LAKE SUPERIOR. “FATHER OF LAKES !" thy waters bend Beyond the eagle's utmost view, When, throned in heaven, he sees thee send Back to the sky its world of blue. Boundless and deep, the forests weave Pale Silence, 'mid thy hollow caves, Or startled Echo, o'er thy waves, Sends the hoarse wolf-notes of thy woods. Nor can the light canoes, that glide The spell of stillness reigning there. Yet round this waste of wood and wave, To all a wild, strange aspect gives. The thunder-riven oak, that flings To the lone traveller's kindled eye. The gnarled and braided boughs, that show The very echoes round this shore Have caught a strange and gibbering tone; For they have told the war-whoop o'er, Till the wild chorus is their own. Wave of the wilderness, adieu! Adieu, ye rocks, ye wilds and woods! Roll on, thou element of blue, And fill these awful solitudes ! Thou hast no tale to tell of man God is thy theme. Ye sounding caves Whisper of Him, whose mighty plan Deems as a bubble all your waves ! B. B. THATCHER. 66 "I WOULD NOT LIVE ALWAYS." EARTH is the spirit's rayless cell, But then, as a bird soars home to the shade So will its weary wing Be spread for the skies, when its toil is done, And its breath flow free, as a bird's in the sun, And the soft, fresh gales of spring. O, not more sweet the tears Of the dewy eve on the violet shed, Than the dews of age on the "hoary head," Nor dearer, 'mid the foam Of the far-off sea, and its stormy roar, Is a breath of balm from the unseen shore, To him that weeps for home. Wings, like a dove, to fly !— The spirit is faint with its feverish strife ;- When, when will Death draw nigh! TO A SISTER ABOUT TO EMBARK ON A MISSIONARY ENTERPRISE. O SISTER! Sister! hath the memory That thus, with tearless eye, thou leavest me— Of our remotest childhood; when our lives Were linked in one, and our young hearts bloomed out Like violet bells upon the self-same stem, Pouring the dewy odors of life's spring And where, O, where are the unnumbered vows Thou measurest well Nay, do not weep, my sister!-do not speak— Yea, all the spirits of departed bliss, That even now, like spirits of the dead, Seen dimly in the living mourner's dreams, And trilling, ever and anon, the notes Long loved of old-O hear them, heed them not L |