214

AN INDIAN AT THE BURIAL-PLACE

The sheep are on the slopes around,
The cattle in the meadows feed,
And labourers turn the crumbling ground,
Or drop the yellow seed,

And prancing steeds, in trappings gay,
Whirl the bright chariot o'er the way.

Methinks it were a nobler sight

To see these vales in woods arrayed,
Their summits in the golden light,

Their trunks in grateful shade,
And herds of deer, that bounding go
O'er rills and prostrate trees below.

And then to mark the lord of all,

The forest hero, trained to wars,
Quivered and plumed, and lithe and tall,
And seamed with glorious scars,
Walk forth, amid his reign, to dare
The wolf, and grapple with the bear.

This bank, in which the dead were laid,
Was sacred when its soil was ours;
Hither the artless Indian maid

Brought wreaths of beads and flowers,
And the gray chief and gifted seer
Worshipped the god of thunders here.

But now the wheat is green and high
On clods that hid the warrior's breast,

OF HIS FATHERS.

And scattered in the furrows lie

The weapons of his rest,

And there, in the loose sand, is thrown
Of his large arm the mouldering bone.

Ah, little thought the strong and brave,
Who bore their lifeless chieftain forth;
Or the young wife, that weeping gave
Her first-born to the earth,

That the pale race, who waste us now,
Among their bones should guide the plough.

They waste us-ay-like April snow
In the warm noon, we shrink away;
And fast they follow, as we go
Towards the setting day,—

Till they shall fill the land, and we
Are driven into the western sea.

But I behold a fearful sign,

To which the white men's eyes are blind; Their race may vanish hence, like mine, And leave no trace behind,

Save ruins o'er the region spread,

And the white stones above the dead.

Before these fields were shorn and tilled,
Full to the brim our rivers flowed;

The melody of waters filled

The fresh and boundless wood;

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216

AN INDIAN AT THE BURIAL-PLACE, ETC.

And torrents dashed and rivulets played,
And fountains spouted in the shade.

Those grateful sounds are heard no more,
The springs are silent in the sun,
The rivers, by the blackened shore,
With lessening current run;

The realm our tribes are crushed to get
May be a barren desert yet.

SONNET-TO COLE, THE PAINTER

DEPARTING FOR EUROPE.

THINE eyes shall see the light of distant skies:
Yet, COLE! thy heart shall bear to Europe's strand
A living image of thy native land,

Such as on thy own glorious canvass lies.
Lone lakes-savannas where the bison roves--

Rocks rich with summer garlands--solemn streams-
Skies, where the desert eagle wheels and screams—
Spring bloom and autumn blaze of boundless groves.
Fair scenes shall greet thee where thou goest-fair,
But different--everywhere the trace of men,
Paths, homes, graves, ruins, from the lowest glen
To where life shrinks from the fierce Alpine air.
Gaze on them, till the tears shall dim thy sight,
But keep that earlier, wilder image bright.

GREEN RIVER.

WHEN breezes are soft and skies are fair, I steal an hour from study and care, And hie me away to the woodland scene, Where wanders the stream with waters of green; As if the bright fringe of herbs on its brink, Had given their stain to the wave they drink; And they, whose meadows it murmurs through, Have named the stream from its own fair hue.

Yet
pure its waters-its shallows are bright
With coloured pebbles and sparkles of light,
And clear the depths where its eddies play,
And dimples deepen and whirl away,
And the plane-tree's speckled arms o'ershoot
The swifter current that mines its root,

Through whose shifting leaves, as you walk the hill,
The quivering glimmer of sun and rill,

With a sudden flash on the eye is thrown,

Like the ray that streams from the diamond stone. Oh, loveliest there the spring days come,

With blossoms, and birds, and wild bees' hum;

The flowers of summer are fairest there,

And freshest the breath of the summer air;