INDIAN SUMMER.-CHARLES FENNO HOFFMAN.

Light as love's smiles, the silvery mist at morn
Floats in loose flakes along the limpid river;
The blue-bird's notes upon the soft breeze borne,
As high in air he carols, faintly quiver;
The weeping birch, like banners, idly waving,
Bends to the stream, its spicy branches laving;
Beaded with dew, the witch-elm's tassels shiver;
The timid rabbit from the furze is peeping,

And from the springy spray the squirrel's gayly leaping.

I love thee, Autumn, for thy scenery ere
The blasts of winter chase the varied dyes
That richly deck the slow-declining year;
I love the splendor of thy sunset skies,
The gorgeous hues that tinge each failing leaf,
Lovely as beauty's cheek, as woman's love too brief;
I love the note of each wild bird that flies,
As on the wind he pours his parting lay,

And wings his loitering flight to summer climes away.

O, Nature! still I fondly turn to thee,

With feelings fresh as e'er my childhood's were;
Though wild and passion-toss'd my youth may be,
Toward thee I still the same devotion bear;
To thee to thee-though health and hope no more
Life's wasted verdure may to me restore-

I still can, child-like, come as when in prayer
I bow'd my head upon a mother's knee,

And deem'd the world, like her, all truth and purity.

ANCIENT INDIAN VILLAGE.-MARGARET FULLER OSSOLI.

At Oregon, the beauty of the scene was of even a more sumptuous character than at our former "stopping-place." Here swelled the river in its boldest course, interspersed by halcyon isles on which Nature had lavished all her prodigality in tree, vine, and flower, banked by noble bluffs, three hundred feet high, their sharp ridges as exquisitely definite as the edge of a shell; their summits adorned with those same beautiful trees, and with buttresses of rich rock, crusted with old hemlocks, which wore a touching and antique grace amid the

softer and more luxuriant vegetation. Lofty natural mounds rose amidst the rest, with the same lovely and sweeping outline, showing everywhere the plastic power of water,-water, mother of beauty, which, by its sweet and eager flow, had left such lineaments as human genius never dreamt of.

Not far from the river was a high crag, called the Pine Rock, which looks out, as our guide observed, like a helmet above the brow of the country. It seems as if the water left here and there a vestige of forms and materials that preceded its course, just to set off its new and richer designs.

The aspect of this country was to me enchanting, beyond any I have ever seen, from its fulness of expression, its bold and impassioned sweetness. Here the flood of emotion has passed over and marked everywhere its course by a smile. The fragments of rock touch it with a wildness and liberality which give just the needed relief. I should never be tired here, though I have elsewhere seen country of more secret and alluring charms, better calculated to stimulate and suggest. Here the eye and heart are filled.

How happy the Indians must have been here! It is not. long since they were driven away, and the ground, above and below, is full of their traces.

"The earth is full of men."

You have only to turn up the sod to find arrowheads and Indian pottery. On an island, belonging to our host, and nearly opposite his house, they loved to stay, and no doubt, enjoyed its lavish beauty as much as the myriad wild pigeons that now haunt its flower-filled shades. Here are still the marks of their tomahawks, the troughs in which they prepared their corn, their caches.

A little way down the river is the site of an ancient Indian village, with its regularly arranged mounds. As usual, they had chosen with the finest taste. When we went there, it was one of those soft, shadowy afternoons when Nature seems ready to weep, not from grief, but from an overfull heart. Two prattling, lovely little girls, and an African boy, with glittering eye and ready grin, made our party gay; but all were still as we entered the little inlet and trod those flowery paths. They may blacken Indian life as they will, talk of its dirt, its brutality, I will ever believe that the men who chose that dwellingplace were able to feel emotions of noble happiness as they returned to it, and so were the women that received them.

Neither were the children sad or dull, who lived so familiarly with the deer and the birds, and swam that clear wave in the shadow of the Seven Sisters. The whole scene suggested to me a Greek splendor, a Greek sweetness, and I can believe that an Indian brave, accustomed to ramble in such paths, and be bathed by such sunbeams, might be mistaken for Apollo, as Apollo was for him by West. Two of the boldest bluffs are called the Deer's Walk, (not because deer do not walk there), and the Eagle's nest. The latter I visited one glorious morning; it was that of the fourth of July, and certainly I think I had never felt so happy that I was born in America. Woe to all country folks that never saw this spot, never swept an enraptured gaze over the prospect that stretched beneath. I do believe Rome and Florence are suburbs compared to this capital of Nature's art.

The bluff was decked with great bunches of a scarlet variety of the milkweed, like cut coral, and all starred with a mysterious-looking dark flower, whose cup rose lonely on a tall stem. This had, for two or three days, disputed the ground with the lupine and phlox. My companions disliked, I liked it.

HELLVELLYN.-SIR WALTER Scott.

I climb'd the dark brow of the mighty Hellvellyn,
Lakes and mountains beneath me gleam'd misty and wide;
All was still, save by fits when the eagle was yelling,

And starting around me the echoes replied.

On the right, Striden-edge round the Red-tarn was bending,
And Catchedicam its left verge was defending,

One huge nameless rock in the front was ascending,

When I mark'd the sad spot where the wanderer had died.

Dark green was the spot mid the brown meadow heather,
Where the pilgrim of nature lay stretch'd in decay,—
Like the course of an outcast abandon'd to weather,
Till the mountain-winds wasted the tenantless clay.
Nor yet quite deserted, though lonely extended,
For faithful in death, his mute favorite attended,
The much-loved remains of her master defended,
And chased the hill-fox and the raven away.

How long didst thou think that his silence was slumber?
When the wind waved his garment how oft didst thou start?
How many long days and long weeks didst thou number,
Ere he faded before thee, the friend of thy heart?

And, oh! was it meet, that no requiem read o'er him,
No mother to weep, and no friend to deplore him,
And thou, little guardian, alone stretch'd before him-
Unhonor'd the pilgrim from life should depart?

When a prince to the fate of the peasant has yielded,
The tapestry waves dark round the dim-lighted hall;
With scutcheons of silver the coffin is shielded,

And pages stand mute by the canopied pall:

Through the courts, at deep midnight, the torches are gleaming,
In the proudly-arch'd chapel the banners are beaming,
Far adown the long aisle sacred music is streaming,
Lamenting a chief of the people should fall.

But meeter for thee, gentle lover of nature,

To lay down thy head like the meek mountain lamb;
When, wilder'd he drops from some cliff huge in stature,
And draws his last sob by the side of his dam.
And more stately thy couch by this desert lake lying,
Thy obsequies sung by the gray plover flying,
With one faithful friend to witness thy dying,
In the arms of Hellvellyn and Catchedicam.