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RED JACKET.

How sweet, at set of sun, to view

Thy golden mirror spreading wide,
And see the mist of mantling blue

Float round the distant mountain's side.

At midnight hour, as shines the moon,
A sheet of silver spreads below,
And swift she cuts, at highest noon,

Light clouds, like wreaths of purest snow.

On thy fair bosom, silver lake,

Oh! I could ever sweep the oar,
When early birds at morning wake,
And evening tells us toil is o'er.

RED JACKET,

A CHIEF OF THE INDIAN TRIBES, THE TUSCARORAS.

BY FITZ-GREENE HALLECK.

COOPER, whose name is with his country's woven,
First in her files, her PIONEER of mind,

A wanderer now in other climes, has proven
His love for the young land he left behind;

And throned her in the Senate Hall of Nations,
Robed like the deluge-rainbow, heaven-wrought,
Magnificent as his own mind's creations,

And beautiful as its green world of thought.

And faithful to the Act of Congress, quoted

As law-authority-it passed nem. con.—
He writes that we are, as ourselves have voted,
The most enlighten'd people ever known.

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RED JACKET.

That all our week is happy as a Sunday

In Paris, full of song, and dance, and laugh: And that, from Orleans to the Bay of Fundy, There's not a bailiff nor an epitaph.

And, furthermore, in fifty years or sooner,
We shall export our poetry and wine;

And our brave fleet, eight frigates and a schooner,
Will sweep the seas from Zembla to the Line.

If he were with me, King of Tuscarora,
Gazing as I, upon thy portrait now,

In all its medall'd, fringed, and beaded glory,
Its eyes' dark beauty, and its thoughtful brow—

Its brow, half martial and half diplomatic,
Its eye, upsoaring like an eagle's wings;
Well might he boast that we, the Democratic,
Outrival Europe-even in our kings.

For thou wert monarch born.

Tradition's pages

Tell not the planting of thy parent tree, But that the forest tribes have bent for ages,

To thee, and to thy sires, the subject knee.

Thy name is princely, though no poet's magic
Could make RED JACKET grace an English rhyme,
Unless he had a genius for the tragic,

And introduced it in a pantomime;

Yet it is music in the language spoken

Of thine own land; and on her herald-roll,
As nobly fought for, and as proud a token
AS CŒUR DE LION's, of a warrior's soul,

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RED JACKET.

Thy garb-though Austria's bosom-star would frighten That metal pale, as diamonds the dark mine,

And George the Fourth wore in the dance at Brighton A more becoming evening dress than thine;

Yet 'tis a brave one, scorning wind and weather,
And fitted for thy couch on field and flood,
As Rob Roy's tartans for the Highland heather,
Or forest green for England's Robin Hood.

Is strength a monarch's merit? (like a whaler's)
Thou art as tall, as sinewy, and as strong
As earth's first kings-the Argo's gallant sailors,
Heroes in history, and gods in song.

Is eloquence? Her spell is thine, that reaches
The heart, and makes the wisest head its sport;
And there's one rare, strange virtue in thy speeches-
The secret of their mastery-they are short.

Is beauty? Thine has with thy youth departed,
But the love-legends of thy manhood's years,
And she who perish'd, young and broken-hearted,
Are-but I rhyme for smiles, and not for tears.

The monarch mind-the mystery of commanding,
The godlike power, the art Napoleon,
Of winning, fettering, moulding, wielding, bending,
The hearts of millions till they move as one;

Thou hast it. At thy bidding men have crowded
The road to death as to a festival;

And minstrel minds, without a blush, have shrouded
With banner-folds of glory their dark pall.

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RED JACKET.

Who will believe-not I-for in deceiving

Lies the dear charm of life's delightful dream; I cannot spare the luxury of believing

That all things beautiful are what they seem.

Who will believe that, with a smile whose blessing Would like the patriarch's soothe a dying hour; With voice as low, as gentle, and caressing

As e'er won maiden's lip in moonlight bower;

With look, like patient Job's, eschewing evil;
With motions graceful as a bird's in air;
Thou art in sober truth, the veriest devil
That e'er clinch'd fingers in a captive's hair?

That in thy veins there springs a poison fountain,
Deadlier than that which bathes the Upas-tree;
And in thy wrath, a nursing Cat o' Mountain

Is calm as her babe's sleep compared with thee?

And underneath that face like summer's ocean's,
Its lip as moveless, and its cheek as clear,
Slumbers a whirlwind of the heart's emotions,
Love, hatred, pride, hope, sorrow-all, save fear.

Love for thy land, as if she were thy daughter,
Her pipes in peace, her tomahawk in wars;
Hatred of missionaries and cold water;

Pride—in thy rifle-trophies and thy scars;

Hope that thy wrongs will be by the Great Spirit
Remember'd and revenged when thou art gone;
Sorrow-that none are left thee to inherit

Thy name, thy fame, thy passions, and thy throne.

THE WESTERN EMIGRANT.

BY LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY.

AN axe rang sharply mid those forest shades Which from creation towards the skies had tower'd In unshorn beauty. There, with vigorous arm, Wrought a bold emigrant, and by his side

His little son, with question and response,
Beguiled the toil.

"Boy, thou hast never seen

Such glorious trees. Hark, when their giant trunks
Fall, how the firm earth groans! Rememberest thou

The mighty river, on whose breast we sail'd,
So many days on towards the setting sun?

Our own Connecticut, compared to that,

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Was but a creeping stream." Father, the brook That by our door went singing, where I launch'd My tiny boat, with my young playmates round When school was o'er, is dearer far to me

Than all these bold, broad waters.

To my eye

They are as strangers. And those little trees

My mother nurtured in the garden bound

Of our first home, from whence the fragrant peach
Hung in its ripening gold, were fairer, sure,
Than this dark forest, shutting out the day."
"What, ho! my little girl," and with light step
A fairy creature hasted towards her sire,
And, setting down the basket that contain'd
His noon repast, look'd upward to his face
With sweet confiding smile. “See, dearest, see,
That bright-wing'd paroquet, and hear the song
Of yon gay redbird, echoing through the trees,

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