There thou art strong and great, a hero, a tamer of horses!

There thou chasest the stately stag on the banks of the Elk-horn,

Or by the roar of the Running-Water, or where the Omawhaw

Calls thee, and leaps through the wild ravine like a brave of the Blackfeet!

Hark! what murmurs arise from the heart of those mountainous deserts ?

Is it the cry of the Foxes and Crows, or the mighty Behemoth,

Who, unharmed, on his tusks once caught the bolts of the thunder,

And now lurks in his lair to destroy the race of the red man?

Far more fatal to thee and thy race than the Crows and the Foxes,

Far more fatal to thee and thy race than the tread of Behemoth,

Lo! the big thunder-canoe, that steadily breasts the Missouri's

Merciless current! and yonder, afar on the prairies, the camp-fires

Gleam through the night; and the cloud of dust in the gray of the daybreak

Marks not the buffalo's track, nor the Mandan's dexterous horse-race;

It is a caravan, whitening the desert where dwell the Camanches!

Ha! how the breath of these Saxons and Celts, like the blast of the east-wind,

Drifts evermore to the west the scanty smokes of thy wigwams!

SONGS.

From each cave and rocky fastness,
In its vastness,

Floats some fragment of a song:

From the far-off isles enchanted,
Heaven has planted

With the golden fruit of Truth;
From the flashing surf, whose vision
Gleams Elysian

In the tropic clime of Youth;

From the strong Will, and the Endeavour That forever

Wrestles with the tides of Fate;

From the wreck of Hopes far-scattered, Tempest-shattered,

Floating waste and desolate ;—

Ever drifting, drifting, drifting
On the shifting
Currents of the restless heart;
Till at length in books recorded,
They, like hoarded
Household words, no more depart.

THE DAY IS DONE.

THE day is done, and the darkness
Falls from the wings of Night,
As a feather is wafted downward
From an eagle in his flight.

I see the lights of the village

Gleam through the rain and the mist, And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me, That my soul cannot resist :

A feeling of sadness and longing,
That is not akin to pain,
And resembles sorrow only

As the mist resembles the rain.

Come, read to me some poem,
Some simple and heartfelt lay,
That shall soothe this restless feeling,
And banish the thoughts of day.

Not from the grand old masters,
Not from the bards sublime,
Whose distant footsteps echo
Through the corridors of Time.

For, like strains of martial music,
Their mighty thoughts suggest
Life's endless toil and endeavour;
And to-night I long for rest.

Read from some humbler poet,
Whose songs gushed from his heart,
As showers from the clouds of summer,
Or tears from the eyelids start;

Who, through long days of labor,
And nights devoid of ease,
Still heard in his soul the music
Of wonderful melodies.

Such songs have power to quiet
The restless pulse of care,

And come like the benediction

That follows after

prayer.

Then read from the treasured volume

The poem of thy choice,

And lend to the rhyme of the poet

The beauty of thy voice.

And the night shall be filled with music, And the cares, that infest the day, Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs, And as silently steal away.

AFTERNOON IN FEBRUARY.

THE day is ending,

The night is descending;
The marsh is frozen,
The river dead.

Through clouds like ashes
The red sun flashes
On village windows

That glimmer red.

The snow recommences;

The buried fences

Mark no longer

The road o'er the plain;

While through the meadows,
Like fearful shadows,
Slowly passes

A funeral train.

The bell is pealing,
And every feeling
Within me responds
To the dismal knell;

Shadows are trailing,
My heart is bewailing
And tolling within

Like a funeral bell.