RED JACKET. How sweet, at set of sun, to view Thy golden mirror spreading wide, Float round the distant mountain's side. At midnight hour, as shines the moon, Light clouds, like wreaths of purest snow. On thy fair bosom, silver lake, Oh! I could ever sweep the oar, RED JACKET, A CHIEF OF THE INDIAN TRIBES, THE TUSCARORAS. BY FITZ-GREENE HALLECK. COOPER, whose name is with his country's woven, A wanderer now in other climes, has proven And throned her in the Senate Hall of Nations, And beautiful as its green world of thought. And faithful to the Act of Congress, quoted As law-authority-it passed nem. con.— 27 28 RED JACKET. That all our week is happy as a Sunday In Paris, full of song, and dance, and laugh: And that, from Orleans to the Bay of Fundy, There's not a bailiff nor an epitaph. And, furthermore, in fifty years or sooner, And our brave fleet, eight frigates and a schooner, If he were with me, King of Tuscarora, In all its medall'd, fringed, and beaded glory, Its brow, half martial and half diplomatic, For thou wert monarch born. Tradition's pages Tell not the planting of thy parent tree, But that the forest tribes have bent for ages, To thee, and to thy sires, the subject knee. Thy name is princely, though no poet's magic And introduced it in a pantomime; Yet it is music in the language spoken Of thine own land; and on her herald-roll, 29 RED JACKET. Thy garb-though Austria's bosom-star would frighten That metal pale, as diamonds the dark mine, And George the Fourth wore in the dance at Brighton A more becoming evening dress than thine; Yet 'tis a brave one, scorning wind and weather, Is strength a monarch's merit? (like a whaler's) Is eloquence? Her spell is thine, that reaches Is beauty? Thine has with thy youth departed, The monarch mind-the mystery of commanding, Thou hast it. At thy bidding men have crowded And minstrel minds, without a blush, have shrouded 30 RED JACKET. Who will believe-not I-for in deceiving Lies the dear charm of life's delightful dream; I cannot spare the luxury of believing That all things beautiful are what they seem. Who will believe that, with a smile whose blessing Would like the patriarch's soothe a dying hour; With voice as low, as gentle, and caressing As e'er won maiden's lip in moonlight bower; With look, like patient Job's, eschewing evil; That in thy veins there springs a poison fountain, Is calm as her babe's sleep compared with thee? And underneath that face like summer's ocean's, Love for thy land, as if she were thy daughter, Pride—in thy rifle-trophies and thy scars; Hope that thy wrongs will be by the Great Spirit Thy name, thy fame, thy passions, and thy throne. THE WESTERN EMIGRANT. BY LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY. AN axe rang sharply mid those forest shades Which from creation towards the skies had tower'd In unshorn beauty. There, with vigorous arm, Wrought a bold emigrant, and by his side His little son, with question and response, "Boy, thou hast never seen Such glorious trees. Hark, when their giant trunks The mighty river, on whose breast we sail'd, Our own Connecticut, compared to that, 66 Was but a creeping stream." Father, the brook That by our door went singing, where I launch'd My tiny boat, with my young playmates round When school was o'er, is dearer far to me Than all these bold, broad waters. To my eye They are as strangers. And those little trees My mother nurtured in the garden bound Of our first home, from whence the fragrant peach |