He was a stranger there, and all that day
Had been out on the hills, a perilous way,
But the foot of the deer was far and fleet,
And the wolf kept aloof from the hunter's feet,
And bitter feelings passed o'er him then,
As he stood by the populous haunts of men.
The winds of Autumn came over the woods,
As the sun stole out from their solitudes.
The moss was white on the maple's trunk,
And dead from its arms the pale vine shrunk,
And ripened the mellow fruit hung, and red
Were the tree's withered leaves round it shed.
The foot of the reaper moved slow on the lawn,
And the sickle cut down the yellow corn-
The mower sung loud by the meadow side,
Where the mists of evening were spreading wide,
And the voice of the herdsman came up the lea,
And the dance went round by the greenwood tree.
Then the hunter turned away from that scene,
Where the home of his fathers once had been,
And heard by the distant and measured stroke,
That the woodman hewed down the giant oak,
And burning thoughts flashed over his mind
Of the white man's faith, and love unkind.
The moon of the harvest grew high and bright,
As her golden horn pierced the cloud of white-
A footstep was heard in the rustling brake,
Where the beech overshadowed the misty lake,
And a mourning voice and a plunge from shore;
And the hunter was seen on the hills no more.
When years had passed on, by that still lake-side
The fisher looked down through the silver tide,
And there, on the smooth yellow sand displayed,
A skeleton wasted and white was laid,
And 'twas seen, as the waters moved deep and slow,
That the hand was still grasping a hunter's bow,
WHEN evening spreads her shades around, And darkness fills the arch of heaven; When not a murmur, not a sound,
To Fancy's sportive ear is given ;
When the broad orb of heaven is bright,
And looks around with golden eye;
When Nature, softened by her light,
Seems calmly, solemnly to lie ;-
Then, when our thoughts are raised above This world, and all this world can give, O, sister, sing the song I love,
And tears of gratitude receive.
The song which thrills my bosom's core,
And, hovering, trembles half afraid,
O, sister, sing the song once more,
Which ne'er for mortal ear was made.
"Twere almost sacrilege to sing
Those notes amid the glare of day; Notes borne by angels' purest wing,
And wafted by their breath away.
When, sleeping in my grass-grown bed,
Shouldst thou still linger here above,
Wilt thou not kneel beside my head,
And, sister, sing the song I love?
WELL do I love those various harmonies
That ring so gayly in Spring's budding woods,
And in the thickets, and green, quiet haunts,
And lonely copses of the Summer-time,
And in red Autumn's ancient solitudes.
If thou art pained with the world's noisy stir, Or crazed with its mad tumults, and weighed down With any of the ills of human life;
If thou art sick and weak, or mournest at the loss
Of brethren gone to that far-distant land
To which we all do pass, gentle and poor,
The gayest and the gravest, all alike—
Then turn into the peaceful woods, and hear
The thrilling music of the forest birds.
How rich the varied choir. The unquiet finch Calls from the distant hollows, and the wren Uttereth her sweet and mellow plaint at times, And the thrush mourneth where the kalmia hangs
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