WILLIAM C. BRYANT.

And Maquon's sylvan labors are done,
And his shafts are spent, but the spoil they won
He bears on his homeward way.

He stops near his bower-his eye perceives
Strange traces along the ground-

At once, to the earth his burden he heaves,
He breaks through the veil of boughs and leaves,
And gains its door with a bound.

But the vines are torn on its walls that leant,
And all from the young shrubs there

By struggling hands have the leaves been rent,
And there hangs, on the sassafras broken and bent,
One tress of the well known hair.

But where is she who at this calm hour,
Ever watch'd his coming to see,

She is not at the door, nor yet in the bower,
He calls-but he only hears on the flower
The hum of the laden bee.

It is not a time for idle grief,

Nor a time for tears to flow,

The horror that freezes his limbs is brief-
He grasps his war axe and bow, and a sheaf
Of darts made sharp for the foe.

And he looks for the print of the ruffian's feet,
Where he bore the maiden away;

And he darts on the fatal path more fleet
Than the blast that hurries the vapor and sleet
O'er the wild November day.

'T was early summer when Maquon's bride
Was stolen away from his door;

But at length the maples in crimson are dyed,
And the grape is black on the cabin side,-
And she smiles at his hearth once more.

But far in a pine grove, dark and cold,
Where the yellow leaf falls not,
Nor the autumn shines in scarlet and gold,
There lies a hillock of fresh dark mould,
In the deepest gloom of the spot.

And the Indian girls, that pass way,

Point out the ravisher's grave;

"And how soon to the bower she loved," they say,
"Return'd the maid that was borne away
From Maquon, the fond and the brave."

HYMN TO THE NORTH STAR.

THE sad and solemn night
Has yet her multitude of cheerful fires;
The glorious host of light

Walk the dark hemisphere till she retires:
All through her silent watches, gliding slow,

Her constellations come, and round the heavens, and go.

Day, too, hath many a star

To grace his gorgeous reign, as bright as they :

Through the blue fields afar,

Unseen, they follow in his flaming way:
Many a bright lingerer, as the eve grows dim,
Tells what a radiant troop arose and set with him.

And thou dost see them rise,

Star of the Pole! and thou dost see them set.
Alone, in thy cold skies,

Thou keep'st thy old unmoving station yet,
Nor join'st the dances of that glittering train,
Nor dipp'st thy virgin orb in the blue western main.

There, at morn's rosy birth,

Thou lookest meekly through the kindling air,

And eve, that round the earth

Chases the day, beholds thee watching there;

There noontide finds thee, and the hour that calls
The shapes of polar flame to scale heaven's azure walls.

Alike, beneath thine eye,

The deeds of darkness and of light are done;

High towards the star-lit sky

Towns blaze-the smoke of battle blots the sun

The night-storm on a thousand hills is loud

And the strong wind of day doth mingle sea and cloud.

On thy unaltering blaze

The half-wreck'd mariner, his compass lost,
Fixes his steady gaze,

And steers, undoubting, to the friendly coast;

And they who stray in perilous wastes, by night,

Are glad when thou dost shine to guide their footsteps right.

And, therefore, bards of old,

Sages, and hermits of the solemn wood,

Did in thy beams behold

A beauteous type of that unchanging good,
That bright eternal beacon, by whose ray

The voyager of time should shape his heedful way.

SONG OF THE STARS.

WHEN the radiant morn of creation broke,
And the world in the smile of God awoke,

And the empty realms of darkness and death

Were moved through their depths by his mighty breath, And orbs of beauty, and spheres of flame,

From the void abyss, by myriads came,

In the joy of youth, as they darted away,

Through the widening wastes of space to play,
Their silver voices in chorus rung,

And this was the song the bright ones sung.

Away, away, through the wide, wide sky,
The fair blue fields that before us lie:

Each sun with the worlds that round us roll,
Each planet poised on her turning pole,

With her isles of green, and her clouds of white,
And her waters that lie like fluid light.

For the source of glory uncovers his face,
And the brightness o'erflows unbounded space;
And we drink, as we go, the luminous tides
In our ruddy air and our blooming sides;
Lo, yonder the living splendors play!
Away, on our joyous path away!

Look, look, through our glittering ranks afar,
In the infinite azure, star after star,

How they brighten and bloom as they swiftly pass!
How the verdure runs o'er each rolling mass!

And the path of the gentle winds is seen,

Where the small waves dance, and the young woods lean.

And see, where the brighter day-beams pour,
How the rainbows hang in the sunny shower;
And the morn and the eve, with their pomp of hues,
Shift o'er the bright planets and shed their dews;
And 'twixt them both, o'er the teeming ground,
With her shadowy cone, the night goes round.

Away, away!--in our blossoming bowers,
In the soft air wrapping these spheres of ours,
In the seas and fountains that shine with morn,
See, love is brooding, and life is born,
And breathing myriads are breaking from night,
To rejoice, like us, in motion and light.

Glide on in your beauty, ye youthful spheres !
To weave the dance that measures the years.
Glide on in the glory and gladness sent
To the farthest wall of the firmament,

The boundless visible smile of him

To the veil of whose brow our lamps are dim.

AUTUMN WOODS.

ERE, in the northern gale,
The summer tresses of the trees are gone,
The woods of autumn, all around our vale,
Have put their glory on.

The mountains that infold

In their wide sweep, the color'd landscape round,
Seem groups of giant kings in purple and gold,
That guard the enchanted ground.

I roam the woods that crown

The upland, where the mingled splendors glow,
Where the gay company of trees look down
On the green fields below.

My steps are not alone

In these bright walks; the sweet southwest, at play, Flies, rustling, where the painted leaves are strown Along the winding way.

And far in heaven, the while,

The sun, that sends that gale to wander here,
Pours out on the fair earth his quiet smile,-
The sweetest of the year.

Where now the solemn shade,
Verdure and gloom where many branches meet;
So grateful, when the noon of summer made
The valleys sick with heat?

Let in through all the trees

Come the strange rays; the forest depths are bright ;
Their sunny-color'd foliage, in the breeze,
Twinkles, like beams of light.

The rivulet, late unseen,

Where bickering through the shrubs its waters run,
Shines with the image of its golden screen,
And glimmerings of the sun.

But, 'neath yon crimson tree,

Lover to listening maid might breathe his flame,
Nor mark, within its roseate canopy,
Her blush of maiden shame.

Oh, Autumn! why so soon

Depart the hues that make thy forests glad;
Thy gentle wind and thy fair sunny noon,
And leave thee wild and sad!

Ah, 't were a lot too blest

For ever in thy color'd shades to stray
Amidst the kisses of the soft southwest
To rove and dream for aye;

And leave the vain low strife

That makes men mad—the tug for wealth and power, The passions and the cares that wither life,

And waste its little hour.