THIS volume is entitled to a higher degree of attention than fortune seems to have yet awarded to it, at the hands of the public criticism of the country. Its publishers, we believe, have little reason to complain, the first edition having "gone off" at a very satisfactory rate, scattered from their shelves to take a welcome place on a thousand drawing-room tables. But for the poet-the young poet, an author for the first time-though that testimony to the merits of his production which is borne by the ledger of his bookseller, is by no means an immaterial point, yet to his ardent and aspiring soul, athirst for praise, for sympathy and love, there is but small satisfaction in such

reward, if the higher meed toward which he has chiefly aimed, is withheld, or unkindly and ungraciously stinted.

The appearance of an American poem in nine cantos, forming a volume of about three hundred pages, is not such an every-day phenomenon, as to be entitled to no more notice than the passing recognition of the fact, among the fifty others to which each hour gives birth, and of which the ephemeral thought does not outlive the day. And especially a work so peculiarly national in its character, and the evident product of so gallant an ambition and enthusiasm on the part of its author, deserves and demands at least a

The soft wind shakes their

wreath

Alas! 'tis not a mother's breath! A beam of light upon them liesIt is not from a mother's eyes!"

The Indian thus introduced, fresh from the murder of a settler's family, is an Ottawa, named Ken-hàt-ta-wa. He is accompanied by his younger brother, a young maiden, the daughter of the massacred prisoner, whom he is bearing off captive, -and an Eng lish white man, the great villain of the story, named De Vere, who had instigated the act, and whose motive had been a double one, hatred against the father of the maiden, and love of Mary herself. We learn from an episode introduced shortly after this tableau vivant of the solitary Indian figure, that she had formerly dwelt on the banks of the Connecticut, where she had bestowed her love upon a youth named Moray, and had spurned De Vere, who had there sought to possess himself dishonorably of her charms. The latter Vowing vengeance upon her and hers, had reduced her father by his arts to poverty, and had then sought to buy the daughter for his bride, with offers which were rejected with scorn. The ruined family had then migrated westward.

"And in her home a thousand miles
From that which won her infant smiles,
And charmed her childhood into tears,
And fed with thought her growing years,
Fair Mary dwelt 'mid scenes, might well
Beguile with their Elysian spell
The dreams of her loved native dell.
Where dark Miami's rushing stream
Through willows wild did dimly gleam,
Their simple, lowly cottage rose,
Bosomed in Eden's sweet repose.
At distance from the rest removed,
It was by her the better loved.
Before it swept the voiceful river,
Communing with the winds for ever;
Behind a gentle slope displayed
Some scattered trees of friendly shade,
In Nature's negligence arrayed;
And near, a fount, with slumbrous sound,
Diffused a dewy coolness round.
The wild-rose bloomed beside the door,

The wild-vine wreathed the windows o'er,
And thousand flowers all lonely grew,
Ne'er blushing to the human view
Till Mary came with fairer hue,
Nor wooed but by the wild-wood bird
Till Mary came with softer word.
And ever as the Sabbath sun

On those rude dwellings calmly shone,

As of a peopled land!”

both by love and hate. De Vere posBut they are ere long pursued there the mode already mentioned; and sesses himself of the person of Mary in Moray, her lover, following their miMiami only in time to witness the degration, reaches their cottage by the solation just made there.

"At last one autumn morn he stood,
Within the hoar, unbreathing wood,
Above her home. His soul became
So feeble as a dying flame:-
Suspense in bosoms stout and brave
Will make the stillness of the grave!
Through faded leaves the early sun
Upon the cottage coldly shone.
All there was silent.-Did they sleep?—
He felt life's curdling currents creep
Back to his heart with shuddering chill;
He hurried down-but all was still,
Except the dog's low plaintive whine,
Or wind that sighed through rustling vine.
He knocked-he paused in doubt and

dread

He saw the threshold stained and red--
He burst the door-O God! the sight
Had seared a seraph's eyes of light!
All pale and scalpless on the floor,

With eyes from which the soul was
flown,

Stilled pulse, and hearts that beat no more,

Lay mother, sire, and gentle son, Whom few brief years had smiled upon. Death had been there-and in their blood The faithful dog beside them stood, Moaning to them most piteouslyIt was a fearful sight to see!"

He plunges into the forest in pursuit of the murderers, and for the rescue of their captive. The narrative returns to the latter party dropping down the Ohio in the chieftain's canoe, under the cover of the night; when, as the young and gentler brother of Ken-hàtta-wa is chaunting a song of Indian tenderness over the exhausted and sleeping girl, the pale "lily-of-the-water," a shot rings from Moray's rifle, and its bullet is sped on a mistaken errand to the bosom of the youth,—who promised to become a very respectable

character if he had lived. The chief is dissuaded by De Vere from his first impulse to add his prisoner's scalp to the three already at his belt; and the canoe passing beyond shot to the other bank of the river, pursues its rapid and silent way:

"Through the dim stillness on they sped,
Like fabled spirits of the dead,
In shadow borne, and silence lone,
Along the lake of Acheron."

The Second Canto thus introduces the great chieftain who is the hero of the poem, in conference with his brother, well known to history as "the Prophet:"

"It was an Autumn morn: the sun
Wearily rose his race to run-
He came but late, as an aged one;
The cold, gray mists, like flags unfurled,
Around the sleeping earth were curled;
On prairie, river, lake and wood,
Lay the deep dream of solitude.
Lone rising, in the midst was seen
One mighty mound, with mosses green-
Save where, by winds of autumn blown,
The pale and withered leaves were strown,
A huge rude pile, built up of old
By hands long since forgot and cold.
Time spares their tombs alone:-what

name

Their darkly mouldering dust can claim! And as the mists were rolled away,

Before, outspread the eye beneath, A prairie's boundless prospect lay

Like solemn Ocean, as the breath
Of morning swept its surface o'er,
With long, slow waves, from shore to
shore-

There only rose not Ocean's roar;
While all behind it stretched a range
Of varied forest, fading sere,
Touched with the spirit of a change,
That falleth with the changing year;
And there, by swell or grassy glade,
Unscared the antlered wild-deer strayed,
Or fed along the prairie's verge
Vast herds, that never felt the scourge,
Or dashed o'er valley, plain and hill,
Lords of their own unbounded will,
As ocean billows shoreward press,
The proud steeds of the wilderness.

"Upon that mound's most silent height,
Ere dewless fell the morning's light,
With step the hare had scarcely heard,
Two warriors of the wood appeared.
By his broad brow of care and thought,
By his most regal mien and tread,
By robes with richest wampum wrought,
And eagle's plume upon his head,

The one should be a chief of power,
And ruler of the battle's hour;
Nor e'er did eye a form behold'
At once more finished, firm and bold.
Of larger mould and loftier mien
Than oft in hall or bower is seen,
And with a browner hue than seems
To pale maid fair, or lights her dreams,
Had charmed the Grecian sculptor's eye,
He yet revealed a symmetry
A massive brow, a kindled face,
Limbs chiselled to a faultless grace,
Beauty and strength in every feature,

While in his eyes there lived the light
Of a great soul's transcendent might-
Hereditary lord by nature!
As stood he there, the stern, unmoved,
Except his eagle glance that roved,
And darkly limned against the sky
Upon that mound so lone and high,
He looked the sculptured God of Wars,
Great Odin, or Egyptian Mars,
By crafty hand, from dusky stone,
Immortal wrought in ages gone,
And on some silent desert cast,
Memorial of the mighty Past!
And yet, though firm, though proud his
glance,

There was in his countenance
That settled shade, which oft in life
Mounts upward from the spirit's strife,
As if upon his soul there lay

Some grief which would not pass away.

"The other's lineaments and air

Revealed him plainly brother born
Of him, who on that summit bare

So sad, yet proudly, met the morn:
But, lighter built, his slender frame
Far less of grace, as strength, could
claim;

And, with an eye that, sharp and fierce,

Would seem the gazer's breast to pierce,

And low'ring visage, aye the while, Inwrought of subtlety and guile, Whose every glance, that darkly stole, Bespoke the crafty, cruel soul, There was from all his presence shed A power, a chill, mysterious dread, Which made him of those beings seem, That shake us in the midnight dream. Yet were his features, too, o'ercast With mournfulness, as if the past Had been one vigil, painful, deep and long.

Of hushed Revenge still brooding over wrong."

In this conference, brooding fiercely over the wrongs of their race, Tecumseh announces to the Prophet his design of forming a general Indian league for the expulsion of the pale

faces from the continent, and leaves it in charge with him to prevent any outbreak, or betrayal of this purpose, till his return from the mission on which he proposes immediately to depart. The scene is transferred to an Indian camp, distant from the mound of this meeting, where the Ottowa band is awaiting the return of their chief Kenhat-ta-wa-together with a band of the Shawnee tribe, to which Tecumseh and the Prophet belonged:

"A motley scene the camp displayed. Their simple wigwams, loosely made Of skins and bark, and rudely graced With sylvan honors of the chase, At scattered intervals were placed

Beneath majestic trees-the race Of other years; while, statelier reared, Alone and in their midst appeared The lodge of council, honored most, Yet unadorned with care or cost. Their beaded leggins closely bound, Their blankets wreathed their loins around,

Whence rose each neck and brawny

breast

Like bust of bronze with tufted crest,
Around, the forest-lords were seen-
Some, old, with grave and guarded
mien

High converse holding in the shade-
Some idly on the green turf laid,
Or, girt with arms of varied name,
Repairing them for strife or game;
Their dusky wives, from birth the while
Inured to care and silent toil,
Prepared the venison's savory food
And yellow corn, in sullen mood,
Or sweetly to their infants sung,
So light in wicker-cradles swung
Upon the breeze-rocked boughs; in play
Lithe urchins did their skill essay,
Beneath some chief's approving eye,
To launch the feathered arrow high,
The hatchet hurl, or through the air
Send the shrill whoop; half robed or
bare,

The youth would act war's mimic game,
Or strove their wild-born steeds to

tame

Perchance their captives scarce a dayThemselves untamed and wild as they; While sat beneath the green leaves fading

Young maids, their chequered baskets braiding,

Whose merry laugh or silvery call
Oft rang most sweet and musical,
Whose glancing black eyes often stole
To view the worshipped of their soul:

And ever in th' invisible breeze
Waved solemnly those tall old trees,

And fleecy clouds, above the prairies flying,

Led the light shadows, chasing, chased and dying."

Mary, refusing her life on the condition of accepting the love of De Vere, is on the point of being put to death, when another prisoner is brought in, and Ken-hat-ta-wa exults to learn that the slayer of his brother, whose death an inferior victim was about to expiate, has fallen into his hands. Moray and Mary rush into each other's arms, with so much pleasure, that the reader cannot but regret the very unpleasant circumstances which attend their meeting. They are, of course, very soon brought back to "a sense of their situation;" and the maiden having fainted, the Indians speedily prepare an ordeal through which the youth would have found some difficulty to pass in safety:

"Those words received th' excited crowd, With frantic gestures-shoutings loud; And seizing in their tawny hands Knives, hatchets, clubs, or smoking brands,

They ranged in two long lines, to greet With death the captive's faltering feet, As tortured demons, grim and fell, Conduct a lost soul down to hell.”

However, he has no idea of indulging their benevolent intentions; and, with a most unreasonable perverseness, as soon as he is released and posted to begin the sport, he snatches a tomahawk from a huge warrior at his side, cleaves his brain at a blow, and is off

at right angles, amidst a shower of spears and arrows, the whole legion of red devils streaming after him across the plain. His practised powers of limb come here into good play. The chase is described with much vigor and spirit. He dashes into the high prairie grass,-where, after a toilsome mile of progress had been made, a still more formidable foe comes to face him in front, in the form of a prairie fire! This passage was quoted on a different occasion in our pages, in illustration of a corresponding one of Catlin's prose, (Dem. Review for July, 1842), to which the reader is referred. Moray escapes from the pursuit in his rearthe Indians being driven back by the still fiercer element, and the spear of their chief alone singing past him as he plunges into the advancing flame.