CATTERSKILL FALLS.

Slow passes the darkness of that trance,
And the youth now faintly sees

Huge shadows and gushes of light that dance
On a rugged ceiling of unhewn trees,
And walls where the skins of beasts are hung,
And rifles glitter on antlers strung.

On a couch of shaggy skins he lies;
As he strives to raise his head,
Hard-featured woodmen, with kindly eyes,

Come round him and smooth his furry bed,

And bid him rest, for the evening star
Is scarcely set, and the day is far.

They had found at eve the dreaming one
By the base of that icy steep,
When over his stiffening limbs begun

The deadly slumber of frost to creep,

And they cherished the pale and breathless form,
Till the stagnant blood ran free and warm.

THE HUNTER OF THE PRAIRIES.

Ay, this is freedom!-these pure skies
Were never stained with village smoke :
The fragrant wind, that through them flies,

Is breathed from wastes by plough unbroke.
Here, with my rifle and my steed,

And her who left the world for me,
I plant me, where the red deer feed
In the green desert-and am free.

For here the fair savannas know

No barriers in the bloomy grass;
Wherever breeze of heaven may blow,
Or beam of heaven may glance, I pass.

In pastures, measureless as air,

The bison is my noble game;

The bounding elk, whose antlers tear
The branches, falls before my aim.

Mine are the river-fowl that scream

From the long stripe of waving sedge;
The bear, that marks my weapon's gleam,
Hides vainly in the forest's edge;

THE HUNTER OF THE PRAIRIES.

In vain the she-wolf stands at bay;

The brinded catamount, that lies High in the boughs to watch his prey, Even in the act of springing, dies.

With what free growth the elm and plane
Fling their huge arms across my way,
Gray, old, and cumbered with a train

Of vines, as huge, and old, and gray!
Free stray the lucid streams, and find

No taint in these fresh lawns and shades; Free spring the flowers that scent the wind Where never scythe has swept the glades.'

Alone the Fire, when frostwinds sere
The heavy herbage of the ground,
Gathers his annual harvest here,

With roaring like the battle's sound,
And hurrying flames that sweep the plain,
And smoke-streams gushing up the sky:

I meet the flames with flames again,

And at my door they cower and die.

Here, from dim woods, the aged past
Speaks solemnly; and I behold

The boundless future in the vast

And lonely river, seaward rolled.
Who feeds its founts with rain and dew?
Who moves, I ask, its gliding mass,
And trains the bordering vines, whose blue
Bright clusters tempt me as I pass?

79

80

SONG OF THE PRAIRIES.

Broad are these streams-my steed obeys,
Plunges, and bears me through the tide.
Wide are these woods-I thread the maze
Of giant stems, nor ask a guide.
I hunt, till day's last glimmer dies
O'er woody vale and grassy height;
And kind the voice and glad the eyes,
That welcome my return at night.

THE DAMSEL OF PERU.

WHERE olive leaves were twinkling in every wind that blew,
There sat beneath the pleasant shade a damsel of Peru.
Betwixt the slender boughs, as they opened to the air,
Came glimpses of her ivory neck and of her glossy hair;
And sweetly rang her silver voice, within that shady nook,
As from the shrubby glen is heard the sound of hidden brook.

'Tis a song of love and valour, in the noble Spanish tongue, That once upon the sunny plains of old Castile was sung; When, from their mountain holds, on the Moorish rout below, Had rushed the Christians like a flood, and swept away the

foe.

Awhile that melody is still, and then breaks forth anew
A wilder rhyme, a livelier note, of freedom and Peru.

A white hand parts the branches, a lovely face looks forth, And bright dark eyes gaze steadfastly and sadly towards the

north.

Thou look'st in vain, sweet maiden, the sharpest sight would fail,

To spy a sign of human life abroad in all the vale;

For the noon is coming on, and the sunbeams fiercely beat, And the silent hills and forest-tops seem reeling in the heat.