1 And as I marked the woods of pine Through shades that frowned and flowers that smiled, That woo'd him to its calm caress, Yet, sometimes turning with the wind, Oh! I have thought, and thinking sighed–– CHLORIS AND FANNY. SONG OF THE EVIL SPIRIT OF THE WOODS.* Qua via difficilis, quaque est via nulla Ovid. Metam. lib. iii. v. 227. Now the vapour hot and damp, The idea of this poem occurred to me in passing through the very dreary wilderness between Batavia, a new settlement in the midst of the woods, and T Through the misty ether spreads Hither, sprites, who love to harm, Hither bend you, turn you hither the little village of Buffalo upon Lake Erie. This is the most fatiguing part of the route in travelling through the Genesee country to Niagara. "The Five Confederated Nations (of Indians) were settled along the banks of the Susquehannah and the adjacent country, until the year 1779, when General Sullivan, with an army of 4000 men, drove them from their country to Niagara, where, being obliged to live on salted provisions, to which they were unaccustomed, great numbers of them died. Two hundred of them, it is said, were buried in one grave, where they had encamped."--Morse's American Geography. The alligator, who is supposed to lie in a torpid state all the winter, in the bank of some creek or pond, having previously swallowed a large number of pine-knots, which are his only sustenance during the time. This was the mode of punishment for murder (as Father Charlevoix tells us) among the Hurons:-"They laid the dead body upon poles at the top of a cabin, and the murderer was obliged to remain several days together, and to receive all that dropped from the carcass, not only on himself. but on his food." Or unto the dangerous pass To the Fiend presiding there!* TO MRS. HENRY TIGHE, ON READING HER "PSYCHE." 1802. TELL me the witching tale again, Say, Love! in all thy spring of fame, When piety confessed the flame, And even thy errors were divine,— Did ever Muse's hand so fair, A glory round thy temples spread? Such perfume o'er thy altars shed? One maid there was who round her lyre The myrtle withered as she breathed! "We find also collars of porcelain, tobacco, ears of maize, skins, &c., by the side of difficult and dangerous ways, on rocks, or by the side of the falls; and these are so many offerings made to the spirits which preside in these places."-See Charlevoix's Letter on the Traditions and the Religion of the Savages of Canada. "We took Father Hennepin, too, mentions this ceremony; he also says. notice of one barbarian, who made a kind of sacrifice upon an oak at the Cascade of St. Anthony of Padau, upon the river Mississippi."-See Hennepin's Voyage into North America. O you that love's celestial dream Too strongly through the vision glow! Love sweetest lies, concealed in night, Or, Psyche knows, the boy will fly! Dear Psyche! many a charmèd hour, Thy mazy foot my soul hath traced! Where'er thy joys are numbered now, Has chained thee to thy Cupid's breast; Whether above the horizon dim, Along whose verge our spirits stray, Thou risest to a cloudless pole ! Or, lingering here, dost love to mark Still be the song to Psyche dear, The song whose dulcet tide was given IMPROMPTU, UPON LEAVING SOME FRIENDS. No, never shall my soul forget Catullus. The friends I found so cordial-hearted; And dear shall be the night we parted! Oh! if regrets, however sweet, Must with the lapse of time decay, Yet still, when thus in mirth you meet, Fill high to him that's far away! By this image the Platonists expressed the middle state of the soul between sensible and intellectual existence, Long be the flame of memory found TO THE HONOURABLE W. R. SPENCER. Nec venit ad duros musa vocata getas. Ovid. ex Ponto, lib. i. ep. 5. From Buffalo, upon Lake Erie. THOU oft has told me of the fairy hours Thy heart has numbered, in those classic bowers And Pagan spirits, by the Pope unlaid, Haunt every stream, and sing through every shade! His tongue's light echo) must have talked like thee, Has left that visionary glory here, That relic of its light, so soft, so dear, Which gilds and hallows even the rudest scene, All that creation's varying mass assumes This epithet was suggested by Charlevoix's striking description of the con fluence of the Missouri with the Mississippi. "I believe this is the finest confluence in the world. The two rivers are much of the same breadth, each about half a league; but the Missouri is by far the most rapid, and seems to enter the Mississippi like a conqueror, through which it carries its white waves to the opposite shore without mixing them: afterwards it gives its colour to the Mississippi, which it never loses again, but carries quite down to the sea.”~ Letter xxvii. |