And then I think of one who in her youthful beauty died, leaf, And we wept that one so lovely should have a lot so brief; Yet not unmeet it was, that one, like that young friend of ours, So gentle and so beautiful, should perish with the flowers. HYMN TO THE NORTH STAR. THE sad and solemn night Has yet her multitude of cheerful fires; Walk the dark hemisphere till she retires: All through her silent watches, gliding slow, Her constellations come, and round the heavens, and go. Day, too, hath many a star To grace his gorgeous reign, as bright as they : Unseen they follow in his flaming way: And thou dost see them rise, Star of the Pole! and thou dost see them set. Thou keep'st thy old unmoving station yet, There, at morn's rosy birth, Thou lookest meekly through the kindling air, Chases the day, beholds thee watching there; There noontide finds thee, and the hour that calls Alike, beneath thine eye, The deeds of darkness and of light are done; High towards the star-lit sky Towns blaze-the smoke of battle blots the sun The night-storm on a thousand hills is loud And the strong wind of day doth mingle sea and cloud. On thy unaltering blaze The half-wreck'd mariner, his compass lost, Fixes his steady gaze, And steers, undoubting, to the friendly coast; And they who stray in perilous wastes, by night, Are glad when thou dost shine to guide their footsteps right And, therefore, bards of old, Sages, and hermits of the solemn wood, A beauteous type of that unchanging good, AUTUMN WOODS. ERE, in the northern gale, The summer tresses of the trees are gone, The mountains that infold In their wide sweep, the color'd landscape round, I roam the woods that crown My steps are not alone In these bright walks; the sweet southwest at play, And far in heaven, the while, The sun, that sends that gale to wander here, Where now the solemn shade, Let in through all the trees Come the strange rays; the forest depths are bright; Twinkles, like beams of light. 4 The rivulet, late unseen, Where bickering through the shrubs its waters run, And glimmerings of the sun. But 'neath yon crimson tree, Lover to listening maid might breathe his flame, Nor mark, within its roseate canopy, Her blush of maiden shame. Oh, Autumn! why so soon Depart the hues that make thy forests glad; Ah, 't were a lot too blest For ever in thy colour'd shades to stray And leave the vain low strife, That makes men mad-the tug for wealth and power, , AN INDIAN STORY. I KNOW where the timid fawn abides Where the leaves are broad, and the thicket hides, I know where the young May violet grows, On the mossy bank, where the larch tree throws Far over the silent brook. And that timid fawn starts not with fear Thus Maquon sings as he lightly walks "T is a song of his maid of the woods and rocks, He goes to the chase-but evil eyes For she was lovely that smiled on his sighs, The boughs in the morning wind are stirr'd, And the quicken'd tune of the streamlet heard And Maquon has promis'd his dark-hair'd maid, A good red deer from the forest shade, That bounds with the herd through grove and glade, At her cabin door shall lie. The hollow woods, in the setting sun, He stops near his bower-his eye perceives At once, to the earth his burden he heaves, But the vines are torn on its walls that leant, By struggling hands have the leaves been rent, But where is she who at this calm hour, She is not at the door, nor yet in the bower, It is not a time for idle grief, Nor a time for tears to flow; The horror that freezes his limbs is brief- And he looks for the print of the ruffian's feet, And he darts on the fatal path more fleet "T was early summer when Maquon's bride Was stolen away from his door; But at length the maples in crimson are dyed, And she smiles at his hearth once more. But far in a pine grove, dark and cold, And the Indian girls, that pass that way, "And how soon to the bower she loved," they say, THANATOPSIS. To him who in the love of Nature holds Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall, To Nature's teachings, while from all around- Thy image. Earth, that nourish'd thee, shall claim To be a brother to th' insensible rock, And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain |