Its shadows in the hollows of the hills,
And wide the upland glows.

And when the day is gone,

In the blue lake, the sky, o'erreaching far,
Is hollowed out, and the moon dips her horn,
And twinkles many a star.

Inverted in the tide

Stand the gray rocks, ani trembling shadows throw,
And the fair trees look over, side by side,
And see themselves below.

Sweet April, many a thought
Is wedded unto thee, as hearts are wed;
Nor shall they fail, till, to its autumn brought,
Life's golden fruit is shed.

May.-J. G. PERCIVAL.

I FEEL a newer life in every gale;
The winds, that fan the flowers,

And with their welcome breathings fill the sail,
Tell of serener hours,-

Of hours that glide unfelt away
Beneath the sky of May.

The spirit of the gentle south-wind calls
From his blue throne of air,

And where his whispering voice in music falls,
Beauty is budding there;

The bright ones of the valley break
Their slumbers, and awake.

The waving verdure rolls along the plain,

And the wide forest weaves,

To welcome back its playful mates again,
A canopy of leaves;

And from its darkening shadow floats
A gush of trembling notes.

Fairer and brighter spreads the reign of May;
The tresses of the woods

With the light dallying of the west-wind play;
And the full-brimming floods,

As gladly to their goal they run,
Hail the returning sun.

Mounds on the Western Rivers.-M. FLINT.

THE sun's last rays were fading from the west, The deepening shade stole slowly o'er the plain, The evening breeze had lulled itself to rest,

And all was silence,-save the mournful strain With which the widowed turtle wooed, in vain, Her absent lover to her lonely nest.

Now, one by one, emerging to the sight,

The brighter stars assumed their seats on high;
The moon's pale crescent glowed serenely bright,
As the last twilight fled along the sky,
And all her train, in cloudless majesty,
Were glittering on the dark blue vault of night.

I lingered, by some soft enchantment bound,
And gazed, enraptured, on the lovely scene;
From the dark summit of an Indian mound

I saw the plain, outspread in living green;
Its fringe of cliffs was in the distance seen,
And the dark line of forest sweeping round.

I saw the lesser mounds which round me rose;
Each was a giant heap of mouldering clay;
There slept the warriors, women, friends, and foes,
There, side by side, the rival chieftains lay;
And mighty tribes, swept from the face of day,
Forgot their wars, and found a long repose.

Ye mouldering relics of departed years,

Your names have perished; not a trace remains, Save where the grass-grown mound its summit rears From the green bosom of your native plains. Say, do your spirits wear Oblivion's chains? Did Death forever quench your hopes and fears?

*

Or did those fairy hopes of future bliss,

Which simple Nature to your bosoms gave, Find other worlds, with fairer skies than this, Beyond the gloomy portals of the grave,

In whose bright climes the virtuous and the brave Rest from their toils, and all their cares dismiss ?—

Where the great hunter stills pursues the chase,
And, o'er the sunny mountains, tracks the deer;
Or where he finds each long-extinguished race,
And sees, once more, the mighty mammoth rear
The giant form which lies embedded here,
Of other years the sole remaining trace.

Or, it may be, that still ye linger near

The sleeping ashes, once your dearest pride;
And, could your forms to mortal eye appear,
Or the dark veil of death be thrown aside,
Then might I see your restless shadows glide,
With watchful care, around these relics dear.

If so, forgive the rude, unhallowed feet

Which trod so thoughtless o'er your mighty dead.

I would not thus profane their lone retreat,

Nor trample where the sleeping warrior's head
Lay pillowed on his everlasting bed,

Age after age, still sunk in slumbers sweet.

Farewell! and may you still in peace repose;
Still o'er you may the flowers, untrodden, bloom,
And softly wave to every breeze that blows,

Casting their fragrance on each lonely tomb,

In which your tribes sleep in earth's common womb, And mingle with the clay from which they rose.

Burial of the Minnisink.—LONGFELLOW.

ON sunny slope and beechen swell
The shadowed light of evening fell;
And when the maple's leaf was brown,
With soft and silent lapse came down
The glory that the wood receives,
At sunset, in its golden leaves.

Far upward, in the mellow light,

Rose the blue hills-one cloud of white; Around, a far uplifted cone

In the warm blush of evening shoneAn image of the silver lakes

By which the Indian soul awakes.

But soon a funeral hymn was heard,
Where the soft breath of evening stirred
The tall, gray forest; and a band
Of stern in heart and strong in hand
Came winding down beside the wave,
To lay the red chief in his grave.

They sung, that by his native bowers
He stood, in the last moon of flowers,
And thirty snows had not yet shed
Their glory on the warrior's head;
But as the summer fruit decays,
So died he in those naked days.

A dark cloak of the roebuck's skin
Covered the warrior, and within
Its heavy folds, the weapons made
For the hard toils of war were laid;
The cuirass woven of plaited reeds,
And the broad belt of shells and beads.

Before, a dark-haired virgin train
Chanted the death dirge of the slain;
Behind, the long procession came
Of hoary men and chiefs of fame,
With heavy hearts, and eyes of grief,
Leading the war-horse of their chief.

Stripped of his proud and martial dress,
Uncurbed, unreined, and riderless,
With darting eye, and nostril spread,
And heavy and impatient tread,
He came; and oft that eye so proud
Asked for his rider in the crowd.

They buried the dark chief; they freed Beside the grave his battle steed;

And swift an arrow cleaved its way
To his stern heart :-One piercing neigh
Arose-and on the dead man's plain,
The rider grasps his steed again.*

To the Eagle.—PERCIVAL.

From the Atlantic Souvenir for 1827.

BIRD of the broad and sweeping wing,
Thy home is high in heaven,

Where wide the storms their banners fling,
And the tempest clouds are driven.
Thy throne is on the mountain top;
Thy fields, the boundless air;
And hoary peaks, that proudly prop
The skies, thy dwellings are.

Thou sittest like a thing of light,
Amid the noontide blaze:

The midway sun is clear and bright;
It cannot dim thy gaze.

Thy pinions, to the rushing blast,
O'er the bursting billow, spread,

Where the vessel plunges, hurry past,

Like an angel of the dead.

Thou art perched aloft on the beetling crag,

And the waves are white below,

And on, with a haste that cannot lag,
They rush in an endless flow.

Again thou hast plumed thy wing for flight

To lands beyond the sea,

And away, like a spirit wreathed in light,
Thou hurriest, wild and free.

Thou hurriest over the myriad waves,
And thou leavest them all behind;
Thou sweepest that place of unknown graves,
Fleet as the tempest wind.

Alluding to an Indian superstition.