng,
So vain of error and so pledg'd to wrong,
Who hourly teach her, like themselves, to hide
Weakness in vaunt, and barrenness in pride,
She yet can rise, can wreathe the Attic charms
Of soft refinement round the pomp of arms,
And see her poets flash the fires of song,
To light her warriors' thunderbolts along ;-
It is to you, to souls that favouring heaven
Has made like yours, the glorious task is given:-
Oh! but for such, Columbia's days were done ;
Rank without ripeness, quicken'd without sun,
Crude at the surface, rotten at the core,
Her fruits would fall, before her spring were o'er.

Believe me, Spencer, while I wing'd the hours Where Schuylkill winds his way through banks of flowers,

Though few the days, the happy evenings few, So warm with heart, so rich with mind they flew, That my charm'd soul forgot its wish to roam, And rested there, as in a dream of home.

delphia, I passed the few agreeable moments which my tour through the States afforded me. Mr. Dennie has succeeded in diffusing through this cultivated little circle that love for good literature and sound politics, which he feels so zealously himself, and which is so very rarely the characteristic of his countrymen. They will not, I trust, accuse me of illiberality for the picture which I have given of the ignorance and corruption that surround them. If I did not hate, as I ought, the rabble to which they are opposed, I could not value, as I do, the spirit with which they defy it; and in learning from them what Americans can be, I but see with the more indignation what Americans are.

And looks I met, like looks I'd lov'd before,
And voices too, which, as they trembled o'er
The chord of memory, found full many a tone
Of kindness there in concord with their own.
Yes, we had nights of that communion free,
That flow of heart, which I have known with thee
So oft, so warmly; nights of mirth and mind,
Of whims that taught, and follies that refin'd.
When shall we both renew them? when, restor❜d
To the gay feast and intellectual board,
Shall I once more enjoy with thee and thine
Those whims that teach, those follies that refine?
Even now, as wand'ring upon Erie's shore,
I hear Niagara's distant cataract roar,
I sigh for home,-alas! these weary feet
Have many a mile to journey, ere we meet.

Ω ΠΑΤΡΙΣ, ΩΣ ΣΟΥ ΚΑΡΤΑ ΝΥΝ ΜΝΕΙΑΝ ΕΧΩ.

EURIPIDES.

"Who would blush when I prais'd her, and weep if I blam'd,

"How blest could I live, and how calm could I die!

"By the shade of yon sumach, whose red berry dips "In the gush of the fountain, how sweet to re

cline,

"And to know that I sigh'd upon innocent lips, "Which had never been sigh'd on by any but mine!"

A CANADIAN BOAT SONG.

WRITTEN ON

THE RIVER ST. LAWRENCE.'

Et remigem cantus hortatur.

QUINTILIAN.

BALLAD STANZAS.

I KNEW by the smoke, that so gracefully curl'd Above the green elms, that a cottage was near, And I said, "If there's peace to be found in the world,

"A heart that was humble might hope for it here!"

It was noon, and on flowers that languish'd around
In silence repos'd the voluptuous bee;
Every leaf was at rest, and I heard not a sound
But the woodpecker tapping the hollow beech-

tree.

And, "Here in this lone little wood," I exclaim'd With a maid who was lovely to soul and to eye,

1 I wrote these words to an air which our boatmen sung to us frequently. The wind was so unfavourable that they were obliged to row all the way, and we were five days in descending the river from Kingston to Montreal, exposed to an intense sun during the day, and at night forced to take shelter from the dews in any miserable hut upon the banks that would re. ceive us. But the magnificent scenery of the St. Lawrence repays all such difficulties.

Our voyageurs had good voices, and sung perfectly in tune together. The original words of the air, to which I adapted these stanzas, appeared to be a long, incoherent story, of which I could understand but little, from the barbarous pronunciation of the Canadians. It begins

Dans mon chemin j'ai rencontré
Deux cavaliers très-bien montés;

And the refrain to every verse was,

A l'ombre d'un bois je m'en vais jouer,
A l'ombre d'un bois je m'en vais danser.

I ventured to harmonise this air, and have published it. Without that charm which association gives to every little

memorial of scenes or feelings that are past, the melody may, perhaps, be thought common and trifling; but I remember when we have entered, at sunset, upon one of those beautiful lakes, into which the St. Lawrence so grandly and unexpectedly opens, I have heard this simple air with a pleasure which the finest compositions of the first masters have never given me; and now there is not a note of it which does not recall to my memory the dip of our oars in the St. Lawrence, the flight of our boat down the Rapids, and all those new and fanciful impressions to which my heart was alive during the whole of this very interesting voyage.

The above stanzas are supposed to be sung by those voyageurs who go to the Grand Portage by the Utawas River. For an account of this wonderful undertaking, see Sir Alexander Mackenzie's General History of the Fur Trade, prefixed to his Journal.

2" At the Rapid of St. Ann they are obliged to take out part, if not the whole, of their lading. It is from this spot the Canadians consider they take their departure, as it possesses the last church on the island, which is dedicated to the tutelar saint of voyagers."— Mackenzie, General History of the Fur Trade.

Saint of this green isle! hear our prayers,
Oh, grant us cool heavens and favouring airs.
Blow, breezes, blow, the stream runs fast,
The Rapids are near and the daylight's past.

TO THE

LADY CHARLOTTE RAWDON.

FROM THE BANKS OF THE ST. LAWRENCE.

Nor many months have now been dream'd away
Since yonder sun, beneath whose evening ray
Our boat glides swiftly past these wooded shores,
Saw me where Trent his mazy current pours,
And Donington's old oaks, to every breeze,
Whisper the tale of by-gone centuries ;-
Those oaks, to me as sacred as the groves,
Beneath whose shade the pious Persian roves,
And hears the spirit-voice of sire, or chief,
Or loved mistress, sigh in every leaf. 1
There, oft, dear Lady, while thy lip hath sung
My own unpolish'd lays, how proud I've hung
On every tuneful accent! proud to feel
That notes like mine should have the fate to steal,
As o'er thy hallowing lip they sigh'd along,
Such breath of passion and such soul of song.
Yes, I have wonder'd, like some peasant boy
Who sings, on Sabbath-eve, his strains of joy,
And when he hears the wild, untutor❜d note
Back to his ear on softening echoes float,
Believes it still some answering spirit's tone,
And thinks it all too sweet to be his own!

I dreamt not then that, e'er the rolling year Had fill'd its circle, I should wander here In musing awe; should tread this wondrous world, See all its store of inland waters hurl'd In one vast volume down Niagara's steep, Or calm behold them, in transparent sleep,

1 "Avendo essi per costume di avere in venerazione gli alberi grandi et antichi, quasi che siano spesso ricettaccoli di anime beate."- Pietro della Valle, part. second., lettera 16 da i giardini di Sciraz.

2 Anburey, in his Travels, has noticed this shooting illumination which porpoises diffuse at night through the river St. Lawrence. Vol. i. p. 29.

3 The glass-snake is brittle and transparent.

4" The departed spirit goes into the Country of Souls, where, according to some, it is transformed into a dove."Charlevoix, upon the Traditions and the Religion of the Savages of Canada. See the curious fable of the American Orpheus in Lafitau, tom. 1. p. 402.

5 "The mountains appeared to be sprinkled with white

Where the blue hills of old Toronto shed
Their evening shadows o'er Ontario's bed;
Should trace the grand Cadaraqui, and glide
Down the white rapids of his lordly tide
Through massy woods, mid islets flowering fair,
And blooming glades, where the first sinful pair
For consolation might have weeping trod,
When banish'd from the garden of their God.
Oh, Lady! these are miracles, which man,
Cag'd in the bounds of Europe's pigmy span,
Can scarcely dream of,- which his eye must see
To know how wonderful this world can be!

But lo,-the last tints of the west decline, And night falls dewy o'er these banks of pine. Among the reeds, in which our idle boat Is rock'd to rest, the wind's complaining note Dies like a half-breath'd whispering of flutes; Along the wave the gleaming porpoise shoots, And I can trace him, like a watery star, 2 Down the steep current, till he fades afar Amid the foaming breakers' silvery light, Where yon rough rapids sparkle through the night, Here, as along this shadowy bank I stray, And the smooth glass-snake 3, gliding o'er my way, Shows the dim moonlight through his scaly form, Fancy, with all the scene's enchantment warm, Hears in the murmur of the nightly breeze Some Indian Spirit warble words like these :

From the land beyond the sea,
Whither happy spirits flee;
Where, transform'd to sacred doves,+
Many a blessed Indian roves
Through the air on wing, as white
As those wondrous stones of light,"
Which the eye of morning counts
On the Apallachian mounts, -
Hither oft my flight I take
Over Huron's lucid lake,
Where the wave, as clear as dew,
Sleeps beneath the light canoe,
Which, reflected, floating there,
Looks as if it hung in air.6

stones, which glistened in the sun, and were called by the Indians manetoe aseniah, or spirit-stones."- Mackenzie's Journal.

6 These lines were suggested by Carver's description of one of the American lakes. "When it was calm," he says, “and the sun shone bright, I could sit in my canoe, where the depth was upwards of six fathoms, and plainly see huge piles of stone at the bottom, of different shapes, some of which appeared as if they had been hewn; the water was at this time as pure and transparent as air, and my canoe seemed as if it hung suspended in that element. It was impossible to look attentively through this limpid medium, at the rocks below, without finding, before many minutes were elapsed, your head swim and your eyes no longer able to behold the dazzling scene."