A HUNTER’S MATIN.
Up, comrades, up! the morn’s awake
Upon the mountain side,
The curlew’s wing hath swept the lake,
And the deer has left the tangled brake,
To drink from the limpid tide.
Up, comrades, up! the mead-lark’s note
And the plover’s cry o’er the prairie float;
The squirrel he springs from his covert now,
To prank it away on the chestnut bough,
Where the oriole’s pendent nest, high up,
Is rock’d on the swaying trees,
While the hum-bird sips from the harebell’s cup,
As it bends to the morning breeze.
Up, comrades, up! our shallops grate
Upon the pebbly strand,
And our stalwart hounds impatient wait
To spring from the huntsman’s hand!
Charles Fenno Hoffman.