snapping off from its several holds, fell from under them, dragging against the building in the progress down; thus breaking their fall, but cutting off all their hope from this mode of entrance, and leaving their comrade awkwardly poised aloft, able neither to enter nor to depart from the window. The tree finally settled heavily upon the ground; and with it went the three savages who had so readily ascended to the assistance of their comrade-bruised and very much hurt; while he, now without any support but that which he derived from the sill, and what little his feet could secure from the irregular crevices between the logs of which the house had been built, was hung in air, unable to advance except at the will of his woman opponent, and dreading a far worse fall from his eminence than that which had already happened to his allies. Desperate with his situation, he thrust his arm, as it was still held by the woman, still farther into the window, and this enabled her with both hands to secure and strengthen the grasp which she had originally taken upon it. This she did with a new courage and strength, derived from the voices below, by which she understood a promise of assistance. Excited and nerved, she drew the extended arm of the Indian, in spite of all his struggles, directly over the sill, so as to turn the elbow completely down upon it. With her whole weight thus employed, bending down to the floor to strengthen herself to the task, she pressed the arm across the window until her ears heard the distinct, clear crack of the bone-until she heard the groan, and felt the awful struggles of the suffering wretch, twisting himself round with all his effort to obtain for the shattered arm a natural and relaxed position, and with this object leaving his hold upon everything, only sustained, indeed, by the grasp of his enemy. But the movement of the woman had been quite too sudden, her nerves too firm, and her strength too great, to suffer him to succeed. The jagged splinters of the broken limb were thrust up, lacerating and tearing through flesh and skin, while a howl of the acutest agony attested the severity of that suffering which could extort such an acknowledgment from the American savage. He fainted in his pain, and as the weight increased upon the arm of the woman, the nature of her sex began to resume its sway. With a shudder of every fibre, she released her hold upon him. The effort of her soul was over-a strange sickness came upon her; and she was just conscious of a crashing fall of the heavy body among the branches of the tree at the foot of the window, when she staggered back fainting in the arms of her husband, who just at that moment ascended to her relief.

THE LOST PLEIAD.

[Poems. 1853.]

NOT in the sky,

Where it was seen

So long in eminence of light serene,

Nor on the white tops of the glistering wave,
Nor down, in mansions of the hidden deep,

Though beautiful in green

And crystal, its great caves of mystery,—

Shall the bright watcher have

Her place, and, as of old, high station keep!

Gone! gone!

Oh! never more, to cheer

The mariner, who holds his course alone

On the Atlantic, through the weary night,
When the stars turn to watchers, and do sleep,
Shall it again appear,

With the sweet-loving certainty of light,
Down shining on the shut eyes of the deep!

The upward-looking shepherd on the hills
Of Chaldea, night-returning, with his flocks,
He wonders why his beauty doth not blaze,
Gladding his gaze,

And, from his dreary watch along the rocks,
Guiding him homeward o'er the perilous ways!
How stands he waiting still, in a sad maze,
Much wondering, while the drowsy silence fills

The sorrowful vault!-how lingers, in the hope that night
May yet renew the expected and sweet light,

So natural to his sight!

And lone,

Where, at the first, in smiling love she shone,

Brood the once happy circle of bright stars:

How should they dream, until her fate was known,

That they were ever confiscate to death?

That dark oblivion the pure beauty mars,

And, like the earth, its common bloom and breath,

That they should fall from high;

Their lights grow blasted by a touch, and die,—

All their concerted springs of harmony
Snapt rudely, and the generous music gone!

Ab! still the strain

Of wailing sweetness fills the saddening sky;
The sister stars, lamenting in their pain
That one of the selectest ones must die,--

Must vanish, when most lovely, from the rest!
Alas! 'tis ever thus the destiny.

Even Rapture's song hath evermore a tone
Of wailing, as for bliss too quickly gone.
The hope most precious is the soonest lost,
The flower most sweet is first to feel the frost.
Are not all short-lived things the loveliest ?
And, like the pale star, shooting down the sky,
Look they not ever brightest, as they fly
From the lone sphere they blest!

THE BURDEN OF THE DESERT.

THE burden of the Desert,

The Desert like the deep,

That from the south in whirlwinds
Comes rushing up the steep;—

I see the spoiler spoiling,

I hear the strife of blows;

Up, watchman, to thy heights and say
How the dread conflict goes!

What hear'st thou from the desert ?

"A sound, as if a world

Were from its axle lifted up

And to an ocean hurled;

The roaring as of waters,

The rushing as of hills,

And lo! the tempest-smoke and cloud,

That all the desert fills."

What seest thou on the desert ?—

"A chariot comes," he cried, "With camels and with horsemen, That travel by its side;

And now a lion darteth

From out the cloud, and he

Looks backward ever as he flies,
As fearing still to see!"

What, watchman, of the horsemen ?

"They come, and as they ride, Their horses crouch and tremble, Nor toss their manes in pride; The camels wander scattered,

The horsemen heed them naught, But speed, as if they dreaded still

The foe with whom they fought."

NOW are the winds about us in their glee,

Tossing the slender tree;

Whirling the sands about his furious car,
March cometh from afar;

Breaks the sealed magic of old Winter's dreams,

And rends his glassy streams;

Chafing with potent airs, he fiercely takes

Their fetters from the lakes,

And, with a power by queenly Spring supplied,

Wakens the slumbering tide.

With a wild love he seeks young Summer's charms

And clasps her to his arms;

Lifting his shield between, he drives away

Old Winter from his prey;—

The ancient tyrant whom he boldly braves,

Goes howling to his caves;

And, to his northern realm compelled to fly,

Yields up the victory;

Melted are all his bands, o'erthrown his towers,
And March comes bringing flowers.

Elizabeth Dakes Smith.

BORN in Cumberland, Me., 1806.

THE DROWNED MARINER.

AMARINER sat on the shrouds one night,

The wind was piping free;

Now bright, now dimmed was the moonlight pale, And the phosphor gleamed in the wake of the whale, As he floundered in the sea;

The scud was flying athwart the sky,
The gathering winds went whistling by,

And the wave as it towered, then fell in spray,
Looked an emerald wall in the moonlight ray.

The mariner swayed and rocked on the mast,
But the tumult pleased him well;
Down the yawning wave his eye he cast,
And the monsters watched as they hurried past,
Or lightly rose and fell;

For their broad, damp fins were under the tide,
And they lashed as they passed the vessel's side,
And their filmy eyes, all huge and grim,
Glared fiercely up, and they glared at him.

Now freshens the gale, and the brave ship goes
Like an uncurbed steed along,

A sheet of flame is the spray she throws,
As her gallant prow the water ploughs—
But the ship is fleet and strong:

The topsails are reefed and the sails are furled,
And onward she sweeps o'er the watery world,
And dippeth her spars in the surging flood;
But there came no chill to the mariner's blood.

Wildly she rocks, but he swingeth at ease,
And holds him by the shroud;
And as she careens to the crowding breeze,
The gaping deep the mariner sees,

And the surging heareth loud.
Was that a face, looking up at him,

With its pallid cheek and its cold eyes dim? Did it beckon him down? did it call his name? Now rolleth the ship the way whence it came.

The mariner looked, and he saw with dread,
A face he knew too well;
And the cold eyes glared, the eyes of the dead,
And its long hair out on the wave was spread,
Was there a tale to tell?

The stout ship rocked with a reeling speed,
And the mariner groaned, as well he need,
For ever down, as she plunged on her side,
The dead face gleamed from the briny tide.

Bethink thee, mariner, well of the past,
A voice calls loud for thee-
There's a stifled prayer, the first, the last,
The plunging ship on her beam is cast,
Oh, where shall thy burial be?