They scent their prey, and, with the joy
Of meaner natures, far and wide
From deep obscurity they glide,
The dying monarch to annoy.
With naked fangs they circle round,
And fiercely snarl, until once more
The thicket quivers at his roar,
And all their paltry yelps are drowned.
The woodland with his voice is thrilled,
Though hope abandoned mars the strain;
But echoes cease, and then again
With jackal barks the air is filled.
Though dying, he is royal yet—
Even now, earth doth not hold his peer:
Bark, jackals, bark! ere dies the year
The world your tumult will forget.
AT RAINBOW LAKE.
There is a spot, far from the world's uproar,
Amid great mountains,
Where softly sleeps a lake, to whose still shore
Steal silvery fountains,
That hide beneath the leafy underwood,
And blend their voices with the solitude.
Save where the beaver-meadow's olive sheen
In sunlight glimmers,
On every side, a mass of waving green,
The forest shimmers
And oft re-echoes with the black bear's tread,
That silences the song birds overhead.
Here thickly droops the moss from patriarch trees,
And loons fly wailing.
Here king-birds' screams come hoarsely down the breeze
And hawks are sailing
Above the trees. Here Nature dwells alone,
Of man unknowing, and to man unknown.
Smiling, she rises when the morning air,
The dawn just breaking,
Bids the still woodlands for the day prepare,
And Life, awaking,
Welcomes the Sun, whose bride, the Morn, is kissed
And, blushing, lays aside her veil of mist.
Here Nature with each passing hour reveals
Peculiar graces:
At noonday she grows languid, and then steals
To shady places,
And revels in their coolness, at her feet
A stream, that fills with music her retreat.