And pass the prairie-hawk that, poised on high,

Flaps his broad wings, yet moves not-ye have played
Among the palms of Mexico and vines

Of Texas, and have crisped the limpid brooks
That from the fountains of Sonora glide
Into the calm Pacific-have ye fanned

A nobler or a lovelier scene than this?

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The following stanzas form part of his poem, entitled, The Battle-field :—

Soon rested those who fought; but thou,
Who minglest in the harder strife

For truths which men receive not now,
Thy warfare only ends with life.
A friendless warfare! lingering long
Through weary day and weary year.
A wild, and many-weaponed throng
Hang on thy front, and flank, and rear.

Yet nerve thy spirit to the proof,

And blench not at thy chosen lot.

The timid good may stand aloof,

The sage may frown-yet faint thou not.

Nor heed the shaft too surely cast,

The foul and hissing bolt of scorn;
For with thy side shall dwell, at last,
The victory of endurance born.

Then follows the oft-cited, magnificent verse,

Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again;
The eternal years of God are hers;
But Error, wounded, writhes with pain,
And dies among his worshippers!

The Hunter of the Prairies is another fine poem :

Ay, this is freedom!-these pure skies

Were never stained with village smoke:
The fragrant wind, that through them flies,
Is breathed from wastes by plough unbroke.

No barriers in the bloomy grass; Wherever breeze of heaven may blow, Or beam of heaven may glance, I pass.

In

pastures, measureless as air,

"What plant we with this apple tree? Sweets for a hundred flowery springs To load the Maywind's restless wings, When, from the orchard row, he pourt Ito fragrance through our open doors.

A world of blossoms for the bee, Filovers for the sick girl's sebeat room, For the glad infant sprigs of blooms We plant with the apple tree" William Cullen Bryant Roslyn, L. J. July 12th 1875.

The bounung elk, whose antlers tear

The branches, falls before my aim.
Mine are the river-fowl that scream

From the long stripe of waving sedge;
The bear, that marks my weapon's gleam,
Hides vainly in the forest's edge;
In vain the she-wolf stands at bay;

The brinded catamount, that lies
High in the boughs to watch his prey,

Even in the act of springing, dies.
With what free growth the elm and plane

Another of Mr. Bryant's most admired productions is his Forest Hymn, commencing:

The groves were God's first temples. Ere man learned
To hew the shaft, and lay the architrave,

And spread the roof above them,—ere he framed
The lofty vault, to gather and roll back

The sound of anthems; in the darkling wood,
Amid the cool and silence, he knelt down,
And offered to the Mightiest solemn thanks
And supplication. For his simple heart
Might not resist the sacred influences
Which, from the stilly twilight of the place,
And from the gray old trunks that high in heaven