No, no, the spell, that warm'd so long,
Was still my JULIA's kiss,

And still the girl was paid, in song,
What she had giv'n, in bliss!

Then beam one burning smile on me,
And I will sing those eyes;
Let me but feel a breath from thee,
And I will praise thy sighs.

That rosy mouth alone can bring

What makes the bard divine

Oh Lady! how my lip would sing,
If once 'twere prest to thine!

SONG

OF

THE EVIL SPIRIT OF THE WOODS1.

QUA VIA DIFFICILIS, QUAQUE EST VIA NULLA..........

Ovid. Metam. Lib. iii. v. 227.

1

Now the vapour, hot and damp,
Shed by day's expiring lamp,
Through the misty ether spreads
Every ill the white man dreads;
Fiery fever's thirsty thrill,
Fitful ague's shivering chill!

Hark! I hear the traveller's song,

As he winds the woods along!

The idea of this poem occurred to me in passing through the very dreary wilderness between Batavia, a new settlement in the midst of the woods, and the little village of Buffalo upon Lake Erie. This is the most fatiguing part of the route, in travelling through the Genesee country to Niagara.

Christian! 'tis the song of fear;
Wolves are round thee, night is near,
And the wild, thou dar'st to roam-
Oh! 'twas once the Indian's home?!

Hither, sprites, who love to harm,
Wheresoe'er you work your charm,
By the creeks, or by the brakes,
Where the pale witch feeds her snakes,
And the cayman 3 loves to creep,

3

Torpid, to his wintry sleep :

Where the bird of carrion flits,

And the shuddering murderer sits‘,

2 "The Five Confederated Nations (of Indians) were settled along the banks of the Susquehannah and the adjacent country, until the year 1779, when General Sullivan, with an army of 4000 men, drove them from their country to Niagara, where being obliged to live on salted provisions, to which they were unaccustomed, great numbers of them died. Two hundred of them, it is said, were buried in one grave, where they had encamped." Morse's American Geography.

'The alligator, who is supposed to lie in a torpid state all the winter, in the bank of some creek or pond, having previously swallowed a large number of pine-knots, which are his only sustenance during the time.

⚫ This was the mode of punishment for murder (as Father Charlevoix tells us) among the Hurons. "They laid the dead body upon poles at the top of a

Lone beneath a roof of blood,
While, upon his poison'd food,
From the corpse of him he slew
Drops the chill and gory dew!

Hither bend

you, turn you hither
Eyes that blast and wings that wither!
Cross the wandering Christian's way,
Lead him, ere the glimpse of day,
Many a mile of mad'ning error
Through the maze of night and terror,
Till the morn behold him lying

O'er the damp earth, pale and dying!
Mock him, when his eager sight
Seeks the cordial cottage-light;
Gleam then, like the lightning-bug,
Tempt him to the den that's dug
For the foul and famish'd brood
Of the she-wolf, gaunt for blood!
Or, unto the dangerous pass

O'er the deep and dark morass,

cabin, and the murderer was obliged to remain several days together, and to receive all that dropped from the carcass, not only on himself but on his food."

Where the trembling Indian brings
Belts of porcelain, pipes and rings,
Tributes, to be hung in air

To the Fiend presiding there!
Then, when night's long labour past,
Wilder'd, faint he falls at last,
Sinking where the cause-way's edge.
Moulders in the slimy sedge,
There let every noxious thing
Trail its filth and fix its sting;
Let the bull-toad taint him over,
Round him let musquitoes hover,
In his ears and eye-balls tingling,
With his blood their poison mingling,
Till, beneath the solar fires,

Rankling all, the wretch expires!

5 "We find also collars of porcelain, tobacco, ears of maize, skins, &c. by the side of difficult and dangerous ways, on rocks, or by the side of the falls; and these are so many offerings made to the spirits which preside in these places." See Charlevoix's Letter on the Traditions and the Religion of the Savages of Canada.

Father Hennepin too mentions this ceremony; he also says, "We took notice of one barbarian, who made a kind of sacrifice upon an oak at the Cascade of St. Antony of Padua, upon the river Mississippi." See Hennepin's Voyage into North America.

K K