But here, alas! by Erie's stormy lake, All that creation's varying mass assumes Of grand or lovely, here aspires and blooms; Bold rise the mountains, rich the gardens glow, Bright lakes expand, and conquering1 rivers flow; But mind, immortal mind, without whose ray, This world's a wilderness and man but clay, Mind, mind alone, in barren, still repose, Nor blooms, nor rises, nor expands, nor flows. Take Christians, Mohawks, democrats, and all From the rude wigwam to the congress-hall, From man the savage, whether slaved or free, To man the civilized, less tame than he,"Tis one dull chaos, one unfertile strife Betwixt half-polish'd and half-barbarous life; Where every ill the ancient world could brew Is mix'd with every grossness of the new; Where all corrupts, though little can entice, And naught is known of luxury, but its vice! Is this the region then, is this the clime For soaring fancies? for those dreams sublime, Which all their miracles of light reveal To heads that meditate and hearts that feel? Alas! not so-the Muse of Nature lights Her glories round; she scales the mountain heights, And rams the forests; every wondrous spot Burns with her step, yet man regards it not. She whispers round, her words are in the air, But lost, unheard, they linger freezing there," Without one breath of soul, divinely strong, One ray of mind to thaw them into song. Yet, yet forgive me, oh ye sacred few, Whom late by Delaware's green banks I knew; Whom, known and loved through many a social eve, "Twas bliss to live with, and 'twas pain to leave." 1 This epithet was suggested by Charlevoix's striking description of the confluence 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 color to the Mississippi, which it never loses again, but carries quite down to the sea."-Letter xxvii. Not with more joy the lonely exile scann'd Long may you loathe the Gallic dross that runs If neither chain'd by choice, nor doom'd by fate Believe me, Spencer, while I wing'd the hours Where Schuylkill winds his way through banks of flowers, Though few the days, the happy evenings few, So warm with heart, so rich with mind they flew, That my charm'd soul forgot its wish to roam, And rested there, as in a dream of home. delphia, I passed the few agreeable moments which my tour through the States afforded me. Mr. Dennie has succeeded in diffusing through this cultivated little circle that love for good literature and sound politics, which he feels so zealously himself, and which is so very rarely the characteristie of his countrymen. They will not, I trust, accuse me of illiberality for the picture which I have given of the ignorance and corruption that surround them. If I did not hate, as I ought, the rabble to which they are opposed, I could not value, as I do, the spirit with which they defy it; and in Alluding to the fanciful notion of "words congealed in learning from them what Americans can he, I but see with northern air." the more indignation what Americans are. In the society of Mr. Dennie and his friends, at Phila And looks I met, like looks I'd loved before, I hear Niagara's distant cataract roar, Ω ΠΑΤΡΙΣ, ΩΣ ΣΟΥ ΚΑΡΤΑ ΝΥΝ ΜΝΕΙΑΝ ΕΧΩ. BALLAD STANZAS. EURIPIDES. I KNEW by the smoke, that so gracefully curl'd Above the green elms, that a cottage was near, And I said, “If there's peace to be found in the world, "A heart that was humble might hope for it here!" It was noon, and on flowers that languish'd around tree. And, "Here in this lone little wood," I exclaim'd, "With a maid who was lovely to soul and to eye, I wrote these words to ar air which our boatmen sung to us frequently. The wind was so unfavorable that they were obliged to row all the way, and we were five days in descending the river from Kingston to Montreal, exposed to an intense sun during the day, and at night forced to take shelter from the dews in any miserable hut upon the banks that would receive us. But the magnificent scenery of the St. Lawrence repays all such difficulties. Our voyageurs had good voices, and sung perfectly in tune together. The original words of the air, to which I adapted these stanzas, appeared to be a long, incoherent story, of which I could understand but little, from the barbarous pronunciation of the Canadians. It begins Dans mon chemin j'ai rencontré And the refrain to every verse was, A l'ombre d'un bois je m'en vais jouer, A l'ombre d'un bois je m'en vais danser. I ventured to harmonize this air, and have published it. Without that charm which association gives to every little "Who would blush when I praised her, and weep if I blamed, "How blest could I live, and how calm could I die! "By the shade of yon sumach, whose red berry dips "In the gush of the fountain, how sweet to recline, "And to know that I sigh'd upon innocent lips, "Which had never been sigh'd on by any but mine!" A CANADIAN BOAT SONG. WRITTEN ON THE RIVER ST. LAWRENCE.1 Et remigem cantus hortatur. QUINTILIAN FAINTLY as tolls the evening chime Why should we yet our sail unfurl? There is not a breath the blue wave to curl; But, when the wind blows off the shore, Oh! sweetly we'll rest our weary oar. Blow, breezes, blow, the stream runs fast, The Rapids are near and the daylight's past. Utawas' tide! this trembling moon Shall see us float over thy surges soon. memorial of scenes or feelings that are past, the melody may, perhaps, be thought common and trifling; but I remember when we have entered, at sunset, upon one of those beautiful lakes into which the St. Lawrence so grandly and unexpect edly opens, I have heard this simple air with a pleasure which the finest compositions of the finest masters have never given me; and now there is not a note of it which does not recall to my memory the dip of our oars in the St. Lawrence, the flight of our boat down the Rapids, and all those new and fanciful impressions to which my heart was alive during the whole of this very interesting voyage. The above stanzas are supposed to be sung by those voyageurs who go to the Grand Portage by the Utawas River. For an account of this wonderful undertaking, see Sir Alexander Mackenzie's General History of the Fur Trade, prefixed to his Journal. 2" At the Rapid of St. Ann they are obliged to take out part, if not the whole, of their lading. It is from this spot the Canadians consider they take their departure, as it possesses the last church on the island, which is dedicated to the tutelar saint of voyagers."-Mackenzie, General History of the Fur Trade. Saint of this green isle! hear our prayers, Oh, grant us cool heavens and favoring airs. Blow, breezes, blow, the stream runs fast, The Rapids are near and the daylight's past. TO THE LADY CHARLOTTE RAWDON. FROM THE BANKS OF THE ST. LAWRENCE. NOT I dreamt 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, 1 "Avendo essi per costume di avere in venerazione gli alberi grandi et antichi, quasi che siano spesso ricettaccoli di anime beate."-Pietro della Valle, part. second., lettera 16 da i giardini di Sciraz. 2 Anburey, in his Travels, has noticed this shooting illumination which porpoises diffuse at night through the river St. Lawrence.-Vol. i. p. 29. The glass-snake is brittle and transparent. 4"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 Where the blue hills of old Toronto shed But lo, the last tints 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-breathed whispering of flutes; Along the wave the gleaming porpoise shoots, And I can trace him, like a watery star, Down the steep current, till he fades afar Amid the foaming breakers' 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, 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 land beyond the sea, stones, which glistened in the sun, and were called by the Indians manetoe aseniah, or spirit-stones.”—Mackenzie's Journal. • These lines were suggested by Carver's description of one of the American lakes. "When it was calm," he says, "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, Breaking every infant stem, Then my playful hand I steep Where the gold-thread loves to creep, Cull from thence a tangled wreath, Words of magic round it breathe, And the sunny chaplet spread O'er the sleeping fly-bird's head," Till, with dreams of honey blest, Haunted, in his downy nest, By the garden's fairest spells, Dewy buds and fragrant bells, Fancy all his soul embowers In the fly-bird's heaven of flowers. Oft, when hoar and silvery flakes Melt along the ruffled lakes, When the gray moose sheds his horns, When the track, at evening, warns 1 Après avoir traversé plusieurs isles peu considérables, nous en trouvâmes le quatrième jour une fameuse nommée l'Isle de Manitoualin.-Voyages du Baron de Luhontan, tom. i. let. 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 specles 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. 3 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. 4 The gold thread is of the vine kind, and grows in swarips. The roots spread themselves just under the surface of the morasses, and are easily drawn out by handfuls. They resemble a large entangled skein of silk, and are of a bright yt 'low."-Morse. Weary hunters of the way To the wigwam's cheering ray, Then, aloft through freezing air, With the snow-bird soft and fair As the fleece that heaven flings O'er his little pearly wings, Light above the rocks I play, Where Niagara's starry spray, Frozen on the cliff, appears Like a giant's starting tears. There, amid the island-sedge, Just upon the cataract's edge, Where the foot of living man Never trod since time began, Lone I sit, at close of day, While, beneath the golden ray, Icy columns gleam below, Feather'd round with falling snow, And an arch of glory springs, Sparkling as the chain of rings Round the neck of virgins hung,Virgins, who have wander'd young O'er the waters of the west To the land where spirits rest! Thus have I charm'd, with visionary lay, The lonely moments of the night away; And now, fresh daylight o'er the water beams! Once more embark'd upon the glitt'ring streams, Our boat flies light along the leafy shore, Shooting the falls, without a dip of oar Or breath of zephyr, like the mystic bark The poet saw, in dreams divinely dark, Borne, without sails, along the dusky flood," While on its deck a pilot angel stood, And, with his wings of living light unfurl'd, Coasted the dim shores of another world! Yet, oh believe me, mid this mingled naze Of nature's beauties, where the fancy strays "L'oisean mouche, gros comme un hanneton, est de toutes couleurs, vives et changeantes: il tire sa subsistence des fleurs comme les abeilles: son nid est fait d'un cotton très-fin suspendu à une branche d'arbre."-Voyages auz Indes Occidentales, par M. Bossu, seconde part, lett. xx. • Emberiza hyemalis.-See Imlay's Kentucky, p. 280. 7 Lafitau supposes that there was an order of vestals established among the Iroquois Indians.-Maurs des Sauvages Américains, &c., tom. i. p. 173. 8 Vedi che sdegna gli argomenti umani; Vedi come l' ha dritte verso 'l cielo DANTE, Purgator., cant. II. From charm to charm, where every flow'ret's hue So inly felt, as when some brook or hill, Whether I trace the tranquil moments o'er For pure and bright'ning comments on the dead ;— Oh! could we have borrow'd from Time but a day, To renew such impressions again and again, The things we should look and imagine and say Would be worth all the life we had wasted ti then. What we had not the leisure or language to speak, We should find some more spiritual mode of re vealing, And, between us, should feel just as much in » week As others would take a millennium in feeling. WRITTEN ON PASSING DEADMAN'S ISLAND, IN THE GULF OF ST. LAWRENCE, LATE IN THE EVENING, SEPTEMBER, 1804. SEE you, beneath yon cloud so dark, Say what doth that vessel of darkness bear? There lieth a wreck on the dismal shore Yon shadowy bark hath been to that wreck, To Deadman's Isle, in the eye of the blast, pitality of my friends of the Phaeton and Boston, that I was but ill prepared for the miseries of a Canadian vessel. The weather, however, was pleasant, and the scenery along the river delightful. Our passage through the Gut of Canso, with a bright sky and a fair wind, was particularly striking and romantic. |