Then, aloft through freezing air,
With the snow-bird* soft and fair
As the fleece that Heaven flings
O'er his little pearly wings,
Light above the rocks I play,
Where Niagara's starry spray,
Frozen on the cliff, appears
Like a giant's starting tears!
There, amid the Island-sedge,
Just upon the cataract's edge,
Where the foot of living man
Never trod since time began,
Lone I sit, at close of day,
While, beneath the golden ray,
Icy columns gleam below,
Feather'd round with falling snow,
And an arch of glory springs,
Brilliant as the chain of rings
Round the neck of virgins hung
Virgins, who have wander'd young
O'er the waters of the west

To the land where spirits rest!

Thus have I charm'd, with visionary lay, The lonely moments of the night away;

*Emberiza hyemalis. See Imlay's Kentucky, page 280.

Lafitau wishes to believe, for the sake of his theory, that there was an order of vestals established among the Iroquois indians; but I am afraid that Jacques Carthier, upon whose authority he supports himself, meant any thing but vestal institutions by the "cabanes publiques" which he met with at Montreal. See Lafitau, Mœurs des Sauvages Americains, etc. Tom. i. p. 173.

And now, fresh day-light o'er the water beams!

Once more, embark'd upon the glittering

streams,

Our boat flies light along the leafy shore,
Shooting the falls without a dip of oar
Or breath of zephyr, like the mystic bark
The poet saw, in dreams divinely dark,
Borne, without sails, along the dusky flood,*
While on its deck a pilot ange! stood,
And, with his wings of living light unfurl'd,
Coasted the dim shores of another world!

Yet oh! believe me, in this blooming maze Of lovely nature, where the fancy strays From charm to charm, where every flowret's hue

Hath something strange and every leaf is

new!

I never feel a bliss so pure and still

So heavenly calm, as when a stream or hill, Or veteran oak, like those remember'd well, Or breeze, or echo, or some wild-flower's smell,

(For, who can say what small and fairy ties The memory flings o'er pleasure, as it flies!)

* Vidi che sdegna gli argomenti umani;
Si che remo non vuol, ne altro velo,
Che l' ale sue tra liti si lontani.
Vedi come 'l ha dritte verso 'l cielo
Trattando 'l aere con l' eterne penne;
Che non si mutan, come or al pelo.

Dante, Purgator Cant. ii.

Reminds my heart of many a sylvan dream
I once indulg'd by Trent's inspiring stream,
Of all my sunny morns and moonlight nights
On Donnington's green lawns and breezy
heights!

Whether I trace the tranquil moments o'er
When I have seen thee cu.l the blooms of lore,
With him, the polish'd warrior, by thy side,
A sister's idol and a nation's pride!

When thou hast read of heroes, trophied high,
In ancient fame, and I have seen thine eye
Turn to the living hero, while it read,
For pure and brightening comments on the
dead!

Or whether memory to my mind recalls
The festal grandeur of those lordly halls,
When guests have met around the sparkling
board,

And welcome warm'd the cup that luxury pour'd;

When the bright future Star of England's Throne,

With magic smile, hath o'er the banquet shone,

Winning respect, nor claiming what he won, But tempering greatness, like an evening sun Whose light the eye can tranquilly admire,. Glorious but mild, all softness yet all fire!Whatever hue my recollections take,

Even the regret, the very pain they wake Is dear and exquisite '-but oh ' no moreLady! adieu-my heart has linger'd o'er

These vanish'd times, till all that round me

lies,

Stream, banks, and bowers, have faded on

my eyes!

IMPROMPTU,

AFTER A VISIT TO MRS

OF MONTREAL.

'Twas but for a moment-and yet in that

time

She crowded the impressions of many an

hour:

Her eye had a glow, like the sun of her clime!

Which wak'd every feeling at once into

flower,

Oh! could we have stol'n but one rapturous

day,

To renew such impressions again and

again,

The things we could look, and imagine, and

say,

Would be worth all the life we had wasted

till then!

What we had not the leisure or language to

speak,

We should find some more exquisite mode of revealing,

And, between us, should feel just as much in a week,

As others would take a millennium in feel

ing!

WRITTEN

ON PASSING DEADMAN'S ISLAND*

IN THE GULF OF ST. LAWRENCE.

Late in the Evening, September 1804.

SEE you, beneath yon cloud so dark,
Fast gliding along, a gloomy Bark!
Her sails are full, though the wind is still,
And there blows not a breath her sails to fill!

*This is one of the Magdalen Islands, and, singularly enough, is the property of Sir Isaac Coffin. The above lines where suggested by a superstition very common among sailors, who call this ghost-ship, I think," the fiying Dutchman."

We were thirteen days on our passage from Quebec to Halifax, and I had been so spoiled by the very splendid hospitality, with which my friends of the Phaeton and Boston had treated me, that I was but ill prepared to encounter the miseries of a Canadian ship. The weather however was pleasant, and the scenery along the river delightful. Our passage through the Gut of Canso, with a bright sky and a fair wind, was particularly striking and romantic.