Above the hills, in the blue distance, rise
The mountain columns with which earth props

There is a tale about these reverend rocks,
A sad tradition of unhappy love,
And sorrows borne and ended, long ago,
When over these fair vales the savage sought

heaven.

His game in the thick woods. There was a maid,
The fairest of the Indian maids, bright-eyed,
With wealth of raven tresses, a light form,
And a gay heart. About her cabin-door
The wide old woods resounded with her song
And fairy laughter all the summer day.
She loved her cousin; such a love was deemed,
By the morality of those stern tribes,
Incestuous, and she struggled hard and long
Against her love, and reasoned with her heart,
As simple Indian maiden might. In vain.
Then her eye lost its lustre, and her step
Its lightness, and the grey-haired men that passed
Her dwelling wondered that they heard no more
The accustomed song, and laugh of her whose looks
Were like the cheerful smile of Spring, they said,
Upon the winter of their age. She went

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To weep, where no eye saw, and was not found
When all the merry girls were met to dance,
And all the hunters of the tribe were out;
Nor when they gathered from the rustling husk
The shining ear; nor when, by the river's side,
They pulled the grape and startled the wild shades
With sounds of mirth. The keen-eyed Indian dames
Would whisper to each other, as they saw
Her wasting form, and say the girl will die!

One day into the bosom of a friend,

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A playmate of her young and innocent years,
She poured her griefs. Thou know'st, and thou alone,'
She said, for I have told thee all, my love

And guilt and sorrow.

I am sick of life.

All night I weep in darkness, and the morn
Glares on me, as upon a thing accursed,
That has no business on the earth. I hate
The pastimes and the pleasant toils that once
I loved; the cheerful voices of my friends
Sound in my ear like mockings, and, at night,
In dreams, my mother, from the land of souls,
Calls me and chides me. All that look on me
Do seem to know my shame; I cannot bear
Their eyes; I cannot from my heart root out
The love that wrings it so, and I must die.'

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It was a summer morning, and they went To this old precipice. About the cliffs Lay garlands, ears of maize, and shaggy skins Of wolf and bear, the offerings of the tribe Here made to the Great Spirit; for they deemed, Like worshippers of the elder time, that God Doth walk on the high places and affect The earth-o'erlooking mountains. She had on The ornaments with which her father loved To deck the beauty of his bright-eyed girl, And bade her wear when stranger warriors came To be his guests. Here the friends sat them down, And sang, all day, old songs of love and death, And decked the poor wan victim's hair with flowers, And prayed that safe and swift might be her way To that calm world of sunshine, where no grief Makes the heart heavy and the eyelids red. Beautiful lay the region of her tribe Below her-waters resting in the embrace Of the wide forest, and maize-planted glades Opening amid the leafy wilderness. She gazed upon it long, and at the sight Of her own village peeping through the trees, And her own dwelling, and the cabin roof Of him she loved with an unlawful love, And came to die for, a warm gush of tears Ran from her eyes. But when the sun grew low

IIO

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And the hill shadows long, she threw herself
From the steep rock and perished. There was scooped
Upon the mountain's southern slope, a grave;
And there they laid her, in the very garb
With which the maiden decked herself for death,
With the same withering wild flowers in her hair.
And o'er the mould that covered her, the tribe
Built up a simple monument, a cone

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Of small loose stones. Thenceforward all who passed,
Hunter, and dame, and virgin, laid a stone
In silence on the pile. It stands there yet.
And Indians from the distant West, who come
To visit where their fathers' bones are laid,
Yet tell the sorrowful tale, and to this day
The mountain where the hapless maiden died
Is called the Mountain of the Monument.

AFTER A TEMPEST

THE day had been a day of wind and storm;
The wind was laid, the storm was overpast,
And stooping from the zenith, bright and warm,
Shone the great sun on the wide earth at last.
I stood upon the upland slope, and cast
My eye upon a broad and beauteous scene,
Where the vast plain lay girt by mountains vast,
And hills o'er hills lifted their heads of green,

With pleasant vales scooped out and villages between.

The rain-drops glistened on the trees around,
Whose shadows on the tall grass were not stirred,
Save when a shower of diamonds, to the ground,
Was shaken by the flight of startled bird;

For birds were warbling round, and bees were heard
About the flowers; the cheerful rivulet sung
And gossiped, as he hastened oceanward;
To the grey oak the squirrel, chiding, clung,

IO

And chirping from the ground the grasshopper upsprung.

And from beneath the leaves that kept them dry
Flew many a glittering insect here and there,
And darted up and down the butterfly,
That seemed a living blossom of the air.

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The flocks came scattering from the thicket, where
The violent rain had pent them; in the way
Strolled groups of damsels, frolicsome and fair;
The farmer swung the scythe or turned the hay;
And 'twixt the heavy swaths the children were at play.

It was a scene of peace—and, like a spell,

Did that serene and golden sunlight fall

Upon the motionless wood that clothed the fell,
And precipice upspringing like a wall,

And glassy river and white waterfall,

And happy living things that trod the bright

And beauteous scene; while far beyond them all,
On many a lovely valley, out of sight,

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Was poured from the blue heavens the same soft golden light.

I looked, and thought the quiet of the scene
An emblem of the peace that yet shall be,
When o'er earth's continents, and isles between,
The noise of war shall cease from sea to sea,
And married nations dwell in harmony;
When millions, crouching in the dust to one,
No more shall beg their lives on bended knee,
Nor the black stake be dressed, nor in the sun

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The o'erlaboured captive toil, and wish his life were done.

Too long, at clash of arms amid her bowers
And pools of blood, the earth has stood aghast—
The fair earth, that should only blush with flowers
And ruddy fruits; but not for ay can last
The storm, and sweet the sunshine when 'tis past.
Lo, the clouds roll away-they break-they fly,
And, like the glorious light of summer cast
O'er the wide landscape from the embracing sky,

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On all the peaceful world the smile of heaven shall lie.

AUTUMN WOODS

ERE, in the northern gale,

The summer tresses of the trees are gone,
The woods of Autumn, all around our vale,
Have put their glory on.

The mountains that enfold,

In their wide sweep, the coloured landscape round, Seem groups of giant kings, in purple and gold, That guard the enchanted ground.

I roam the woods that crown

The upland, where the mingled splendours glow,
Where the gay company of trees look down
On the green fields below.

My steps are not alone

ΤΟ

In these bright walks; the sweet south-west, at play, Flies, rustling, where the painted leaves are strown Along the winding way.

And far in heaven, the while,

The sun, that sends that gale to wander here,
Pours out on the fair earth his quiet smile,—
The sweetest of the year.

Where now the solemn shade,

Verdure and gloom where many branches meet;
So grateful, when the noon of summer made
The valleys sick with heat?

Let in through all the trees

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Come the strange rays; the forest depths are bright; Their sunny-coloured foliage, in the breeze,

Twinkles, like beams of light.

The rivulet, late unseen,

Where bickering through the shrubs its waters run, Shines with the image of its golden screen

And glimmerings of the sun.

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