3

5.

The year

Has gone, and, with it, many a glorious throng
Of happy dreams. Its mark is on each brow,
Its shadow in each heart. In its swift course,
It waved its scepter o'er the beautiful-
And they are not. It laid its pallid hand
Upon the strong man-and the haughty form
Is fallen, and the flashing eye is dim.
It trod the hall of revelry, where throng'd
The bright and joyous-and the tearful wail
Of stricken ones is heard, where erst the song
And reckless shout resounded.

It pass'd o'er

The battle-plain, where sword, and spear, and shield,
Flash'd in the light of mid-day,-and the strength
Of serried hosts is shiver'd, and the grass,
Green from the soil of carnage, waves above
The crush'd and moldering skeleton. It came,
And faded like a wreath of mist at eve;
Yět, ere it melted in the viewless air,
It heralded its millions to their home

In the dim land of dreams.

Remorseless Time!

Fierce spirit of the glass and scythe-what power

Can stay him in his silent course, or melt

His iron heart to pity? On, still on

He presses, and forever. The proud bird,
The condor of the Andes, that can soar

Through heaven's unfathomable depths, or brave
The fury of the northern hurricane,

And bathe his plumage in the thunder's home,
Furls his broad wings at nightfall, and sinks down
To rest upon his mountain crag,—but Time
Knows not the weight of sleep or weariness,
And night's deep darkness has no chain to bind
His rushing pinions.

Revolutions sweep

O'er earth, like troubled visions o'er the breast

Of dreaming sorrow; cities rise and sink,
Like bubbles on the water; fiery isles
Spring blazing from the ocean, and go back
To their mysterious caverns; mountains rear
To heaven their bald and blacken'd cliffs, and bow
Their tall heads to the plain; new empires rise,
Gathering the strength of hoary centuries,
And rush down like the Alpine avalanche,
Startling the nations,—and the věry stars,
Yon bright and burning blazonry of GOD,
Glitter a while in their eternal depths,
And, like the Pleiad, loveliest of their train,
Shoot from their glorious spheres, and pass away,
To darkle in the trackless void: yet Time-
Time, the tomb-builder, holds his fierce career,
Dark, stern, all-pitiless, and pauses not
Amid the mighty wrecks that strew his path,
To sit and muse, like other conquerors,

Upon the fearful ruin he has wrought. G. D. PRENTICE.

GEORGE D. PRENTICE was born at Preston, in Connecticut, December 18th, 1802, and was educated at Brown University, in Providence, where he graduated in 1823. In 1828 he commenced "The New England Weekly Review," at Hartford, which he edited for two years, when, resigning its management to Mr. WHITTIER, he removed to Louisville, Kentucky, where he has since conducted the "Journal," of that city, one of the most popular gazettes ever published in this country. His numerous poetical writings have never been published collectively.

118. DEATH OF THE OLD TRAPPER.

THE trapper was placed on a rude seat, which had been made with studied care, to support his frame in an upright and easy attitude. The first glance of the eye told his former friends that the old man was at length called upon to pay the last tribute of nature. His eye was glazed, and apparently as devoid of sight as of expression. His features were a little more sunken and strongly marked than formerly; but there, all change, so far as exterior was concerned, might be said to have ceased.

2. His approaching end was not to be ascribed to any positive disease, but had been a gradual and mild decay of the phys

ical powers. Life, it is true, still lingered in his system; but it was as if at times entirely ready to depart, and then it would appear to reanimate the sinking form, reluctant to give up the possession of a tenement that had never been corrupted by vice or undermined by disease. It would have been no violent fancy to have imagined that the spirit fluttered about the plăcid lips of the old woodsman, reluctant to depart from a shell that had so long given it an honest and honorable shelter.

3. His body was placed so as to let the light of the setting sun fall full upon the solemn features. His head was bare, the long, thin locks of gray fluttering lightly in the evening breeze. His rifle lay upon his knee, and the other accouterments of the chase were placed at his side, within reach of his hand. Between his feet lay the figure of a hound, with its head crouching to the earth, as if it slumbered; and so perfectly easy and natural was its position, that a second glance was necessary to tell Middleton he saw only the skin of Hector, stuffed, by Indian tenderness and ingenuity, in a manner to represent the living animal.

4. The old man was reaping the rewards of a life remarkable for temperance and activity, in a tranquil and placid death. His vigor, in a manner, endured to the very last. Decay, when it did occur, was rapid, but free from pain. He had hunted with the tribe in the spring, and even throughout most of the summer; when his limbs suddenly refused to perform their customary offices. A sympathizing weakness took possession of all his faculties; and the l'awnees believed they were going to lose, in this unexpected manner, a sage and counsellor whom they had begun both to love and respect.

5. But, as we have already said, the immortal occupant seemed unwilling to desert its tenement. The lamp of life flickered, without becoming extinguished. On the morning of the day on which Middleton arrived, there was a general reviving of the powers of the whole man. His tongue was again heard in wholesome maxims, and his eye from time to time recognized the persons of his friends. It merely proved to be a brief and final intercourse with the world, on the part of one who had already been considered, as to mental communion, to have taken his leave of it forever.

6. When he had placed his guests in front of the dying man,

Hard-Heart, after a pause, that proceeded as much from sorrow as decorum, leaned a little forward, and demanded "Does my father hear the words of his son?" "Speak," returned the trapрег, in tones that issued from his chest, but which were rendered awfully distinct by the stillness that reigned in the place. "I am about to depart from the village of the Loups, and shortly shall be beyond the reach of your voice."

7. Let the wise chief have no cares for his journey," continued Hard-Heart, with an earnest solicitude that led him to forgět, for the moment, that others were waiting to address his adopted parent; "a hundred Loups shall clear his path from briers." "Pawnee, I die, as I have lived, a Christian man "" resumed the trapper, with a force of voice that had the same startling effect on his hearers as is produced by the trumpet, when its blast rises suddenly and freely on the air, after its obstructed sounds have been heard struggling in the distance: "as I came into life so will I leave it. Horses and arms are not needed to stand in the presence of the Great Spirit of my people. He knows my color, and according to my gifts will he judge my deeds."

8. "My father will tell my young men how many Mingoes he has struck, and what acts of valor and justice he has done, that they may know how to imitate him." "A boastful tongue is not heard in the heaven of a white man!" solemnly returned the old man. "What I have done He has seen. His eyes are alway open. That which has been well done will He remember; wherein I have been wrong will He not forget to chastise, though He will do the same in mercy. No, my son, a pale-face may not sing his own praises, and hope to have them acceptable

before his God!”

9. A little disappointed, the young partisan stepped modestly back, making way for the recent comers to approach. Middleton took one of the meager hands of the trapper, and struggling to command his voice, he succeeded in announcing his presence. The old man listened like one whose thoughts were dwelling on a very different subject; but when the other had succeeded in making him understand that he was present, an expression of joyful recognition passed over his faded features. "I hope you have not so soon forgotten those whom you so materially

served!" Middleton concluded. "It would pain me to think my hold on your memory was so light."

10. "Little that I have ever seen is forgotten," returned the trapper: "I am at the close of many weary days, but there is not one among them all that I could wish to overlook. I remember you, with the whole of your company; ay, and your gran'ther, that went before you. I am glad that you have come back upon these plains, for I had need of one who speaks the English, since little faith can be put in the traders of these re gions. Will you do a favor to an old and dying man ?” "Name it," said Middleton; "it shall be done." "It is a far journey to send such trifles," resumed the old man, who spoke at short intervals, as strength and breath permitted; “a far and weary journey is the same; but kindnesses and friendships are things not to be forgotten. There is a settlement among the Otsego hills-"

11. "I know the place," interrupted Middleton, observing that he spoke with increasing difficulty; "proceed to tell me what you would have done." "Take this rifle, and pouch, and horn, and send them to the person whose name is graven on the plates of the stock,-a trader cut the letters with his knife,—for it is long that I have intended to send him such a token of my love!" "It shall be so. Is there more that you could wish ?" "Little else have I to bestow. My traps I give to my Indian son; for honestly and kindly has he kept his faith. Let him stand before me." Middleton explained to the chief what the trapper had said, and relinquished his own place to the other.

12. "Pawnee," continued the old man, alway changing his language to suit the person he addressed, and not unfrequently according to the ideas he expressed, "it is a custom of my people for the father to leave his blessing with the son before he shuts his eyes forever. This blessing I give to you: take it; for the prayers of a Christian man will never make the path of a just warrior to the blessèd prairies either longer or more tangled. May the God of a white man look on your deeds with friendly eyes, and may you never commit an act that shall cause him to darken his face. I know not whether we shall ever meet again. There are many traditions concerning the place of Good Spirits. It is not for one like me, old and experienced though I am, to