EPISTLE IX.

TO THE

LADY CHARLOTTE RWD-N.

FROM THE BANKS OF THE ST. LAWRENCE.

NOT
many months have now been dream'd away
Since yonder sun, (beneath whose evening ray
We rest our boat among these Indian isles,)
Saw me, where mazy Trent serenely smiles
Through many an oak, as sacred as the groves,
Beneath whose shade the pious Persian roves,
And hears the soul of father, or of chief,
Or loved mistress, sigh in every leaf1!

There listening, Lady! while thy lip hath sung
My own unpolish'd lays, how proud I've hung

1 Avendo essi per costume di avere in veneratione gli alberi grandi & antichi, quasi che siano spesso ricettacoli di anime beate. Pietro della Valle, Part. Second. Lettera 16 da i giardini di Sciraz.

On every mellow'd number! proud to feel
That notes like mine should have the fate to steal,
As o'er thy hallowing lip they sigh'd along,
Such breath of passion and such soul of song.
Oh! I have wonder'd, like the peasant boy
Who sings at eve his sabbath strains of joy,
And when he hears the rude, luxuriant note
Back to his ear on softening echoes float,
Believes it still some answering spirit's tone,
And thinks it all too sweet to be his own!
I dream'd not then that, ere, the rolling year
Had fill'd its circle, I should wander here

In musing awe; should tread this wondrous world,
See all its store of inland waters hurl'd

In one vast volume down Niagara's steep2,
Or calm behold them, in transparent sleep,

2 When I arrived at Chippewa, within three miles of the Falls, it was too late to think of visiting them that evening, and I lay awake all night with the sound of the cataract in my ears. The day following I consider as a kind of era in my life, and the first glimpse which I caught of those wonderful Falls gave me a feeling which nothing in this world can ever excite again.

To Colonel Brock, of the 49th, who commanded at the Fort, I am particularly indebted for his kindness to me during the fortnight I remained at Niagara. Among many pleasant days, which I passed with him and his brother-officers, that of our visit to the Tuscarora Indians was not the least

Where the blue hills of old Toronto shed
Their evening shadows o'er Ontario's bed!—
Should trace the grand Cadaraqui, and glide
Down the white rapids of his lordly tide
Through massy woods, through islets flowering fair,
Through shades of bloom, where the first sinful pair
For consolation might have weeping trod,
When banish'd from the garden of their God!
Oh, Lady! these are miracles, which man,
Cag'd in the bounds of Europe's pigmy plan,
Can scarcely dream of; which his eye must see
To know how beautiful this world can be!

But soft!—the tinges of the west decline,
And night falls dewy o'er these banks of pine..
Among the reeds, in which our idle boat
Is rock'd to rest, the wind's complaining note
Dies, like a half-breath'd whispering of flutes;
Along the wave the gleaming porpoise shoots,

interesting. They received us in all their ancient costume; the young men exhibited for our amusement, in the race, the bat-game, &c. while the old and the women sat in groups under the surrounding trees, and the picture altoge ther was as beautiful as it was new to me.

And I can trace him, like a watery star3,
Down the steep current, till he fades afar
Amid the foaming breakers' silvery light,

Where yon rough rapids sparkle through the night!
Here, as along this shadowy bank I stray,
And the smooth glass-snake, gliding o'er my way,
Shews the dim moonlight through his scaly form,
Fancy, with all the scene's enchantment warm,
Hears in the murmur of the nightly breeze,
Some Indian Spirit warble words like these :

From the clime of sacred doves",
Where the blessed Indian roves
Through the air on wing, as white
As the spirit-stones of light,

3 Anburey, in his Travels, has noticed this shooting illumination which the porpoises diffuse at night through the St. Lawrence. Vol. i. p. 29.

The glass-snake is brittle and transparent.

5 «The departed spirit goes into the Country of Souls, where, according to some, it is transformed into a dove." Charlevoix, upon the Traditions and the Religion of the Savages of Canada. See the curious fable of the American Orpheus in Lafitau, Tom. i. p. 402.

"The mountains appeared to be sprinkled with white stones, which

Which the eye of morning counts
On the Apallachian mounts!
Hither oft my flight I take
Over Huron's lucid lake,

Where the wave, as clear as dew,

Sleeps beneath the light canoe,

Which, reflected, floating there,

Looks, as if it hung in air!

Then, when I have stray'd awhile
Through the Manataulin isle,
Breathing all its holy bloom,

Swift upon the purple plume

glistened in the sun, and were called by the Indians manetoe aseniah, or spiritstones." Mackenzie's Journal.

7 I was thinking here of what Carver says so beautifully in his description of one of these lakes. "When it was calm, and the sun shone bright, I could sit in my canoe, where the depth was upwards of six fathoms, and plainly see huge piles of stone at the bottom, of different shapes, some of which appeared as if they had been hewn; the water was at this time as pure and transparent as air, and my canoe seemed as if it hung suspended in that element. It was impossible to look attentively through this limpid medium, at the rocks below, without finding, before many minutes were elapsed, your head swim and your eyes no longer able to behold the dazzling scene."

8

Après avoir traversé plusieurs isles peu considérables, nous en trouvames le quatrième jour une fameuse nommée l'Isle de Manitoualin. Voyages du Baron de Lahontan, Tom. i. Lett. 15. Manataulin signifies a Place of Spirits, and this island in Lake Huron is held sacred by the Indians.