Still this great solitude is quick with life. Myriads of insects, gaudy as the flowers

They flutter over, gentle quadrupeds,

And birds, that scarce have learned the fear of man,
Are here, and sliding reptiles of the ground,
Startlingly beautiful. The graceful deer

Bounds to the wood at my approach. The bee,
A more adventurous colonist than man,
With whom he came across the eastern deep,
Fills the savannas with his murmurings,
And hides his sweets, as in the golden age,
Within the hollow oak. I listen long
To his domestic hum, and think I hear
The sound of that advancing multitude

Which soon shall fill these deserts. From the ground
Comes up the laugh of children, the soft voice
Of maidens, and the sweet and solemn hymn
Of Sabbath worshippers. The low of herds
Blends with the rustling of the heavy grain
Over the dark brown furrows. All at once
A fresher wind sweeps by, and breaks my dream,
And I am in the wilderness alone.

Illinois, June, 1832.

Knickerbocker Magazine," December, 1833.

THE ARCTIC LOVER.

ONE is the long, long winter night;

Go

Look, my beloved one!

How glorious, through his depths of light, Rolls the majestic sun!

The willows, waked from winter's death, Give out a fragrance like thy breathThe summer is begun!

Ay, 'tis the long bright summer day:
Hark to that mighty crash!
The loosened ice-ridge breaks away-
The smitten waters flash;

Seaward the glittering mountain rides,
While, down its green translucent sides,

The foamy torrents dash.

See, love, my boat is moored for thee

By ocean's weedy floor

The petrel does not skim the sea

More swiftly than my oar.

And I for such thy vow-meanwille
wal hear thy voice and see thy smile,
Till that long midnight Ales.

New York, 19.

"Knickerbocker Magazine," January, 1833

THE HUNTER OF THE PRAIRIES.

A

Y, this is freedom!-these pure skies

Were never stained with village smoke:
The fragrant wind, that through them flies,
Is breathed from wastes by plough unbroke.
Here, with my rifle and my steed,

And her who left the world for me,
I plant me, where the red deer feed
In the green desert-and am free.

For here the fair savannas know

No barriers in the bloomy grass;
Wherever breeze of heaven may blow,
Or beam of heaven may glance, I pass.
In pastures, measureless as air,

The bison is my noble game;

The bounding elk, whose antlers tear
The branches, falls before my aim.

Mine are the river-fowl that scream

From the long stripe of waving sedge;

The bear that marks my weapon's gleam,
Hides vainly in the forest's edge;
In vain the she-wolf stands at bay;

The brinded catamount, that lies
High in the boughs to watch his prey,
Even in the act of springing, dies.

With what free growth the elm and plane Fling their huge arms across my way, Gray, old, and cumbered with a train

Of vines, as huge, and old, and gray! Free stray the lucid streams, and find

No taint in these fresh lawns and shades; Free spring the flowers that scent the wind Where never scythe has swept the glades.

Alone the Fire, when frost-winds sere
The heavy herbage of the ground,
Gathers his annual harvest here,

With roaring like the battle's sound, And hurrying flames that sweep the plain, And smoke-streams gushing up the sky:

I meet the flames with flames again,
And at my door they cower and die.

Here, from dim woods, the aged past
Speaks solemnly; and I behold
The boundless future in the vast

And lonely river, seaward rolled.