I see the swarthy trappers come
From Mississippi's springs;
The war-chiefs with their painted bows,
And crest of eagle wings.
Behind the scared squaw's birch canoe,
The steamer smokes and raves;
And city lots are staked for sale
Above old Indian graves.
By forest, lake, and water-fall,
I see the peddler's show-
The mighty mingling with the mean,
The lofty with the low.
I hear the tread of pioneers
Of nations yet to be;
The first low wash of waves that soon
Shall roll a human sea.
The rudiments of empire here
Are plastic yet and warm;
The chaos of a mighty world
Is rounding into form.
Each rude and jostling fragment soon
Its fitting place shall find
The raw material of a state,
Its music and its mind.
And western still, the star, which leads
The New World in its train,
Has tipped with fire the icy spears
Of many a mountain chain.
The snowy cones of Oregon
Are kindled on its way;
And California's golden sands
Gleam brighter in its ray.
Ex. CVII.-CITY AND COUNTRY.
Come back to your mothers, ye children, for shame,
Who, have wandered like truants for riches and fame!
With a smile on her face, and a sprig in her cap,
She calls you to feast from her bountiful lap.
Come out from your alleys, your courts, and your lanes,
And breathe, like your eagles, the air of our plains;
Take a whiff from our fields, and your excellent wives
Will declare 'tis all nonsense insuring your lives.
Come, you of the law, who can talk, if you please,
Till the man in the moon will allow it 's a cheese,
And leave "the old lady that never tells lies,”
To sleep with her handkerchief over her eyes.
Ye healers of men, for a moment decline
Your feats in the rhubarb and ipecac line;
While you shut up your turnpike, your neighbors can go
The old round-about road to the regions below.
You clerk, on whose ears are a couple of pens,
And whose head is an ant-hill of units and tens,
Though Plato denies you, we welcome you still—
As a featherless biped, in spite of your quill.
Poor drudge of the city! how happy he feels
With the burs on his legs and the grass at his heels;
No dodger behind, his bandanas to share,-
No constable grumbling, "You must n't walk there!"
In yonder green meadow, to memory dear,
He slaps a mosquito, and brushes a tear;
The dew-drops hang around him on blossoms and shoots,He breathes but one sigh for his youth and his boots.
There stands the old school-house, hard by the old church; That tree by its side had the flavor of birch :
O, such were the days of his juvenile tricks,
Though the prairie of youth had so many "big licks !"
By the side of yon river he weeps and he slumps,
The boots fill with water, as if they were pumps,
Till sated with rapture, he steals to his bed,
With a glow in his heart, and a cold in his head.
'Tis past,--he is dreaming-I see him again;
The ledger returns as by legerdemain ;
His mustache is damp with an easterly flaw,
And he holds in his fingers an omnibus straw.
He dreams the chill gust is a blossoming gale,
That the straw is a rose from his dear native vale;
And murmurs, unconscious of space and of time,
"A 1.-Extra super.-Ah, is n't it prime!
O, what are the prizes we perish to win,
To the first little "shiner" we caught with a pin!
No soil upon earth is so dear to our eyes
As the soil we first stirred in terrestrial pies!
Then come from all parties, and parts, to our feast;
Though not at the "Astor," we 'll give you at least
A bite at an apple, a seat on the grass,
And the best of old-water-at nothing a glass.
Ex. CVIII.-HIAWATHA'S DEPARTURE.
HEAVY with heat and silence
Grew the afternoon of summer;
With a drowsy sound the forest
Whispered round the sultry wigwam,
With a sound of sleep the water
Rippled on the beach below it:
From the corn-fields shrill and ceaseless
Sang the grasshopper, Pah-puk-keena;
And the guests of Hiawatha,*
Weary with the heat of summer,
Slumbered in the sultry, wigwam.
Slowly o'er the simmering landscape
Fell the evening's dusk and coolness,
And the long and level sunbeams
Shot their spears into the forest,
Breaking through its shields of shadow,
Rushed into each secret ambush,
Searched each thicket, dingle, hollow;
Still the guests of Hiawatha
Slumbered in the silent wigwam.
From his place rose Hiawatha,
Bade farewell to old Nokomis,
* Christian missionaries.
Spake in whispers, spake in this wise,
Did not wake the guests, that slumbered:
"I am going, O Nokomis,
On a long and distant journey,
To the portals of the sunset,
To the regions of the home-wind,
Of the northwest wind, Keewaydin.
But these guests I leave behind me,
In your watch and ward I leave them;
See that never harm comes near them,
See that never fear molests them,
Never danger nor suspicion,
Never want of food or shelter,
In the lodge of Hiawatha !"
Forth into the village went he,
Bade farewell to all the warriors,
Bade farewell to all the young men,
Spake persuading, spake in this wise:
"I am going, O my people,
On a long and distant journey;
Many moons and many winters
Will have come, and will have vanished,
Ere I come again to see you.
But my guests I leave behind me;
Listen to their words of wisdom,
Listen to the truth they tell you,
For the Master of Life has sent them
From the land of light and morning!"
On the shore stood Hiawatha,
Turned and waved his hand at parting;
On the clear and luminous water
Launched his birch canoe for sailing,
From the pebbles of the margin,
Shoved it forth into the water;
Whispered to it "Westward, westward!"
And with speed it darted forward.
And the evening sun descending
Set the clouds on fire with redness,
Burned the broad sky, like a prairie,
Left upon the level water
One long track and trail of splendor,
Down whose stream, as down a river,
Westward, westward, Hiawatha
Sailed into the fiery sunset,
Sailed into the purple vapors,
Sailed into the dusk of evening.
And the people from the margin
Watched him floating, rising, sinking,
Till the birch canoe seemed lifted
High into that sea of splendor,
Till it sank into the vapors
Like the new moon, slowly, slowly
Sinking in the purple distance.
And they said, "Farewell for ever!"
Said, "Farewell, O Hiawatha !"
And the forests, dark and lonely,
Moved through all their depths of darkness,
Sighed, "Farewell, O Hiawatha!"
And the waves upon the margin
Rising, rippling on the pebbles,
Sobbed, "Farewell, O Hiawatha!"
And the heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah,
From her haunts among the fen-lands,
Screamed, "Farewell, Ö Hiawatha !"
Thus departed Hiawatha,
Hiawatha the belovéd,
In the glory of the sunset,
In the purple mists of evening,
To the regions of the home-wind,
Of the northwest wind, Keewaydin,
To the islands of the blessed,
To the kingdom of Ponemah,
To the land of the hereafter !
Ex. CIX.-PARRHASIUS AND THE CAPTIVE.
"PARRHASIUS, a painter of Athens, amongst those Olynthian captives Philip of Macedon brought home to sell, bought one very old man; and when he had him at his house, put him to death with extreme torture and torment, the better, by his example, to express the pain and passions of his Prometheus, whom he was then about to paint."-Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy.
THERE stood an unsold captive in the mart,
A gray-haired and majestical old man,
Chained to a pillar. It was almost night,
And the last seller from his place had gone,
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