LESSON CXLIV. The Greek Emigrant's Song.-J. G. PERCIVAL. Now launch the boat upon the wave- In these polluted islands more. The wind is blowing off the shore, My canopy the stainless sky- That heaven seems opening to my view. I will not live, a cowering slave, Sweeter than spicy gales, that blow Softer than Minder's winding stream, Brighter than all the tales, they tell Hung round with glowing tapestry :- The Spring may here with Autumn twine, Beyond the wild, dark-heaving sea, A welcomer and dearer shore: There hands, and hearts, and souls, are twined, LESSON CXLV. Song of the Greeks, 1822.-CAMPBELL. AGAIN to the battle, Achaians! Our hearts bid the tyrants defiance ; The pale dying crescent is daunted, And we march that the foot-prints of Mahomet's slaves Ah! what though no succor advances, Nor Christendom's chivalrous* lănces Are stretched in our aid?-Be the combatt our own For we've sworn, by our country's assaulters, Or that dying, our deaths shall be glorious. XA breath of submission we breathe not: The sword that we've drawn we will sheathe not; Its scabbard is left where our martyrs are laid, And the vengeance of ages has whetted its blade. *Pron. ch as in church. + Pron. Ŏ as ù. Earth may hide-waves ingulph-fire consume us, If they rule, it shall be o'er our ashes and graves :— This day-shall ye blush for its story? Or brighten your lives with its glory?Our women-Oh, say, shall they shriek in despair, Or embrace us from conquest, with wreaths in their hair? Accursed may his memory blacken, If a coward there be that would slacken, Till we've trampled the turban, and shown ourselves worth Being sprung from, and named for, the godlike of earth. Strike home!-and the world shall revere us As heroes descended from heroes. Old Greece lightens up with emotion Fanes rebuilt, and fair towns, shall with jubilee ring, That were cold, and extinguished in sadness; LESSON CXLVI. Letter from the British Spy, in Virginia.-WIRT. RICHMOND, SEPTEMBER 22, 1803. I HAVE just returned from an interesting morning's ride. My object was to visit the site of the Indian town, Powhatan; which, you will remember, was the metropolis of the dominions of Pocahontas' father, and, very probably, the birthplace of that celebrated princess. The town was built on the river, about two miles below the ground now occupied by Richmond: that is, about two miles below the head of tide water. Aware of the slight manner in which the Indians have always constructed their habitations, I was not at all disappointed in finding no vestige of the old town. But as I traversed the ground over which Pocahontas had so often bounded and froliced in the sprightly morning of her youth, I could not help recalling the principal features of her history, and heaving a sigh of mingled pity and veneration to her memory. Good Heaven! What an eventful life was hers! To speak of nothing else, the arrival of the English in her father's dominions must have appeared (as indeed it turned out to be) a most portentous phenomenon. It is not easy for us to conceive the amazement and consternation which must have filled her mind and that of her nation at the first appearance of our countrymen. Their great ship, with all her sails spread, advancing in solemn majesty to the shore; their complexion; their dress; their language; their domestic animals; their cargo of new and glittering wealth; and then the thunder and irresistible force of their artillery; the distant country announced by them, far beyond the great water, of which the oldest Indian had never heard, or thought, or dreamed-all this was so new, so wonderful, so tremendous, that, I do seriously suppose, the personal descent of an army of Milton's celestial angels, robed in light, sporting in the bright beams of the sun and redoubling their splendor, making divine harmony with their golden harps, or playing with the bolt and chasing the rapid lightning of heaven, would excite not more astonishment in Great Britain, than did the debarkation of the English among the aborigines of Virginia. Poor Indians! Where are they now? Indeed, this is a truly afflicting consideration. The people here may say what they please; but, on the principles of eternal truth and justice, they have no right to this country. They say that they have bought it.-Bought it! Yes; of whom?-Of the poor trembling natives who knew that refusal would be vain; and who strove to make a merit of necessity by seem. ing to yield with grace, what they knew that they had not the power to retain. Such a bargain might appease the conscience of a gentleman of the green bag, 66 worn and hackneyed" in the arts and frauds of his profession; but in heaven's chancery, there can be little doubt that it has been long since set aside on the ground of compulsion. Poor wretches! No wonder that they are so implacably vindictive against the white people; no wonder that the rage of resentment is handed down from generation to generation; no wonder that they refuse to associate and mix permanently with their unjust and cruel invaders and exter'minators; no wonder that, in the unabating spite and frenzy of conscious impotence, they wage an eternal war, as well as they are able; that they triumph in the rare opportunity of revenge; that they dance, sing, and rejoice, as the victim shrieks and faints amid the flames, when they imagine all the crimes of their oppressors collected on his head, and fancy the spirits of their injured forefathers hovering over the scene, smiling with ferocious delight at the grateful spectacle, and feasting on the precious odor as it arises from the burning blood of the white man. Yet the people, here, affect to wonder that the Indians are so very unsusceptible of civilization; or, in other words, that they so obstinately refuse to adopt the manners of the white men. Go, Virginian; erase, from the Indian nation, the tradition of their wrongs; make them forget, if you can, that once this charming country was theirs; that over these fields and through these forests, their beloved forefathers, once, in careless gayety, pursued their sports and hunted their game; that every returning day found them the sole, the peaceful, the happy proprietors of this extensive and beautiful domain. Make them forget too, if you can, that in the midst of all this innocence, simplicity, and bliss-the white man came; and lo!—the animated chase, the feast, the dance, the song of fearless, thoughtless joy were over; that ever since, they have been made to drink of the bitter cup of humiliation; treated like dogs; their lives, their liberties, the sport of the white men; their country and the graves of their fathers torn from them, in cruel succession: until, driven from river to river, from forest to forest, and through a period of two hundred years, rolled back, nation upon nation, they find themselves fugitives, vāgrants and strangers in their own country, and look forward to the certain period when their descendants will be totally extinguished by wars, driven at the point of the bayonet into the western ocean, or reduced to a fate still more deplorable and horrid, the condition of slaves. Go, administer the cup of oblivion to recollections and anticipations like these, and then you will cease to complain that the Indian refuses to be civilized. But until then, surely it is nothing wonderful that a nation even yet bleeding afresh, from the memory of ancient wrongs, perpetually agonized |