IV.
Hark! how the cool wind shakes this tent-like screen
Of thick and rustling leaves. No sultry heat
Flames 'mid this spicy air and twilight sweet,
Or steeps the fresh moss, shaded by the green
O'erhanging branches. Let the hot sun beat
Upon the haze-filmed forest-tops; for me,
Amid this hush, inviolate sanctity,
Where all that's best and holiest seems to meet,
The noontide hours shall gently glide away
In quiet meditation. Thou, meanwhile,
That wearest 'mid thy banks through many a mile
Of wood and moorland the fierce beams of day,
Shall be the almoner of many a story,
Hallowed with daring deeds and ancient border-glory!
V.
THE MOHAWK GIRL.
A noble race! but they are gone,
With their old forests wide and deep!'—Bryant.
Where are the painted skiffs that rocked between
These clumps of willow? 'Neath this twinkling shade
Of waving bushes, which o'erhead have made
For the smooth waters a light emerald screen,
Thick with young leaves, and mingling stems, that lean
Mid briers and grass-tufts where the wren hath laid
Her speckled eggs—the shell-decked Indian maid
Sees her wild costume in the trembling green
No longer. Haply by this mossy cove
Of rocking silver she hath twined her locks
With daisies and wild-roses from the rocks;
Roses, the summer growth of this dark grove,
And dewy violets from the splintered blocks
Of yonder bluff, with vines and weeds inwove.
VI.
Cheeks olive-bright, o'er which the blaze of noon
Kindled a sweeter crimson; jetty braid,
And meek eyes where the summer heaven had made
Its bluest glory; speech, which like the tune
Of winds among the beechen boughs at noon,
Scattered soft music through the stooping shade;
She seemed some 'delicate Ariel' of the glade,
Whose life was one of sunshine. Fair, yet soon,
Too soon! that creature of fond romance passed
With the brief beauty of her gentle look,
Dark lock and wampum by the cool wind shook,
And all that I had deemed most sweet to last;
Yet not less fleetly have her race forsook
Those natural rights which once they held so fast.
H. W. R.
Utica, July, 1843.