Puslapio vaizdai
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The mountain wind-most spiritual thing of all The wide earth knows-when, in the sultry time,

He stoops him from his vast cerulean hall,

He seems the breath of a celestial clime,— As if from heaven's wide-open gates did flow Health and refreshment on the world below.

AN INDIAN STORY.

I KNOW where the timid fawn abides
In the depths of the shaded dell,

Where the leaves are broad and the thicket hides,
With its many stems and its tangled sides,
From the eye of the hunter well.

I know where the young May violet grows,
In its lone and lowly nook,

On the mossy bank, where the larch tree throws
Its broad dark boughs, in solemn repose,

Far over the silent brook.

And that timid fawn starts not with fear
When I steal to her secret bower,
And that young May violet to me is dear,
And I visit the silent streamlet near,

To look on the lovely flower.

Thus Maquon sings as he lightly walks

To the hunting ground on the hills;

'Tis a song of his maid of the woods and rocks, With her bright black eyes and long black locks, And voice like the music of rills.

He goes to the chase—but evil eyes

Are at watch in the thicker shades;

For she was lovely that smiled on his sighs,
And he bore, from a hundred lovers, his prize,
The flower of the forest maids.

The boughs in the morning wind are stirr'd,
And the woods their song renew,
With the early carol of many a bird,

And the quicken'd tune of the streamlet heard
Where the hazels trickle with dew.

And Maquon has promised his dark-haired maid,

Ere eve shall redden the sky,

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,
Ring shrill with the fire-bird's lay;

And Maquon's sylvan labours are done,
And his shafts are spent, but the spoil they won

He bears on his homeward way.

He stops near his bower-his eye perceives
Strange traces along the ground—

At once, to the earth his burden he heaves,

He breaks through the veil of boughs and leaves,
And gains its door with a bound.

But the vines are torn on its walls that leant,
And all from the young shrubs there,
By struggling hands have the leaves been rent,
And there hangs on the sassafras broken and bent,
One tress of the well known hair.

But where is she who at this calm hour,
Ever watch'd his coming to see,

She is not at the door, nor yet in the bower,
He calls-but he only hears on the flower
The hum of the laden bee.

It is not a time for idle grief,

Nor a time for tears to flow,

The horror that freezes his limbs is brief-
He grasps his war axe and bow, and a sheaf
Of darts made sharp for the foe.

And he looks for the print of the ruffian's feet,
Where he bore the maiden away;

And he darts on the fatal path more fleet

Than the blast that hurries the vapour and sleet

O'er the wild November day.

'Twas early summer when Maquon's bride

Was stolen away from his door;

But at length the maples in crimson are dyed,
And the grape is black on the cabin side,-
And she smiles at his hearth once more.

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But far in a pine grove, dark and cold,
Where the yellow leaf falls not,
Nor the autumn shines in scarlet and gold,
There lies a hillock of fresh dark mould,
In the deepest gloom of the spot.

And the Indian girls that pass that way,

Point out the ravisher's grave;

"And how soon to the bower she loved," they say, "Returned the maid that was borne away

From Maquon the fond and the brave."

THE WESTERN WORLD.

LATE, from this western shore, that morning chased
The deep and ancient night, that threw its shroud
O'er the green land of groves, the beautiful waste,
Nurse of full streams, and lifter up of proud

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Sky-mingling mountains that o'erlook the cloud.

Erewhile, where yon gay spires their brightness rear,
Trees waved, and the brown hunter's shouts were loud
Amid the forest; and the bounding deer

Fled at the glancing plume, and the gaunt wolf yell'd near.

And where his willing waves yon bright blue bay

Sends up, to kiss his decorated brim,

And cradles, in his soft embrace, the gay
Young group of grassy islands born of him,

And, crowding nigh, or in the distance dim,
Lifts the white throng of sails, that bear or bring
The commerce of the world;—with tawny limb,
And belt and beads in sunlight glistening,

The savage urged his skiff like wild bird on the wing.

Then, all his youthful paradise around,
And all the broad and boundless mainland, lay
Cool'd by the interminable wood, that frown'd
O'er mound and vale, where never summer ray
Glanced, till the strong tornado broke his way
Through the grey giants of the sylvan wild;
Yet many a shelter'd glade, with blossoms gay,
Beneath the showery sky and sunshine mild,
Within the shaggy arms of that dark forest smiled.

There stood the Indian hamlet, there the lake
Spread its blue sheet that flash'd with many an oar,
Where the brown otter plunged him from the brake,
And the deer drank-as the light gale flew o'er,

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