All nature sinks beneath the pleasing reign

Of silence---and in balmy slumbers rest.

Save where, with plaintive note, the bird of woe

Proclaims approaching fate, while, trembling, near,

Some mournful native wand’ring pensive, slow,

Starts at the voice he oft’ was taught to fear.[*]

Amid these wilds pale superstition reigns,

Her influence e’en the hardy Indian owns;

And ceaseless still prepares for man new pains,

And, fiend-like, too, delights to hear his groans.