A Present in whose reign no grief shall gnaw
The heart, and never shall a tender tie

Be broken; in whose reign the eternal Change
That waits on growth and action shall proceed
With everlasting Concord hand in hand.

OUR FELLOW-WORSHIPPERS.

THINK not that thou and I
Are here the only worshippers to-day,
Beneath this glorious sky,

'Mid the soft airs that o'er the meadows play
These airs, whose breathing stirs

The fresh grass, are our fellow-worshippers.

See, as they pass, they swing,

The censers of a thousand flowers that bend
O'er the young herbs of spring,

And the sweet odors like a prayer ascend,
While, passing thence, the breeze
Wakes the grave anthem of the forest-trees.

It is as when, of yore,

The Hebrew poet called the mountain-steeps,
The forests, and the shore
Of ocean, and the mighty mid-sea deeps,
And stormy wind, to raise

A universal symphony of praise.

For, lo! the hills around,

Gay in their early green, give silent thanks;
And, with a joyous sound,

The streamlet's huddling waters kiss their banks,

And, from its sunny nooks,

To heaven, with grateful smiles, the valley looks.

OUR FELLOW-WORSHIPPERS.

The blossomed apple-tree,
Among its flowery tufts, on every spray,
Offers the wandering bee

A fragrant chapel for his matin-lay;
And a soft bass is heard

From the quick pinions of the humming-bird.

Haply-for who can tell?—

Aërial beings, from the world unseen,
Haunting the sunny dell,

Or slowly floating o'er the flowery green,
May join our worship here,

With harmonies too fine for mortal ear.

395

NOTES.

Page 13.

POEM OF THE AGES.

In this poem, written and first printed in the year 1821, the author has endeavored, from a survey of the past ages of the world, and of the successive advances of mankind in knowledge, virtue, and happiness, to justify and confirm the hopes of the philanthropist for the future destinies of the human race.

Page 37.

THE BURIAL-PLACE.

The first half of this fragment may seem to the reader borrowed from the essay on Rural Funerals in the fourth number of the Sketch-Book. The lines were, however, written more than a year before that number appeared. The poem, unfinished as it is, would hardly have been admitted into this collection, had not the author been unwilling to lose what had the honor of resembling so beautiful a composition.

Page 48.

THE MASSACRE AT SCIO.

This poem, written about the time of the horrible butchery of the Sciotes by the Turks, in 1824, has been more fortunate than most poetical predictions. The independence of the Greek nation, which it foretold, has come to pass, and the massacre, by Inspiring a deeper detestation of their oppressors, did much to Dromote that event.

Page 48.

Her maiden veil, her own black hair, &c.

"The unmarried females have a modest falling down of the ar over the eyes."-ELIOT.

Page 69.

MONUMENT MOUNTAIN.

The mountain called by this name, is a remarkable preciples In Great Barrington, overlooking the rich and picturesque valley of the Housatonic, in the western part of Massachusetts. At the southern extremity is, or was a few years since, a conical pile of small stones, erected, according to the tradition of the surrounding country, by the Indians, in memory of a woman of the Stockbridge tribe, who killed herself by leaping from the edge of the precipice. Until within few years past, small parties of that tribe used to arrive from their settlement in the western part of the State of New York, on visits to Stockbridge, the place of their nativity and former residence. A young woman belonging to one of these parties, related, to a friend of the author, the story on which the poem of Mountain Monument is founded. An Indian girl had forined an attachment for her cousin, which, according to the customs of the tribe, was unlawful. She was, in consequence, seized with a deep melancholy, and resolved to destroy herself. In company with a female friend, she repaired to the mountain, decked out for the occasion in all her ornaments, and, after passing the day on the summit in singing with her companion the traditional songs of her nation, she threw herself headlong from the rock, and was killed.

Page 80.

THE MURDERED TRAVELLER.

Some years since, in the month of May, the remains of a hu man body, partly devoured by wild animals, were found in a woody ravine, near a solitary road passing between the mountains west of the village of Stockbridge. It was supposed that the person came to his death by violence, but no traces could be discovered of his murderers. It was only recollected that one evening, in the course of the previous winter, a traveller had stopped at an inn in the village of West Stockbridge; that he had inquired the way to Stockbridge; and that, in paying the innkeeper for something he had ordered, it appeared that he had a considerable sum of money in his possession. Two ill-looking men were present, and went out about the same time that the traveller proceeded on his journey. During the winter, also, two men of shabby appearance, but plentifully supplied with money, had lingered for awhile about the village of Stockbridge. Several years afterward, a criminal, about to be executed for a capital offence in Canada, confessed that he had been concerned in murdering a traveller in Stockbridge for the sake of his money. Nothing was ever discovered respecting the name or residence of the person murdered.