BURYING-PLACE OF THE INDIANS.
Ah! little thought the strong and brave,
Who bore their lifeless chieftain forth;
Or the young wife, that weeping gave
Her first-born to the earth,
That the pale race, who waste us now,
Among their bones should guide the plough.
They waste us-aye-like April snow
In the warm noon, we shrink away;
And fast they follow, as we go
Towards the setting day,-
Till they shall fill the land, and we
Are driven into the western sea.
But I behold a fearful sign,
To which the white men's eyes are blind;
Their race may vanish hence, like mine,
And leave no trace behind,
Save ruins o'er the region spread,
And the white stones above the dead.
Before these fields were shorn and tilled,
Full to the brim our rivers flowed;
The melody of waters filled
The fresh and boundless wood;
And torrents dashed, and rivulets played,
And fountains spouted in the shade.
Those grateful sounds are heard no more,
The springs are silent in the sun,
The rivers, by the blackening shore,
With lessening current run;
The realm our tribes are crushed to get,
May be a barren desert yet.
THE TREASURES OF THE DEEP.
WHAT hid'st thou in thy treasure-caves and cells?
Thou hollow-sounding and mysterious Main!
Pale glist'ning pearls, and rainbow-coloured shells.
Bright things which gleam unrecked of and in vain,
Keep, keep thy riches, melancholy sea!
We ask not such from thee.
Yet more, the Depths have more !-What wealth untold,
Far down, and shining through their stillness, lies! Thou hast the starry gems, the burning gold,
Won from ten thousand royal Argosies.
Sweep o'er thy spoils, thou wild and wrathful Main! Earth claims not these again!
Yet more, the Depths have more !-Thy waves have rolled
Above the cities of a world gone by!
Sand hath filled up the palaces of old,
Sea-weed o'ergrown the halls of revelry!
Dash o'er them, Ocean! in thy scornful play,
Man yields them to decay!
Yet more! the Billows and the Depths have more! High hearts, and brave, are gathered to thy breast! They hear not now the booming waters roar,
The battle thunders will not break their rest.
Keep thy red gold and gems, thou stormy grave !— Give back the true and brave!
Give back the lost and lovely!-Those for whom
The place was kept at board and hearth so long;
The prayer went up through midnight's breathless
gloom,
And the vain yearning woke 'midst festal song!
Hold fast thy buried isles, thy towers o'erthrown.
-But all is not thy own!
I CAME; but they had passed away,
The fair in form, the pure in mind;
And, like a stricken deer, I stray
Where all are strange, and none are kind;
Kind to the worn and wearied soul,
That pants, that struggles for repose:
O! that my steps had reached the goal
Where earthly sighs and sorrows close.
Years have passed o'er me, like a dream
That leaves no trace on memory's page:
I look around me, and I seem
Some relic of a former age.
Alone, as in a stranger-clime,
Where stranger-voices mock my ear;
I mark the lagging course of time,
Without a wish-a hope-a fear!
Yet I had hopes-and they are fled;
And I had fears were all too true:
My wishes, too!-but they are dead,
And what have I with life to do?
THE RETURN FROM INDIA.
'Tis but to bear a weary load,
I may not, dare not cast away;
To sigh for one small, still abode,
Where I may sleep as sweet as they :
As they, the loveliest of their race,
Whose grassy tombs my sorrows steep;
Whose worth my soul delights to trace-
Whose very loss 'tis sweet to weep;
To weep beneath the silent moon,
With none to chide, to hear, to see.
Life can bestow no dearer boon
On one whom death disdains to free.
I leave a world that knows me not,
To hold communion with the dead;
And fancy consecrates the spot,
Where fancy's softest dreams are shed.
I see each shade, all silvery white-
I hear each spirit's melting sigh;
I turn to clasp those forms of light,
And the pale morning chills my eye.
But soon the last dim morn shall rise,
The lamp of life burns feebly now,-
When stranger hands shall close my eyes,
And smooth my cold and dewy brow.
Unknown I lived-so let me die;
Nor stone, nor monumental cross,
Tell where his nameless ashes lie,
Who sighed for gold, and found it dross.
WE met but in one giddy dance;
Good-night joined hands with greeting;
And twenty thousand things may chance,
Before our second meeting:
For, oh! I have been often told
That all the world grows older,
And hearts and hopes, to-day so cold,
To-morrow must be colder !
If I have never touched the string
Beneath your window, dear one,
And never said a civil thing,
When you were by to hear one.-
If I have made no rhymes about
Those looks which conquer stoics,
And heard those angel tones, without
One fit of fair heroics,-
Yet do not, though the world's cold school
Some bitter truths has taught me,
Oh, do not think me quite the fool
Which kinder friends have thought me ;
There is one charm I still could feel,
If no one laughed at feeling,-
One dream my lute could still reveal,
If it were worth revealing!
But Folly little recks what name
Of friend or foe she handles,
When Merriment directs the game,
And Midnight dims the candles;
I know that Folly's breath is weak,
And scarcely stirs a feather,
But, yet, I will not have her speak
Your name and mine together!
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