On the fair silver lake drives the Indian no longer,

With the sweep of his paddle, the birchen canoe; And the fortresses fall that made weakness the stronger,

And saved the white maid when the war-whistle blew. But 't is well that the old and the savage are fated,

And that danger rolls back from the Edens of earth. Our boats glide as well, with all loveliness freighted, And the war-whoop we lose in the sallies of mirth. Pure Horicon! lake of the cloud and the shadow !

Soft shimmer your moonlight and dimple your rain ! And the hearts far away- if by sea side or meadow Still think of your blue with a lingering pain! Among the far islands that glitter in heaven,

On the dim, undiscovered, and beautiful shore, Some glimpse of a lovelier sea may be given To the eyes of the perfect, — but never before! Henry Morford.

-

A

LAKE GEORGE.

SUMMER shower had swept the woods;
But when, from all the scene,

Rolled off at length the thunder-floods,
And streamed the sunset sheen,

I came where my postilion raised
His horsewhip for a wand,
And said, "There's Horicon, good sir,
And here's the Bloody Pond!

"And don't you see yon low gray wall,

With grass and bushes grown?

Well, that's Fort George's palisade,

That many a storm has known:
But here's the Bloody Pond where lies
Full many a soldier tall;

The spring, they say, was never pure
Since that red burial."

'Twas rare to see! That vale beneath;
That lake so calm and cool!
But mournful was each lily-wreath,
Upon the turbid pool:

And On, postilion, let us haste

To greener banks," I cried,

"O, stay me not where man has stained With brother's blood the tide!"

Was chasing down the sun,

My boat was on thine azure wave,
Sweet, holy Horicon !

And woman's voice cheered on our bark,
With soft bewildering song,

While fireflies, darting through the dark, Went lighting us along.

Anon, that bark was on the beach,
And soon I stood alone
Upon thy mouldering walls, Fort George,

So old and ivy-grown.

At once, old tales of massacre

Were crowding on my soul,

And ghosts of ancient sentinels
Paced up the rocky knoll.

The shadowy hour was dark enow
For fancy's wild campaign,
And moments were impassioned hours
Of battle and of pain:

Each brake and thistle seemed alive
With fearful shapes of fight,
And up the feathered scalp-locks rose
Of many a tawny sprite.

The Mohawk war-whoop howled agen;
I heard St. Denys' charge,
And then the volleyed musketry

Of England and St. George.

The vale, the rocks, the cradling hills,

From echoing rank to rank,

Rung back the warlike rhetoric

Of Huron and of Frank.

So, keep thy name, Lake George," said I,

"And bear to latest day,

The memory of our primal age,

And England's early sway;

And when Columbia's flag shall here

Her starry glories toss,

Be witness how our fathers fought

Beneath St. George's cross."

*

*

Arthur Cleveland Coxe.

IN

Gettysburg, Pa.

THE HIVE AT GETTYSBURG.

N the old Hebrew myth the lion's frame,
So terrible alive,

Bleached by the desert's sun and wind, became
The wandering wild bees' hive;

And he who, lone and naked-handed, tore
Those jaws of death apart,

In after time drew forth their honeyed store
To strengthen his strong heart.

Dead seemed the legend: but it only slept
To wake beneath our sky;

Just on the spot whence ravening Treason crept
Back to its lair to die,

Bleeding and torn from Freedom's mountain bounds, A stained and shattered drum

Is now the hive where, on their flowery rounds, The wild bees go and come.

Unchallenged by a ghostly sentinel,

They wander wide and far,

Along green hillsides, sown with shot and shell, Through vales once choked with war.

The low reveille of their battle-drum

Disturbs no morning prayer;

With deeper peace in summer noons their hum Fills all the drowsy air.

And Samson's riddle is our own to-day,
Of sweetness from the strong,

Of union, peace, and freedom plucked away
From the rent jaws of wrong.

From Treason's death we draw a purer life,
As, from the beast he slew,

A sweetness sweeter for his bitter strife

The old-time athlete drew!

John Greenleaf Whittier.

A

LINCOLN AT GETTYSBURG.

FTER the eyes that looked, the lips that spake
Here, from the shadows of impending death,
Those words of solemn breath,

What voice may fitly break

The silence, doubly hallowed, left by him?
We can but bow the head, with eyes grown dim,
And, as a Nation's litany, repeat

The phrase his martyrdom hath made complete,
Noble as then, but now more sadly sweet:
“Let us, the living, rather dedicate

Ourselves to the unfinished work, which they
Thus far advanced so nobly on its way,

And save the perilled state!

Let us, upon this field where they, the brave,
Their last full measure of devotion gave,
Highly resolve they have not died in vain!
That, under God, the Nation's later birth
Of Freedom, and the people's gain