There came a Youth from Georgia's shore –
A military casque he wore,
With splendid feathers drest;

He brought them from the Cherokees;
The feathers nodded in the breeze,
And made a gallant crest.

From Indian blood you deem him sprung:
But no! he spake the English tongue,
And bore a soldier's name;

And, when America was free
From battle and from jeopardy,
He 'cross the ocean came.

With hues of genius on his cheek

In finest tones the Youth could speak:
-While he was yet a boy,
The moon, the glory of the sun,

And streams that murmur as they run,
Had been his dearest joy.

He was a lovely youth! I guess
The panther in the wilderness

Was not so fair as he;

And, when he chose to sport and play,
No dolphin ever was so gay
Upon the tropic sea.

Among the Indians he had fought,
And with him many tales he brought
Of pleasure and of fear;

Such tales as told to any maid

By such a Youth, in the green shade, Were perilous to hear.

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Who quit their fold with dance and shout, Their pleasant Indian town,

To gather strawberries all day long;

Returning with a choral song

When daylight is gone down.

He spake of plants that hourly change

Their blossoms, through a boundless range

Of intermingling hues;

With budding, fading, faded flowers

They stand the wonder of the bowers

From morn to evening dews.

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Sendding away from snare to snare, I plied That anxious visitation;- moon and stars Were shining o'er my head. I was alone, And seemed to be a trouble to the peace That dwelt among them. Sometimes it befell

In these night wanderings, that a strong desire

O'erpowered my better reason, and the bird Which was the captive of another's toil 320 Became my prey; and when the deed was done

I heard among the solitary hills

Low breathings coming after me, and sounds

Of undistinguishable motion, steps
Almost as silent as the turf they trod.

Nor less, when spring had warmed the cultured Vale,

Moved we as plunderers where the mother

bird

Had in high places built her lodge; though

mean

Our object and inglorious, yet the end

Of unknown modes of being; o'er my thoughts

There hung a darkness, call it solitude
Or blank desertion. No familiar shapes
Remained, no pleasant images of trees,
Of sea or sky, no colours of green fields;
But huge and mighty forms, that do not
live

Like living men, moved slowly through the mind

By day, and were a trouble to my dreams.

Wisdom and Spirit of the universe! 401 Thou Soul that art the eternity of thought That givest to forms and images a breath And everlasting motion, not in vain By day or star-light thus from my first dawn

Of childhood didst thou intertwine for me The passions that build up our human soul;