SONG

OF THE EVIL SPIRIT OF THE WOODS. *

QUA VIA DIFFICILIS, QUAQUE EST VIA NULLA.............
OVID. Metam. lib. iii. v. 227.

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

* 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. +"The Five Confederated Nations (of Indians) were settled along the banks of the Susquehannah and the adjacent coun

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* loves to creep,
Torpid, to his wintry sleep :

Where the bird of carrion flits,
And the shuddering murderer sits †
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!

try, until the year 1779, when General Sullivan, with an army of 4,000 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 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."

VOL. II.

10

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

To the Fiend presiding there ! *

"We find also collars of porcelain, tobacco, ears of maize, skins, etc. 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,

Then, when night's long labour past,
Wilder'd, faint he falls at last,

Sinking where the causeway'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!

TELL me the witching tale again,
For never has my heart or ear
Hung on so sweet, so pure a strain,
So pure to feel, so sweet to hear!

1802.

"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.

Say, Love! in all thy spring of fame,
When the high Heaven itself was thine;
When piety confess'd the flame,

And even thy errors were divine!

Did ever Muse's hand, so fair,

A glory round thy temple spread? Did ever lip's ambrosial air

Such perfume o'er thy altars shed?

One maid there was, who round her lyre
The mystic myrtle wildly wreathed—

But all her sighs were sighs of fire,

The myrtle wither'd as she breathed!

Oh! you that Love's celestial dream
In all its purity would know,

Let not the senses' ardent beam

Too strongly through the vision glow !

Love sweetest lies conceal'd in night,

The night where Heaven has bid him lie;
Oh! shed not there unhallow'd light,
Or, PSYCHE knows, the boy will fly! *

* See the story in APULEIUS. With respect to this beautiful allegory of Love and Psyche, there is an ingenious idea sug