The morning sunbeams from the dale.
Beyond, the desert dim and pale,
The salt lagoons and Carson's Sink.
Then further, like a stolen link
From out Sierra's mighty chain,
Humboldt's blue peaks rise from the plain.
While far on the horizon's brink,
Full fifty weary leagues away,
Reese River Mountains rise on high,
A jagged wall against the sky,
The seeming eastern verge of day.
Northward are spread the Truckee Meads,
Where Truckee River winding speeds
Toward the foothills, where lies hid
The haunted Lake of Pyramid;
In which the flashing river pours
The current of its liquid stores.
There like a sullen pool it stands,
Evaporates and feeds the sands;
The wonder of the desert vale,
The scene of many an Indian tale
Of love and valor, virtue, vice,
And treachery, and cowardice.

Next, farther north, lies Crystal Peak;
And still beyond, the Mountain Twins
Tower side by side so brown and bleak;
Their height, and shape, and sameness wins
Attention from the roaming eye

By reason of their symmetry.

Northwest afar looms Lassen's Butte,

High towering, without dispute,

The monarch of a wide domain

Of mountain-range and vale and plain.
While nearer, carpeted in green,
Sierra Valley lies between.

Next, westward, spreading out below,
Pride of the waters of the world,
Sierras' gem, famed Lake Tahoe,
Among the craggy peaks enfurled,
Extends her mirrored sheet elate;
Her eastern shore, the Silver State,
Her western, California.

There like a sleeping nymph she lay
In isolation hid away.

From old Mount Rose range, side by side,
Southward, a long majestic chain
Of wooded mountains. Ophir Slide,
A lofty summit cleft in twain
By melting snows, has ta'en a ride
And caught a footing on the plain.
We let our vision roam again,

And catch a view of Carson's stream,
A river lovely as a dream;

Fresh from the haunts of lasting snow,
It carries gladness in its flow
Along the grassy vale below.

Next, Silver Mountain strikes the view;
Its proud companion, tried and true,
The Great Mogul, is full in sight,
Full crowned in never-failing white,
And chief among the Alpine crew.

John Brayshaw Kaye.

AS

Ohio, the River.

PASSAGE DOWN THE OHIO.

S down Ohio's ever ebbing tide,

Oarless and sailless, silently they glide,

How still the scene, how lifeless, yet how fair
Was the lone land that met the stranger there!
No smiling villages or curling smoke
The busy haunts of busy men bespoke;
No solitary hut, the banks along,

Sent forth blithe labor's homely, rustic song;
No urchin gambolled on the smooth, white sand,
Or hurled the skipping-stone with playful hand,
While playmate dog plunged in the clear blue wave,
And swam, in vain, the sinking prize to save.
Where now are seen, along the river-side,
Young, busy towns, in buxom, painted pride,
And fleets of gliding boats with riches crowned,
To distant Orleans or St. Louis bound.
Nothing appeared but nature unsubdued,
One endless, noiseless woodland solitude,
Or boundless prairie, that aye seemed to be
As level and as lifeless as the sea;

They seemed to breathe in this wide world alone,
Heirs of the earth the land was all their own!

'T was evening now: the hour of toil was o'er, Yet still they durst not seek the fearful shore, Lest watchful Indian crew should silent creep,

And spring upon and murder them in sleep;
So through the livelong night they held their way,
And 't was a night might shame the fairest day;
So still, so bright, so tranquil was its reign,
They cared not though the day ne'er came again.
The moon high wheeled the distant hills above,
Silvered the fleecy foliage of the grove,
That as the wooing zephyrs on it fell,
Whispered it loved the gentle visit well.
That fair-faced orb alone to move appeared,
That zephyr was the only sound they heard.
No deep-mouthed hound the hunter's haunt betrayed,
No lights upon the shore or waters played,
No loud laugh broke upon the silent air,
To tell the wanderers, man was nestling there.
All, all was still, on gliding bark and shore,
As if the earth now slept to wake no more.

James Kirke Paulding.

A

THE OHIO.

LL hail to thee, Ohio, lovely stream,

That sweepest, murmuring, by, in holy dream,

New cities with their market-din profane,

Colossal rocks and fields of golden grain!

Emblem of Time, here drifts along on thee,
Uprooted by the storm, the giant tree,
The steamer's floating palace there we view,
And yonder skims the red-man's birch canoe!

Here heardest thou the Briton's haggling word, There the poor, errant Indian's moan was heard, Thou listenest now the German's heartfelt song, That homeward floats on tide of yearning strong!

Thou sang'st my cradle-song, thou wast to me,
In youth, the mirror fair of purity,

And whisperest to my heart in manhood's hour
Full many a word of earnestness and power!

Thou see'st my father's house, so German, there,
As if in airy flight such angel-pair,

As bore Loretto's house of charity,

Right from the Rhine had brought thee o'er the sea.

I greet you, ye twin Lares, I your child;
Great Frederick, thee! thee, Joseph, wise and mild!
A rose-bush, climbing, peeps through window-pane,
He too, as twig, once measured the wide main.

He sailed, one day, an Argonaut of spring,
From the safe port of home took sudden wing,
The golden sun-fleece of far springs to find,
And left his darling nightingale behind.

Thy love of home, O German! hath a glow
Like to the fiery wine's that sparkles so,
And which, o'er farthest seas transported, glows
More deeply and a richer flavor shows.

Before the house there lies a field; all round,

Stumps of felled trees stand scattered o'er the ground,