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 eyeballs tingling,
With his blood their poison mingling,
Till, beneath the solar fires,
Rankling all, the wretch expires!

TO THE LADY CHARLOTTE R-WD-N.

FROM THE BANKS OF THE ST. LAWRENCE.

many

NOT months have now been dream'd away
Since yonder sun (beneath whose evening ray
We rest our boat among these Indian isles)
Saw me, where mázy Trent serenely smiles
Through many an oak, as sacred as the groves,
Beneath whose shade the pious Persian roves,
And hears the soul of father, or of chief,
Or loved mistress, sigh in every leaf!*

* Avendo essi per costume di avere in veneratione gli alberi grandi & an tichi, quasi che siano spesso ricettacoli di anime beate. Pietro della Valle, Part. Second Lettera 16 da i giardini di Sciraz.

There listening, Lady! while thy lip hath sung
My own unpolish'd lays, how proud I've hung
On every mellow'd number! proud to feel
That notes like mine should have the fate to steal,
As o'er thy hallowing lip they sigh'd along,
Such breath of passion and such soul of song.
Oh! I have wonder'd, like the peasant boy,
Who sings at eve his sabbath strains of joy,
And when he hears the rude luxuriant note
Back to his ear on softening echoes float,
Believes it still some answering spirit's tone,
And thinks it all too sweet to be his own!
I dream'd not then that, ere the rolling year
Had fill'd its circle, I should wander here
In musing awe; should tread this wondrous world,
See all its store of inland waters hurl'd

In one vast volume down Niagara's steep,*
Or calm behold them, in transparent sleep,

* When I arrived at Chippewa, within three miles of the Falls, it was too late to think of visiting them that evening, and I lay awake all night with the sound of the cataract in my ears. The day following I consider as a kind of era in my life, and the first glimpse which I caught of those wonderful Falls gave me a feeling which nothing in this world can ever excite again.

To Colonel Brock, of the 49th, who commanded at the Fort, I am particularly indebted for his kindness to me during the fortnight I remained at Niagara. Among many pleasant days, which I passed with him and his brother-officers, that of our visit to the Tuscarora Indians was not the least interesting. They received us in all their ancient costume; the young men exhibited, for our amusement, the race, the bat game, &c. while the old and the women sat in groups under the surrounding trees, and the picture alto gether was as beautiful as it was new to me.

R

Where the blue hills of old Toronto shed
Their evening shadows o'er Ontario's bed!-
Should trace the grand Cadaraqui, and glide
Down the white rapids of his lordly tide,
Through massy woods, through islets flowering fair,
Through shades of bloom, where the first sinful pair
For consolation might have weeping trod,
When banish'd from the garden of their God!
Oh, Lady! these are miracles, which man,
Cag'd in the bounds of Europe's pigmy plan,
Can scarcely dream of; which his eye must see,
To know how beautiful this world can be !

But soft-the tinges of the west decline,. And night falls dewy o'er these banks of pine. Among the reeds, in which our idle boat Is rock'd to rest, the wind's complaining note Dies, like a half-breath'd whispering of flutes; Along the wave the gleaming porpoise shoots, And I can trace him, like a watery star,* Down the deep current, till he fades afar Amid the foaming breaker's silvery light, Where yon rough rapids sparkle through the night! Here, as along this shadowy bank I stray, And the smooth glass-snake,† gliding o'er my way,

*

* Amburey, in his Travels, has noticed this shooting illumination which thr porpoises diffuse at night through the St. Lawrence. Vol. i. p. 29.

The glass snake is brittle and transparent.

Shows the dim moonlight through his scaly form,
Fancy, with all the scene's enchantment warm,
Hears, in the murmur of the nightly breeze,
Some Indian Spirit warble words like these :-

From the clime of sacred doves,*
Where the blessed Indian roves
Through the air on wing, as white
As the spirit-stones of light,†
Which the eye of morning counts
On the Appalachian mounts!
Hither oft my flight I take
Over Huron's lucid lake,

Where the wave, as clear as dew,
Sleeps beneath the light canoe,
Which, reflected, floating there,
Looks, as if it hung in air!‡

"The departed spirit goes into the Country of Souls, where, according to some, it is transformed into a dove." Charlevoix, upon the Traditions and the Religion of the Savages of Canada. See the curious fable of the American Orpheus in Lafitau, Tom. i. p. 402.

"The mountains appeared to be sprinkled with white stones, which glistened in the sun, and were called by the Indians manetoe-aseniah, or spiritstones." Mackenzie's Journal.

I was thinking here of what Carver says so beautifully in his description of one of these lakes. "When it was calm, 'and the sun shone bright. I could sit in my canoe, where the depth was upwards of six fathoms, and plainly see huge piles of stone at the bottom, of different shapes, some of which appeared as if they had been hewn; the water was at this time as pure and transparent as air, and my canoe seemed as if it hung suspended in that element. It was impossible to look attentively through this limpid medium, at the rocks beLow, without finding before many minutes were elapsed, your head swim and your eyes no longer able to behold the dazzling scene."

Then, when I have stray'd awhile
Through the Manataulin isle,*
Breathing all its holy bloom,
Swift upon the purple plume
Of my Wakon-Birdt I fly
Where, beneath a burning sky,
O'er the bed of Erie's lake.
Slumbers many a water-snake,
Basking in the web of leaves,
Which the weeping lily weaves !‡

Then I chase the flowret-king
Through his bloomy wild of spring!
See him now, while diamond hues
Soft his neck and wings suffuse,
In the leafy chalice sink,

Thirsting for his balmy drink;
Now behold him, all on fire,
Lovely in his looks of ire,

* Après avoir traversé plusieurs isles peu considérables, nous en trouvámes le quatrième jour une fameuse nommée l'Isle de Manataulin. Voyages du Baron de Lahontan, Tom. i. Lett. 15. Manataulin signifies a Place of Spirits, and this island in Lake Huron is held sacred by the Indians.

"The Wakon-Bird, which probably is of the same species with the bird of Paradise, receives its name from the ideas the Indians have of its superior excellence; the Wakon-Bird being, in their language, the Bird of the Great Spirit Morse.

"The islands of Lake Erie are surrounded to a considerable distance by the large pond-lily, whose leaves spread thickly over the surface of the lake, and form a kind of bed for the water-snakes in summer.