Through massy woods, through islets flowering fair,
Through shades of bloom, where the first sinful pair
For consolation might have weeping trod,
When banish'd from the garden of their God!
O Lady! these are miracles which man,
Caged in the bounds of Europe's pigmy plan,
Can scarcely dream of—which his eye must see
To know how beautiful this world can be!

But soft!—the tinges 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-breathed whispering of flutes;
Along the wave the gleaming porpoise shoots,
And I can trace him, like a watery star,*
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 + gliding o'er my way,
Shews 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 clime of sacred doves,+
Where the blessed Indian roves
Through the air on wing as white
As the spirit-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!

Then, when I have stray'd a while

Through the Manataulin isle,||

Breathing all its holy bloom,

Swift upon the purple plume

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

The glass-snake is brittle and transparent.

"The departed spirit goes into the country of souls, where, according to some, it is transformed into a dove."

§ "The mountains appeared to be sprinkled with white stones, which glistened in the sun, and were called by the Indians 'manetoe aseniah,' or spirit-stones."-Mackenzie's Journal.

"Manataulin" signifies a place of spirits, and this island in Lake Huron is held sacred by the Indians.

Of my wakon-bird* I fly,
Where, beneath a burning sky,
O'er the bed of Erie's lake
Slumbers many a water-snake,
Basking in the web of leaves
Which the weeping lily weaves,+
Then I chase the floweret-king
Through his bloomy wild of spring;
See him now, while diamond hues
Soft his neck and wings suffuse,
In the leafy chalice sink,
Thirsting for his balmy drink;
Now behold him, all on fire,
Lovely in his looks of ire,
Breaking every infant stem,
Scattering every velvet gem,
Where his little tyrant lip
Had not found enough to sip!

"Then my playful hand I steep
Where the gold-thread ‡ loves to creep,
Cull from thence a tangled wreath,
Words of magic round it breathe,
And the sunny chaplet spread
O'er the sleeping fly-bird's head,§
Till, with dreams of honey blest,
Haunted in his downy nest
By the garden's fairest spells,
Dewy buds and fragrant bells,
Fancy all his soul embowers
In the fly-bird's heaven of flowers!

"Oft when hoar and silvery flakes
Melt along the ruffled lakes;

When the gray moose sheds his horns,
When the track at evening warns

"The wakon-bird, which probably is of the same species with the bird of paradise, receives its name from the ideas the Indians have of its superior excellence; the wakon-bird being, in their language, the bird of the great spirit."-Morse.

†The islands of Lake Erie are surrounded to a considerable distance by the large pond-lily, whose leaves spread thickly over the surface of the lake, and form a kind of bed for the water-snakes in summer.

"The gold-thread is of the vine kind, and grows in swamps. The roots spread themselves just under the surface of the morasses, and are easily drawn out by handfuls. They resemble a large entangled skein of silk, and are of a bright yellow."-Morse.

§ "L'oiseau mouche, gros comme un hanneton, est de toutes couleurs, vives et changeantes: il tire sa subsistence des fleurs commes les abeilles; son nid est fait d'un cotton très fin suspendu à une branche d'arbre."— Voyages aux Indes Occidentales, par M. Bossu, second part, let. xx.

Weary hunters of the way
To the wigwam's cheering ray,
Then, aloft through freezing air,
With the snow-bird soft and fair
As the fleece that Heaven flings
O'er his little pearly wings,
Light above the rocks I play,
Where Niagara's starry spray,
Frozen on the cliff, appears
Like a giant's starting tears!
There, amid the island-sedge,
Just upon the cataract's edge,
Where the foot of living man
Never trod since time began,
Lone I sit, at close of day,
While, beneath the golden ray,
Icy columns gleam below,
Feather'd round with falling snow,
And an arch of glory springs,
Brilliant as the chain of rings
Round the neck of virgins hung,
Virgins, who have wander'd young
O'er the waters of the west

To the land where spirits rest!

Thus have I charm'd, with visionary lay, The lonely moments of the night away; And now, fresh daylight o'er the water beams! Once more embark'd upon the glittering streams, Our boat flies light along the leafy shore, Shooting the falls without a dip of oar Or breath of zephyr, like the mystic bark The poet saw, in dreams divinely dark, Borne, without sails, along the dusky flood,* While on its deck a pilot angel stood, And with his wings of living light unfurl'd, Coasted the dim shores of another world!

Yet oh! believe me, in this blooming maze Of lovely nature, where the fancy strays From charm to charm, where every floweret's hue Hath something strange, and every leaf is new! I never feel a bliss so pure and still,

So heavenly calm, as when a stream or hill, Or veteran oak, like those remember'd well, Or breeze or echo or some wild-flower's smell (For who can say what small and fairy ties, The memory flings o'er pleasure, as it flies!) * Dante, Purgator., cant. ii.