BY R. H. STODDARD.
He steals and imitates, with wiry note
The critics squeak, from Keats, and Tennyson,
Shelly, and Hunt, and Wordsworth, every one,
And many more whose works we know—by rote!
But how, good sirs, if God created him
Like unto these, though in their radiance dim?
Nothing in Nature's round is infinite;
The moulds of every kind are similar:
A flower is like a flower; a star a star;
And all the suns are lit with self-same light.
How can he help, since Nature points the way,
Following, if so he does, their noble school?
Or you, by birth and habit, knave and fool,
How can you help the trash you write—for pay?
THE "RED FEATHER."
AN INDIAN STORY.
WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY MAGAZINE.
BY ISAAC M'LELLAN.
A century ago, the deep shadows of the untrimmed wilderness overspread the broad valleys and wild hills of western New-York. The sound of the squatter's axe had not then aroused the echoes of those remote solitudes; nor the smoke of the frontiersman's cabin curled above the tall branching oaks and the solemn hemlocks of the primeval forest. The ploughshare had not then turned the fertile glebe, nor the cattle browsed upon the tender herbage of that region, now so populous and cultivated. The red stag there shook his branching antlers, and bounded fearlessly through the open glades of the wood, or led the dappled doe or fawn, at rosy dawn, or mellow eventide, to drink at the ice-cold water-course, or the pellucid surface of the lake. The shaggy bear prowled in the briery thicket, or fed on the acorns that autumn shook down from the oak; and the tawny panther ranged unmolested in the rocky fastnesses of the hills, or lay in the leafy covert for its prey. The Indian hunter was then lord of the land. The Mohawk and the Oneida held the region from the waters of the Hudson to the shores where Erie and Ontario rolled upon the beach; and the smoke of the wigwam ascended by many a quiet stream and wood. The hunter's rifle echoed among the hills, and his arrow whistled in the glade—the war-dance and battle-song resounded in every valley; and the sharp canoe, urged by the flashing paddle, skimmed every stream and lake.
Many years since, a small band of marksmen of the Mohawk tribe, having wandered far from their hunting-ground, were ambushed by a war-party of the Oneidas, and their chief, Owaka, was slain in the contest. Wauchee, or the Red-Feather, the only son of the old chief, and now the head of the nation of the Mohawks, had been deeply distressed at his father's loss, and had sworn that he would take the scalp of an Oneida, before the flowers of another spring should bloom over his father's grave.
In the leafy month of June, the young chief wandered afar from the lovely valley of his native river in pursuit of a small hunting-party of the Oneidas who were said to be prowling in the neighborhood. He had followed for many days the trail of the fugitives, and had often come upon their deserted camp-fires, but had not yet overtaken them. They were on their return to their village, which was situated on the shores of the Ontario, where the Niagara river, after its mighty plunge at the Falls, empties into its frothy abyss. On a pleasant evening of summer-time, he paused to encamp for the night in a place where a transparent streamlet poured its crystal tribute into the bosom of the Genessee. A dense and lofty grove of pines advanced their ranks to the very edge of the stream, and afforded him a faithful shelter from the dews and breezes of night.