LAKE SUPERIOR.

“FATHER OF LAKES !" thy waters bend Beyond the eagle's utmost view,

When, throned in heaven, he sees thee send Back to the sky its world of blue.

Boundless and deep, the forests weave
Their twilight shade thy borders o'er,
And threatening cliffs, like giants, heave
Their rugged forms along thy shore.

Pale Silence, 'mid thy hollow caves,
With listening ear, in sadness broods;

Or startled Echo, o'er thy waves,

Sends the hoarse wolf-notes of thy woods.

Nor can the light canoes, that glide
Across thy breast like things of air,
Chase from thy lone and level tide

The spell of stillness reigning there.

Yet round this waste of wood and wave,
Unheard, unseen, a spirit lives,
That, breathing o'er each rock and cave,

To all a wild, strange aspect gives.

The thunder-riven oak, that flings
Its grisly arms athwart the sky,
A sudden, startling image brings

To the lone traveller's kindled eye.

The gnarled and braided boughs, that show
Their dim forms in the forest shade,
Like wrestling serpents seem, and throw
Fantastic horrors through the glade.

The very echoes round this shore

Have caught a strange and gibbering tone; For they have told the war-whoop o'er, Till the wild chorus is their own.

Wave of the wilderness, adieu!

Adieu, ye rocks, ye wilds and woods!

Roll on, thou element of blue,

And fill these awful solitudes !

Thou hast no tale to tell of man

God is thy theme. Ye sounding caves Whisper of Him, whose mighty plan

Deems as a bubble all your waves !

B. B. THATCHER.

66

"I WOULD NOT LIVE ALWAYS."

EARTH is the spirit's rayless cell,

But then, as a bird soars home to the shade
Of the beautiful wood, where its nest was made,
In bonds no more to dwell;-

So will its weary wing

Be spread for the skies, when its toil is done, And its breath flow free, as a bird's in the sun, And the soft, fresh gales of spring.

O, not more sweet the tears

Of the dewy eve on the violet shed,

Than the dews of age on the "hoary head,"
When it enters the eve of years.

Nor dearer, 'mid the foam

Of the far-off sea, and its stormy roar,

Is a breath of balm from the unseen shore,

To him that weeps for home.

Wings, like a dove, to fly !—

The spirit is faint with its feverish strife ;-
O, for its home in the upper Life!

When, when will Death draw nigh!

TO A SISTER ABOUT TO EMBARK ON A

MISSIONARY ENTERPRISE.

O SISTER! Sister! hath the memory
Of other years no power upon thy soul,

That thus, with tearless eye, thou leavest me—
And an unfaltering voice-to come no more?
Hast thou forgot, friend of my better days,
Hast thou forgot the carly, innocent joys

Of our remotest childhood; when our lives

Were linked in one, and our young hearts bloomed out

Like violet bells upon the self-same stem,

Pouring the dewy odors of life's spring
Into each other's bosom-all the bright
And sorrowless thoughts of a confiding love,
And intermingled vows, and blossoming hopes
Of future good, and infant dreams of bliss,
Budding and breathing sunnily about them,
As crimson-spotted cups, in spring time, hang
On all the delicate fibres of the vine?

And where, O, where are the unnumbered vows
We made, my sister, at the twilight fall,
A thousand times, and the still starry hours
Of the dew-glistening eve-in many a walk
By the green borders of our native stream,
And in the chequered shade of these old oaks-
The moonlight silvering o'er each mossy trunk,
And every bough, as an Æolian harp,
Full of the solemn chant of the low breeze?
Thou hast forgotten this—and standest here,
Thy hand in mine, and hearest, even now,
The rustling wood, the stir of falling leaves,
And-hark!-the far off murmur of the brook!

Thou measurest well

Nay, do not weep, my sister!-do not speak—
Now know I, by the tone, and by the eye
Of tenderness, with many tears bedimmed,
Thou hast remembered all.
The work that is before thee, and the joys
That are behind. Now, be the past forgot-
The youthful love, the hearth-light and the home,
Song, dance, and story, and the vows-the vows
That we change not, and part not unto death-

Yea, all the spirits of departed bliss,

That even now, like spirits of the dead,

Seen dimly in the living mourner's dreams,

And trilling, ever and anon, the notes

Long loved of old-O hear them, heed them not
Press on! for, like the fairies of the tale,
That mocked, unseen, the tempted traveller,
With power alone o'er those who gave them ear,

L