THE STEAMBOAT. A while from tumult and the frauds of men, THE STEAMBOAT. BY O. W. HOLMES. SEE how yon flaming herald treads She rends the clinging sea, The morning spray, like sea-born flowers, The living gems of ocean sweep With clashing wheel, and lifting keel, And smoking torch on high, When winds are loud, and billows reel, She thunders foaming by! When seas are silent and serene, With even beam she glides, The sunshine glimmering through the green 55 56 THE STEAMBOAT. Now, like a wild nymph, far apart Still sounding through the storm; To-night yon pilot shall not sleep, Before this smoky wreath has stain'd Hark! hark! I hear yon whistling shroud, The black throat of the hunted cloud An hour, and, whirl'd like winnowing chaff, His tresses o'er yon pennon-staff, White as the sea-bird's wing! Yet rest, ye wanderers of the deep; Sleep on-and when the morning light Oh, think of those for whom the night Shall never wake in day! "PASSING AWAY." BY JOHN PIERPONT. WAS it the chime of a tiny bell, That came so sweet to my dreaming ear,― Like the silvery tones of a fairy's shell That he winds on the beach, so mellow and clear, When the winds and the waves lie together asleep, And the moon and the fairy are watching the deep, She dispensing her silvery light, And he, his notes as silvery quite, While the boatman listens and ships his oar, Are set to words :—as they float, they say, But no! it was not a fairy's shell, Blown on the beach so mellow and clear; Nor was it the tongue of a silver bell, Striking the hour, that fill'd my ear, As I lay in my dream; yet was it a chime 66 Passing away! passing away!" Oh, how bright were the wheels that told Of the lapse of time as they moved round slow, And the hands as they swept o'er the dial of gold, Seem'd to point to the girl below. 58 "PASSING AWAY." And lo! she had changed ;—in a few short hours While I gazed at that fair one's cheek, a shade And the light in her eye, and the light on the wheels, Was a little dimm'd, as when evening steals Upon noon's hot face:—yet one couldn't but love her, For she look'd like a mother, whose first babe lay Rock'd on her breast, as she swung all day ;— And she seem'd, in the same silver tone to say, "Passing away! passing away!" While yet I look'd, what a change there came! The garland beneath her had fallen to dust; Grew crooked and tarnish'd, but on they kept, INDIAN NAMES. And still there came that silver tone From the shrivell'd lips of the toothless crone,— The tone or the burden of her lay,)— 59 INDIAN NAMES. BY MRS. LYDIA HUNTLEY SIGOURNEY. "How can the red men be forgotten, while so many of our states and territories, bays, lakes, and rivers, are indelibly stamped by names of their giving?" YE say they all have pass'd away, That noble race and brave, That their light canoes have vanish'd From off the crested wave. That, mid the forests where they roam'd, There rings no hunter's shout; But their name is on your waters, "Tis where Ontario's billow Like ocean's surge is curl'd, Where strong Niagara's thunders wake Where red Missouri bringeth Rich tribute from the west, And Rappahannock sweetly sleeps On green Virginia's breast. Ye say their conelike cabins, That cluster'd o'er the vale, |