The fox and the panther, both beasts of the night,
Retire to their dens on the gleaming of light,
And they spring with a free and a sorrowless track,
For they know that their mates are expecting them back.
Each bird, and each beast, it is blest in degree:
All nature is cheerful, all happy, but me.
I will go to my tent, and lie down in despair;
I will paint me with black, and will sever my hair;
I will sit on the shore, where the hurricane blows,
And reveal to the god of the tempest my woes;
I will weep for a season, on bitterness fed,
For my kindred are gone to the hills of the dead;
But they died not by hunger, or lingering decay;
The steel of the white man hath swept them away.
This snake-skin, that once I so sacredly wore,
I will toss, with disdain, to the storm-beaten shore;
Its charms I no longer, obey, or invoke ;
Its spirit hath left me, its spell is now broke.
I will raise up my voice to the source of the light;
I will dream on the wings of the bluebird at night;
I will speak to the spirits that whisper in leaves,
And that minister balm to the bosom that grieves;
And will take a new Manito-such as shall seem
To be kind and propitious in every dream.
Oh! then I shall banish these cankering sighs,
And tears shall no longer gush salt from my eyes;
I shall wash from my face every cloud-coloured stain,
Red-re shall, alone, on my visage remain!
I will dig up my hatchet, and bend my oak bow;
By night, and by day, I will follow the foe;
Nor lakes shall impede me, nor mountains, nor snows ;-
His blood can, alone, give my spirit repose.
They came to my cabin, when heaven was black:
I heard not their coming, I knew not their track;
But I saw, by the light of their blazing fusees,
They were people engendered beyond the big seas:
My wife, and my children,-oh spare me the tale !—
For who is there left that is kin to GEEHALE !
Fall of Tecumseh.-STATESMAN, N. York.
WHAT heavy-hoofed coursers the wilderness roam,
To the war-blast indignantly tramping?
Their mouths are all white, as if frosted with foam,
The steel bit impatiently champing.
'Tis the hand of the mighty that grasps the rein,
Conducting the free and the fearless.
Ah! see them rush forward, with wild disdain,
Through paths unfrequented and cheerless.
From the mountains had echoed the charge of death,
Announcing that chivalrous* sally;
The savage was heard, with untrembling breath,
To pour his response from the valley.
One moment, and nought but the bugle was heard,
And nought but the war-whoop given;
The next and the sky seemed convulsively stirred,
As if by the lightning riven.
The din of the steed, and the sabred stroke,
The blood-stifled gasp of the dying,
Were screened by the curling sulphur-smoke,
That upward went wildly flying.
In the mist that nung over the field of blood,
The chief of the horsemen contended;
His rowels were bathed in the purple flood,
That fast from his charger descended.
That steed reeled, and fell, in the van of the fight,
But the rider repressed not his daring,
Till met by a savage, whose rank, and might,
Were shown by the plume he was wearing.
The moment was fearful; a mightier foe
Had ne'er swung the battle-axe o'er him; But hope nerved his arm for a desperate blow, And Tecumseh fell prostrate before him.
O ne'er may the nations again be cursed
With conflict so dark and appalling!-
Foe grappled with foe, till the life-blood burst
From their agonized bosoms in falling.
Gloom, silence, and solitude, rest on the spot,
Where the hopes of the red man perished;
But the fame of the hero who fell shall not,
By the virtuous, cease to be cherished.
He fought, in defence of his kindred and king,
With a spirit most loving and loyal,
And long shall the Indian warrior sing
The deeds of Tecumseh, the royal.
The lightning of intellect flashed from his eye,
In his arm slept the force of the thunder,
But the bolt passed the suppliant harmlessly by,
And left the freed captive to wonder.*
Above, near the path of the pilgrim, he sleeps,
With a rudely-built tumulus o'er him;
And the bright-bosomed Thames, in its majesty, sweeps
By the mound where his followers bore him.
Monument Mountain.-BRYANT.
THOU, who would'st see the lovely and the wild Mingled, in harmony, on Nature's face,
Ascend our rocky mountains. Let thy foot
Fail not with weariness, for, on their tops,
The beauty and the majesty of earth,
Spread wide beneath, shall make thee to forget
The steep and toilsome way. There, as thou stand'st,
The haunts of men below thee, and, above,
The mountain summits, thy expanding heart
Shall feel a kindred with that loftier world,
* This highly intellectual savage, appropriately styled "king of the woods," was no less distinguished for his acts of humanity than heroism. He fell in the bloody charge at Moravian town, during the war of 1812-15
To which thou art translated, and partake
The enlargement of thy vision. Thou shalt look
Upon the green and rolling forest tops,
And down into the secrets of the glens
And streams, that, with their bordering thickets, strive
To hide their windings. Thou shalt gaze, at once,
Here on white villages, and tilth, and herds,
And swarming roads; and, there, on solitudes,
That only hear the torrent, and the wind,
And eagle's shriek.......There is a precipice,
That seems a fragment of some mighty wall,
Built by the hand that fashioned the old world,
To separate its nations, and thrown down
When the flood drowned them. To the north, a path
Conducts you up the narrow battlement.
Steep is the western side, shaggy and wild
With mossy trees, and pinnacles of flint,
And many a hanging crag. But, to the east,
Sheer to the vale, go down the bare old cliffs,-
Huge pillars, that, in middle heaven, upbear
Their weather-beaten capitals, here dark
With the thick moss of centuries, and there
Of chalky whiteness, where the thunderbolt
Has splintered them. It is a fearful thing
To stand upon the beetling verge, and see
Where storm and lightning, from that huge gray wall.
Have tumbled down vast blocks, and, at the base,
Dashed them in fragments; and to lay thine ear
Over the dizzy depth, and hear the sound
Of winds, that struggle with the woods below,
Come up like ocean murmurs. But the scene
Is lovely round.
A beautiful river there
Wanders amid the fresh and fertile meads,
The paradise he made unto himself,
Mining the soil for ages. On each side
The fields swell upward to the hills; beyond,
Above the hills, in the blue distance, rise
The mighty columns with which earth props
There is a tale about these gray old rocks,
A sad tradition of unhappy love
And sorrows borne and ended, long ago,
When, over these fair vales, the savage sought
IIis game in the thick woods. There was a maid,
The fairest of the Indian maids, bright-eyed,
With wealth of raven tresses, a light form,
About her cabin door
The wide old woods resounded with her song
And fairy laughter all the summer day.
She loved her cousin; such a love was deemed,
By the morality of those stern tribes,
Unlawful, and she struggled hard and long
Against her love, and reasoned with her heart,
As simple Indian maiden might. In vain.
Then her eye lost its lustre, and her step
Its lightness, and the gray old men, that passed
Her dwelling, wondered that they heard no more
The accustomed song and laugh of her, whose looks
Were like the cheerful smile of Spring, they said,
Upon the Winter of their age.
She went
To weep where no eye saw, and was not found
When all the merry girls were met to dance,
And all the hunters of the tribe were out;
Nor when they gathered, from the rustling husk,
The shining ear; nor when, by the river side,
They pulled the grape, and startled the wild shades
With sounds of mirth. The keen-eyed Indian dames
Would whisper to each other, as they saw
Her wasting form, and say, The girl will die.
One day, into the bosom of a friend,
A playmate of her young and innocent years,
She poured her griefs. "Thou know'st, and thou alone,"
She said, "for I have told thee, all my love,
And guilt, and sorrow. I am sick of life.
All night I weep in darkness, and the morn
Glares on me, as upon a thing accursed,
That has no business on the earth. I hate
The pastimes, and the pleasant toils, that once
I loved; the cheerful voices of my friends
Have an unnatural horror in mine ear.
In dreams, my mother, from the land of souls,
Calls me, and chides me. All that look on me
Do seem to know my shame; I cannot bear
Their eyes; I cannot from my heart root out
The love that wrings it so, and I must die."
It was a summer morning, and they went
To this old precipice. About the cliffs
Lay garlands, ears of maize, and skins of wolf
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