From whom all gifts, all blessings flow,
With grief beheld the scene below.
He wept; and, as the balmy shower
Refreshing to the ground descended,
Each drop gave being to a flower,
And all the hills in homage bended.
"Alas!" the good Great Spirit said,
"Man merits not the climes I gave;
Where'er a hillock rears its head,
He digs his brother's timeless grave: To every crystal rill of water, He gives the crimson stain of slaughter. No more for him my brow shall wear A constant, glad, approving smile; Ah, no! my eyes must withering glare On bloody hands and deeds of guile. Henceforth shall my lost children know The piercing wind, the blinding snow; The storm shall drench, the sun shall burn, The winter freeze them, each in turn. Henceforth their feeble frames shall feel A climate like their hearts of steel."
The moon that night withheld her light.
By fits, instead, a lurid glare
Illumed the skies; while mortal eyes
Were closed, and voices rose in prayer.
While the revolving sun
Three times his course might run,
The dreadful darkness lasted.
And all that time the red man's eye
A sleeping spirit might espy,
Upon a tree-top cradled high,
Whose trunk his breath had blasted.
So long he slept, he grew so fast,
Beneath his weight the gnarled oak
Snapp'd, as the tempest snaps the mast.
It fell, and Thunder woke!
The world to its foundation shook,
The grisly bear his prey forsook,
The scowling heaven an aspect bore
That man had never seen before;
The wolf in terror fled away,
And shone at last the light of day.
"Twas here he stood; these lakes attest Where first Waw-kee-an's footsteps press'd. About his burning brow a cloud,
Black as the raven's wing, he wore;
Thick tempests wrapp'd him like a shroud,
Red lightnings in his hand he bore;
Like two bright suns his eyeballs shone,
His voice was like the cannon's tone;
And, where he breathed, the land became,
Prairie and wood, one sheet of flame.
Not long upon this mountain height
The first and worst of storms abode,
For, moving in his fearful might,
Abroad the God-begotten strode.
Afar, on yonder faint blue mound,
In the horizon's utmost bound,
At the first stride his foot he set;
The jarring world confess'd the shock.
Stranger! the track of Thunder yet
Remains upon the living rock.
The second step, he gain'd the sand
On far Superior's storm-beat strand:
Then with his shout the concave rung,
As up to heaven the giant sprung
On high, beside his sire to dwell;
But still, of all the spots on earth,
He loves the woods that gave him birth.-
Such is the tale our fathers tell.
THE BURIAL-PLACE AT LAUREL HILL.
HERE the lamented dead in dust shall lie,
Life's lingering languors o'er, its labours done; Where waving boughs, betwixt the earth and sky, Admit the farewell radiance of the sun.
Here the long concourse from the murmuring town,
With funeral pace and slow, shall enter in;
To lay the loved in tranquil silence down,
No more to suffer, and no more to sin.
And in this hallow'd spot, where Nature showers
Her summer smiles from fair and stainless skies,
Affection's hand may strew her dewy flowers,
Whose fragrant incense from the grave shall rise. And here the impressive stone, engraved with worde Which grief sententious gives to marble pale, Shall teach the heart; while waters, leaves, and birds Make cheerful music in the passing gale.
Say, wherefore should we weep, and wherefore pour On scented airs the unavailing sigh—
While sun-bright waves are quivering to the shore,
And landscapes blooming-that the loved must die?
There is an emblem in this peaceful scene:
Soon rainbow colours on the woods will fall;
And autumn gusts bereave the hills of green,
As sinks the year to meet its cloudy pall.
Then, cold and pale, in distant vistas round,
Disrobed and tuneless, all the woods will stand;
While the chain'd streams are silent as the ground,
As Death had numb'd them with his icy hand.
Yet when the warm, soft winds shall rise in spring,
Like struggling daybeams o'er a blasted heath,
The bird return'd shall poise her golden wing,
And liberal Nature break the spell of Death.
So, when the tomb's dull silence finds an end,
The blessed dead to endless youth shall rise; And hear th' archangel's thrilling summons blend Its tone with anthems from the upper skies. There shall the good of earth be found at last, Where dazzling streams and vernal fields expand Where Love her crown attains-her trials pastAnd, fill'd with rapture, hails the "better land!"
"Why mourn for the young? Better that the light cloud should fade away in the morning's breath, than travel through the weary day, to gather in darkness, and end in storm."-BUL
Ir it be sad to mark the bow'd with age
Sink in the halls of the remorseless tomb, Closing the changes of life's pilgrimage
In the still darkness of its mouldering gloom;
Oh! what a shadow o'er the heart is flung,
When peals the requiem of the loved and young!
They to whose bosoms, like the dawn of spring
To the unfolding bud and scented rose,
Comes the pure freshness age can never bring,
And fills the spirit with a rich repose,
How shall we lay them in their final rest?
How pile the clods upon their wasting breast?
Life openeth brightly to their ardent gaze;
A glorious pomp sits on the gorgeous sky;
O'er the broad world Hope's smile incessant plays,
And scenes of beauty win the enchanted eye:
How sad to break the vision, and to fold
Each lifeless form in earth's embracing mould!
Yet this is life! To mark from day to day,
Youth, in the freshness of its morning prime,
Pass, like the anthem of a breeze away,
Sinking in waves of Death ere chill'd by Time!
Ere yet dark years on the warm cheek had shed
Autumnal mildew o'er its roselike red!
And yet what mourner, though the pensive eye
Be dimly thoughtful in its burning tears,
But should with rapture gaze upon the sky, [reers?
Through whose far depths the spirit's wing ca-
There gleams eternal o'er their ways are flung,
Who fade from earth while yet their years are young!
DEATH OF THE FIRSTBORN.
"Ah! welaway! most angel-like of face,
A childe, young in his pure innocence,
Tender of limbes, God wrote, full guilteless,
The goodly faire that lieth here speecheless.
A mouth he has, but words hath he none;
Cannot complain, alas! for none outrage,
Nor grutcheth not, but lies here, all alone,
Still as a lambe, most meke of his visage :
What hearte of stele could do to him damage,
Or suffer him die, beholding the manere,
And looke benigne of his tweine eyen clere?"
LYDGATE.
YOUNG mother, he is gone!
His dimpled cheek no more will touch thy breast;
No more the music-tone
Float from his lips, to thine all fondly press'd;
His smile and happy laugh are lost to thee:
Earth must his mother and his pillow be.
His was the morning hour;
And he hath pass'd in beauty from the day,
A bud, not yet a flower,
Torn, in its sweetness, from the parent spray :
The death-wind swept him to his soft repose,
As frost, in springtime, blights the early rose.
Will his rich accents charm thy listening ear,
Like some Eolian strain,
Breathing at eventide serene and clear;
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