XXI.

THE COMPLAINT

OF A FORSAKEN INDIAN WOMAN.

[Whena Northern Indian, from sickness, is unable to continue his journey with his companions, he is left behind, covered over with deer-skins, and is supplied with water, food, and fuel, if the situation of the place will afford it. He is informed of the track which his companions intend to pursue, and if he be unable to follow, or overtake them, he perishes alone in the desert; unless he should have the good fortune to fall in with some other tribes of Indians. The females are equally, or still more, exposed to the same fate. See that very interesting work HEARNE'S JOURNEY from HUDSON'S BAY to the NORTHERN OCEAN. In the high northern latitudes, as the same writer informs us, when the northern lights vary their position in the air, they make a rustling and a crackling noise, as alluded to in the following poem.]

I.

BEFORE I see another day,
Oh let my body die away!

In sleep I heard the northern gleams;
The stars, they were among my dreams;
In rustling conflict through the skies,

I heard, I saw the flashes drive,

G

Another still! and still another !
A little lamb, and then its mother!
It was a vein that never stopped-

Like blood-drops from my heart they dropped.

XXIII.

REPENTANCE.

A PASTORAL BALLAD.

THE fields which with covetous spirit we sold, Those beautiful fields, the delight of the day, Would have brought us more good than a burthen

of gold,

Could we but have been as contented as they.

DEPARTED Child! I could forget thee once
Though at my bosom nursed; this woeful gain
Thy dissolution brings, that in my soul
Is present and perpetually abides

A shadow, never, never to be displaced
By the returning substance, seen or touched,
Seen by mine eyes, or clasped in my embrace.
Absence and death how differ they ! and how
Shall I admit that nothing can restore
What one short sigh so easily removed ?—
Death, life, and sleep, reality and thought,
Assist me, God, their boundaries to know,
O teach me calm submission to thy Will!

The Child she mourned had overstepped the pale Of Infancy, but still did breathe the air That sanctifies its confines, and partook Reflected beams of that celestial light To all the Little-ones on sinful earth

Not unvouchsafed-a light that warmed and

cheered

Those several qualities of heart and mind

Which, in her own blest nature, rooted deep,

Daily before the Mother's watchful eye,

And not hers only, their peculiar charms
Unfolded, beauty, for its present self,
And for its promises to future years,
With not unfrequent rapture fondly hailed.

Have you espied upon a dewy lawn
A pair of Leverets each provoking each
To a continuance of their fearless sport,
Two separate Creatures in their several gifts
Abounding, but so fashioned that, in all

That Nature prompts them to display, their looks,
Their starts of motion and their fits of rest,
An undistinguishable style appears

And character of gladness, as if Spring

Lodged in their innocent bosoms, and the spirit

Of the rejoicing morning were their own.