Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

I told you that Almighty power
Could break that withered shell,
And show you, in a future hour,
Something would please you well.

Look at the chrysalis, my love,-
An empty shell it lies ;—

Now raise your wondering glance above,

To where yon insect flies!"

"O, yes, mamma! how very gay

Its wings of starry gold! And see! it lightly flies away Beyond my gentle hold.

O, mother, now I know full well,
If God that worm can change,
And draw it from this broken cell,

On golden wings to range,

How beautiful will brother be,

[ocr errors]

When God shall give him wings,

Above this dying world to flee,

And live with heavenly things!"

ALONZO LEWIS.

DEATH SONG.

GREAT Sassacus fled from the eastern shores,
Where the sun first shines, and the great sea roars,
For the white men came from the world afar,
And their fury burnt like the bison star.

His sannaps were slain by their thunder's power,
And his children fell like the star-eyed flower;
His wigwams are burnt by the white man's flame,
And the home of his youth has a stranger's name—

His ancestor once was our countryman's foe,
And the arrow was placed in the new-strung bow,
The wild deer ranged through the forest free,
While we fought with his tribe by the distant sea.

But the foe never came to the Mohawk's tent,
With his hair untied, and his bow unbent,
And found not the blood of the wild deer shed,
And the calumet lit, and the bear-skin bed.

But sing ye the Death Song, and kindle the pine, And bid its broad light like his valor to shine; Then raise high his pile by our warriors' heaps, And tell to his tribe that his murderer sleeps.

THE WANDERER OF AFRICA.

HE launch'd his boat where the dark waves flow,
Through the desert that never was white with snow,
When the wind was still, and the sun shone bright,
And the stream glow'd red with the morning light.

He had sat in the cool of the palm's broad shade,
And drank of the fountain of Kafnah's glade,
When the herb was scorch'd by the sun's hot ray,
And the camel failed on his thirsty way.

And the dark maids of Sego their mats had spread,
And sung all night by the stranger's bed;
And his sleep was sweet on that desert sand,
For his visions were far in his own loved land.

He was weary and faint in a stranger clime,
But his soul was at home as in youth's sweet time,
And he lay in the shade, by his cot's clear pool,
And the breeze which came by was refreshing and cool.

And the look of his mother was gentle and sweet,
And he heard the loved steps of his sister's light feet,
And their voices were soft and expressive and low,
Like the distant rain, or the brook's calm flow.

And this was the song which the dark maids sung,
In the beautiful strains of their own wild tongue;
"The stranger came far, and sat under our tree,
We will bring him sweet food, for no sister has he."

And the stranger went forth when the night-breeze had died, And launch'd his light bark on the Joliba's tide;

And he waved his white kerchief to those dark maids,

As he silently enter'd the palmy shades.

And the maidens of Sego were sad and lone,

And sung their rude song, like the death spirit's moan: "The stranger has gone where the simoom will burn, Alas! for the white man will never return!"

[blocks in formation]

FLY on, nor touch thy wing, bright bird,

Too near our shaded earth,

Or the warbling, now so sweetly heard,

May lose its note of mirth.

Fly on, nor seek a place of rest

In the home of "care-worn things:"
'Twould dim the light of thy shining crest,
And thy brightly burnished wings,

To dip them where the waters glide
That flow from a troubled earthly tide.

The fields of upper air are thine,

Thy place where stars shine free;

I would thy home, bright one, were mine,

Above life's stormy sea.

"A bird peculiar to the East. It is supposed to fly constantly in the

air, and never touch the ground."

« AnteriorContinuar »