Last night, 'tis in vain to deny it,
Your Soul took a fancy to roam,
For I heard her, on tiptoe so quiet,

Come ask whether mine was at home.

And mine let her in with delight,

And they talked and they kissed the time through, For, when souls come together at night,

There is no knowing what they mayn't do!

And your little Soul, Heaven bless her!
Had much to complain and to say
Of how sadly you wrong and oppress her
By keeping her prisoned all day.

"If I happen," said she, "but to steal
For a peep now and then to her eye,
Or, to quiet the fever I feel,

Just venture abroad on a sigh ;

"In an instant she frightens me in

With some phantom of prudence or terror,

For fear I should stray into sin,

Or, what is still worse, into error!

"So, instead of displaying my graces

303

Through look and through words and through mien,
I am shut up in corners and places
Where truly I blush to be seen!"

Upon hearing this piteous confession,
My Soul, looking tenderly at her,
Declared, as for grace and discretion,

He did not know much of the matter;

"But to-morrow, sweet Spirit!" he said,
"Be at home after midnight, and then
I will come when your lady's in bed,
And we'll talk o'er the subject again."

So she whispered a word in his ear,
I suppose to her door to direct him,
And-just after midnight, my dear,
Your polite little Soul may expect him.

TO MRS.

To see thee every day that came,
And find thee every day the same,
In pleasure's smile or sorrow's tear
The same benign, consoling Dear!
To meet thee early, leave thee late,
Has been so long my bliss, my fate,

That life, without this cheering ray,
Which came, like sunshine, every day,
And all my pain, my sorrow chased,
Is now a lone and loveless waste.-
Where are the chords she used to touch?
Where are the songs she loved so much?
The songs are hushed, the chords are still,
And so, perhaps, will every thrill
Of friendship soon be lulled to rest,
Which late I waked in Anna's breast!
Yet no-the simple notes I played
On memory's tablet soon may fade;
The songs which Anna loved to hear
May all be lost on Anna's ear;
But friendship's sweet and fairy strait
Shall ever in her heart remain ;
Nor memory lose nor time impair
The sympathies which tremble there!

A CANADIAN BOAT-SONG.
Written on the River St. Lawrence.*

Et remigem cantus hortatur.-Quintilian.
FAINTLY as tolls the evening chime,

Our voices keep tune and our oars keep time.

* I wrote these words to an air which our boatmen sung to us very frequently. The wind was so unfavourable that they were obliged to row all the way, and we were five days in descending the river from Kingston to Montreal, exposed to an intense sun during the day, and at night forced to take shelter from the dews in any miserable hut upon the banks that would receive us. But the magnificent scenery of the St. Lawrence repay all these difficulties.

Our voyageurs had good voices, and sung perfectly in tune together. The original words of the air, to which I adapted these stanzas, appeared to be a long, incoherent story, of which I could understand but little, from the barbarous pronunciation of the Canadian. It begins

Dans mon chemin j'ai rencontré
Deux cavaliers très bien montés;

And the refrain to every verse was

A l'ombre d'un bois je m'en vais jouer,

A l'ombre d'un bois je m'en vais danser.

I ventured to harmonize this air, and have published it. Without that charm which association gives to every little memorial of scenes or feelings that are past, the melody may perhaps be thought common and trifling; but I remember when we have entered, at sunset, upon one of those beautiful lakes into which the St. Lawrence so grandly and unexpectedly opens, I have heard this simple air with a pleasure which the finest compositions of the first masters have never given me, and now there is not a note of it which does not recall to my memory the dip of our oars in the St. Lawrence, the flight of our boat down the Rapids, and all those new and fanciful impressions to which my heart was alive during he whole of this very interesting voyage.

The above stanzas are supposed to be sung by those voyageurs who go to the Gran 1 Fortage by the Utawas River. For an account of this wonderful under taking sec Sir Alexander Mackenzie's General History of the Fur Trade, pre fixed his Journal.

Our voices keep tune and our oars keep time."

Page 304.

Soon as the woods on shore look dim,
We'll sing at St. Ann's our parting hymn.*
Row, brothers, row! the stream runs fast,
The rapids are near, and the daylight's past!

Why should we yet our sail unfurl?
There is not a breath the blue wave to curl !
But, when the wind blows off the shore,
Oh! sweetly we'll rest our weary oar.
Blow, breezes, blow! the stream runs fast,
The rapids are near, and the daylight's past!

Utawas tide! this trembling moon
Shall see us float over thy surges soon.
Saint of this green isle! hear our prayers,
Oh! grant us cool heavens and favouring airs.
Blow, breezes, blow! the stream runs fast,
The rapids are near, and the daylight's past!

TO THE LADY CHARLOTTE RAWDON.
From the banks of the St. Lawrence.

NOT many months have now been dreamed away
Since yonder sun (beneath whose evening ray
We rest our boat among these Indian isles)
Saw me where mazy Trent serenely smiles
Through many an oak, as sacred as the groves
Beneath whose shade the pious Persian roves,
And hears the soul of father, or of chief,
Or loved mistress, sigh in every leaf!
There listening, Lady! while thy lip hath sung
My own unpolished lays, how proud I've hung
On every mellowed number! proud to feel
That notes like mine should have the fate to steal
As o'er thy hallowing lip they sighed along,
Such breath of passion and such soul of song.
Oh! I have wondered, like the peasant boy
Who sings at eve his sabbath strains of joy,
And when he hears the rude, luxuriant note
Back to his ear on softening echoes float,
Believes it still some answering spirit's tone,
And thinks it all too sweet to be his own!
I dreamed not then that, ere the rolling year
Had filled its circle, I should wander here

In musing awe; should tread this wondrous world,
See all its store of inland waters hurled

"At the Rapid of St. Ann they are obliged to take out part, if not the whole, of their lading. It is from this spot the Canadians consider they take their departure, as it possesses the last church on the island, which is dedicated to the tutelar saint of voyagers."-Mackenzie, General History of the Fur Trade.

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