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Started from his bed of branches
From the twilight of his wigwam,
Forth into the flush of sunset
Came, and wrestled with Mondamin;
At his touch he felt new courage
Throbbing in his brain and bosom,
Felt new life and hope and vigor
Run through every nerve and fibre.
So they wrestled there together
In the glory of the sunset;

And the more they strove and struggled,
Stronger still grew Hiawatha.

Round about him spun the landscape, Sky and forest reeled together,

And his strong heart leaped within him,
As the sturgeon leaps and struggles
In a net to break its meshes;
Like a ring of fire around him
Blazed and flared the red horizon,
And a hundred suns seemed looking
At the combat of the wrestlers.

Suddenly upon the greensward
All alone stood Hiawatha,
Panting with his wild exertion,
Palpitating with the struggle;
And before him, breathless, lifeless,
Lay the youth, with hair dishevelled,
Plumage torn, and garments tattered,
Dead he lay there in the sunset.
And victorious Hiawatha
Made the grave as he commanded,
Stripped the garments from Mondamin,
Stripped his tattered plumage from him,
Laid him in the earth, and made it
Soft and loose and light above him.
Homeward then went Hiawatha
To the lodge of old Nokomis,
And the seven days of his fasting
Were accomplished and completed.
But the place was not forgotten
Where he wrestled with Mondamin;
Nor forgotten nor neglected

Was the grave where lay Mondamin,
Sleeping in the rain and sunshine,
Where his scattered plumes and garments
Faded in the rain and sunshine.

Day by day did Hiawatha
Go to wait and watch beside it;
Kept the dark mould soft above it,
Kept it clean from weeds and insects,
Drove away with scoffs and shoutings,
Kahgahgee, the king of ravens.

Till at length a small green feather
From the earth shot slowly upward,
Then another and another,

And before the summer ended
Stood the maize in all its beauty,
With its shining robes about it,
And its long soft yellow tresses;
And in rapture Hiawatha

Cried aloud, "It is Mondamin!
Yes, the friend of man, Mondamin!"

And still later, when the autumn

Changed the long, green leaves to yellow,
And the soft and juicy kernels

Grew like wampum hard and yellow,
Then the ripened ears he gathered,

Stripped the withered husks from off them,
As he once had stripped the wrestler,-
Gave the first feast of Mondamin,
And made known unto the people
This new gift of the Great Spirit.

Longfellow.

THE POLISH BOY.

WHENCE Come those shrieks so wild and shrill,

That cut, like blades of steel, the air,

Causing the creeping blood to chill

With the sharp cadence of despair?

Again they come, as if a heart

Were cleft in twain by one quick blow,

And every string had voice apart

To utter its peculiar woe.

Whence came they? from yon temple, where
An altar, raised for private prayer,

Now forms the warrior's marble bed,
Who Warsaw's gallant armies led.

The dim funereal tapers throw
A holy lustre o'er his brow,
And burnish with their rays of light
The mass of curls that gather bright
Above the haughty brow and eye
Of a young boy that's kneeling by.

What hand is that, whose icy press
Clings to the dead with death's own grasp,
But meets no answering caress?
No thrilling fingers seek its clasp;
It is the hand of her whose cry
Ran wildly late upon the air,
When the dead warrior met her eye
Outstretched upon the altar there.

With pallid lip and stony brow,
She murmurs forth her anguish now.
But hark! the tramp of heavy feet
Is heard along the bloody street!
Nearer and nearer yet they come,
With clanking arms and noiseless drum.
Now whispered curses, low and deep,
Around the holy temple creep ;-
The gate is burst! a ruffian band
Rush in and savagely demand,
With brutal voice and oath profane,
The startled boy for exile's chain!

The mother sprang with gesture wild,
And to her bosom clasped her child;
Then, with pale cheek and flashing eye,
Shouted, with fearful energy,

"Back, ruffians, back! nor dare to tread
Too near the body of

my dead!

Nor touch the living boy; I stand

Between him and your lawless band!

Take me, and bind these arms, these hands,

With Russia's heaviest iron bands,

And drag me to Siberia's wild,

To perish, if 'twill save my child !”

"Peace, woman, peace!" the leader cried,
Tearing the pale boy from her side,
And in his ruffian grasp he bore
His victim to the temple door.

"One moment!" shrieked the mother, "one !
Will land or gold redeem my son?

Take heritage, take name, take all,
But leave him free from Russian thrall!
Take these!" and her white arms and hands
She stripped of rings and diamond bands,
And tore from braids of long black hair
The gems that gleamed like starlight there.
Her cross of blazing rubies, last

Down at the Russian's feet she cast.
He stooped to seize the glittering store ;-
Up springing from the marble floor
The mother, with a cry of joy,
Snatched to her leaping heart the boy!
But no! the Russian's iron grasp
Again undid the mother's clasp.
Forward she fell with one long cry
Of more than mortal agony.

But the brave child is roused at length,
And, breaking from the Russian's hold,
He stands, a giant in the strength

Of his young spirit fierce and bold!
Proudly he towers; his flashing eye
So blue, and yet so bright,
Seems kindled from the eternal sky,
So brilliant is its light.

His curling lips and crimson cheeks
Foretell the thought before he speaks
With a full voice of proud command
He turns upon the wondering band;
"Ye hold me not! no, no, nor can!
This hour has made the boy a man.
I knelt beside my slaughtered sire,
Nor felt one throb of vengeful ire.
I wept upon his marble brow,
Yes, wept! I was a child; but now-
My noble mother on her knee

Has done the work of years for me!"

He drew aside his broidered vest

And there, like slumbering serpents crest,

The jeweled haft of poignard bright

Glittered a moment on the sight.

"Ha! start ye back? Fool! coward! knave!

Think ye my noble father's glaive

Would drink the life-blood of a slave?

The pearls that on the handle flame
Would blush to rubies in their shame,
The blade would quiver in thy breast,
Ashamed of such ignoble rest.

No! thus I rend the tyrant's chain,
And fling him back a boy's disdain!"
A moment, and the funeral light
Flashed on the jewelled weapon bright;
Another, and his young heart's blood
Leaped to the floor, a crimson flood!
Quick to his mother's side he sprang,
And on the air his clear voice rang:-
Up, mother, up! I'm free! I'm free!
The choice was death or slavery!
Up, mother, up! Look on thy son!
His freedom is forever won!

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And now he waits one holy kiss
To bear his father home in bliss.
One last embrace, one blessing-one!
To prove thou knowest, approvest, thy son.
What! silent yet? Canst thou not feel
My warm blood o'er thy heart congeal?
Speak, mother, speak! lift up thy head?
What! silent still? Then art thou dead!
Great God! I thank thee! Mother, I
Rejoice with thee-and thus-to die!"
One long, deep breath, and his pale head
Lay on his mother's bosom,-dead!

Mrs. Ann S. Stephens, abridged.

DISSOLVE THE UNION.

"DISSOLVE the Union!" Who would part
The chain that binds us heart to heart?
Each link was forged by sainted sires,
Amid the Revolution fires;

And cooled-oh! where so rich a flood?—
In Warren's and in Sumter's blood.

"Dissolve the Union!" Be like France,
When Terror reared her bloody lance,
And man became destruction's child,
And woman, in her passions wild,
Danced in the life-blood of her queen,
Before the dreadful guillotine!

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