Watched him floating, rising, sinking,
Till the birch canoe seemed lifted
High into that sea of splendor,
Till it sank into the vapors
Like the new moon slowly, slowly
Sinking in the purple distance.

And they said, "Farewell forever!
Said, "Farewell, O Hiawatha!"
And the forests, dark and lonely,

Moved through all their depths of darkness,
Sighed, "Farewell, O Hiawatha!"

And the waves upon the margin
Rising, rippling on the pebbles,
Sobbed, "Farewell, O Hiawatha!"
And the heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah,
From her haunts among the fen-lands,
Screamed, "Farewell, O Hiawatha!"
Thus departed Hiawatha,

Hiawatha the Beloved,

In the glory of the sunset,

In the purple mists of evening,
To the regions of the home-wind,
Of the Northwest wind Keewaydin,
To the Islands of the Blessed,
To the kingdom of Ponemah,
To the land of the Hereafter!

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Table Mountain, Cal.

PLAIN LANGUAGE FROM TRUTHFUL JAMES.

WHICH I wish to remark,

WHICH

And my language is plain,

That for ways that are dark,

And for tricks that are vain,

The heathen Chinee is peculiar,

Which the same I would rise to explain.

Ah Sin was his name.

And I shall not deny

In regard to the same

What that name might imply;

But his smile it was pensive and childlike,
As I frequent remarked to Bill Nye.

It was August the third;

And quite soft was the skies:

Which it might be inferred

That Ah Sin was likewise;

Yet he played it that day upon William
And me in a way I despise.

Which we had a small game,
And Ah Sin took a hand:
It was euchre. The same

He did not understand;

But he smiled as he sat by the table,

With a smile that was childlike and bland.

Yet the cards they were stocked

In a way that I grieve,
And my feelings were shocked

At the state of Nye's sleeve:

Which was stuffed full of aces and bowers,
And the same with intent to deceive.

But the hands that were played
By that heathen Chinee,
And the points that he made,
Were quite frightful to see,

Till at last he put down a right bower,
Which the same Nye had dealt unto me.

Then I looked up at Nye,

And he gazed upon me; And he rose with sigh,

And said, "Can this be?

We are ruined by Chinese cheap labor"; And he went for that heathen Chinee.

In the scene that ensued

I did not take a hand; But the floor it was strewed

Like the leaves on the strand

With the cards that Ah Sin had been hiding,
In the game "he did not understand."

In his sleeves, which were long,
He had twenty-four packs,

Which was coming it strong,
Yet I state but the facts;

And we found on his nails, which were taper,
What is frequent in tapers, that's wax.

Which is why I remark,

And my language is plain, That for ways that are dark,

HOW glorious thy dwelling-place!
id thy beauties are!

I do not reckon time or space,
I worship thy exceeding grace,

And hasten, as a flying star,
To reach thy splendor from afar.

The first flush of thy morning face

Is dear to me; thy shadowless,

Broad noon that doth all sweets confess;

But fairer is thy even fall,

When seem to cry with airy call

Thy roses in the wilderness.
Thy deserts blithely blossoming,
Decoy me for the love of Spring.
With all thy glare and glitter spent,
Thy quiet dusk so eloquent;

Thy veil of vapors - the caress
Of Zephyrus, right cool and sweet -
I cannot wait to love thee less,
I cling to thee with full content,

And fall a dreaming at thy feet.

Anon the sudden evening gun Awakes me to the sinking sun And golden glories at the Gate.

The full, strong tides, that slowly run,

Their sliding waters modulate

To indolent soft winds that wait

And lift a long web newly spun.

I see the groves of scented bay,

And night is in their fragrant mass;
But tassel-shadows swing and sway,
And spangles flash and fade away

Upon their glimmering leaves of glass, -And there a fence of rail, quite gray,

With ribs of sunlight in the grass,

And here a branch full well arrayed
With struggling beams a moment stayed,
Like panting butterflies afraid.

Lo! shadows slipping down the slope

And filling every narrow vale,