THE STEAMBOAT.

A while from tumult and the frauds of men,
These old and friendly solitudes invite
Thy visit. They, while yet the forest trees
Were young upon the inviolated Earth,
And yet the moss-stains on the rock were new,
Beheld thy glorious childhood, and rejoiced.

THE STEAMBOAT.

BY O. W. HOLMES.

SEE how yon flaming herald treads
The ridged and rolling waves,
As, crashing o'er their crested heads,
She bows her surly slaves!
With foam before and fire behind,

She rends the clinging sea,
That flies before the roaring wind,
Beneath her hissing lee.

The morning spray, like sea-born flowers,
With heap'd and glistening bells,
Falls round her fast in ringing showers,
With every wave that swells;
And, flaming o'er the midnight deep,
In lurid fringes thrown,

The living gems of ocean sweep
Along her flashing zone.

With clashing wheel, and lifting keel,

And smoking torch on high, When winds are loud, and billows reel,

She thunders foaming by!

When seas are silent and serene,

With even beam she glides,

The sunshine glimmering through the green
That skirts her gleaming sides.

55

56

THE STEAMBOAT.

Now, like a wild nymph, far apart
She veils her shadowy form,
The beating of her restless heart

Still sounding through the storm;
Now answers, like a courtly dame,
The reddening surges o'er,
With flying scarf of spangled flame,
The Pharos of the shore.

To-night yon pilot shall not sleep,
Who trims his narrow'd sail;
To-night yon frigate scarce shall keep
Her broad breast to the gale;
And many a foresail, scoop'd and strain'd,
Shall break from yard and stay,

Before this smoky wreath has stain'd
The rising mist of day.

Hark! hark! I hear yon whistling shroud,
I see yon quivering mast;

The black throat of the hunted cloud
Is panting forth the blast!

An hour, and, whirl'd like winnowing chaff,
The giant surge shall fling

His tresses o'er yon pennon-staff,

White as the sea-bird's wing!

Yet rest, ye wanderers of the deep;
Nor wind nor wave shall tire
Those fleshless arms, whose pulses leap
With floods of living fire;

Sleep on-and when the morning light
Streams o'er the shining bay,

Oh, think of those for whom the night

Shall never wake in day!

"PASSING AWAY."

BY JOHN PIERPONT.

WAS it the chime of a tiny bell,

That came so sweet to my dreaming ear,― Like the silvery tones of a fairy's shell

That he winds on the beach, so mellow and clear, When the winds and the waves lie together asleep, And the moon and the fairy are watching the deep, She dispensing her silvery light,

And he, his notes as silvery quite,

While the boatman listens and ships his oar,
To catch the music that comes from the shore?—
Hark! the notes, on my ear that play,

Are set to words :—as they float, they say,
"Passing away! passing away!"

But no! it was not a fairy's shell,

Blown on the beach so mellow and clear; Nor was it the tongue of a silver bell,

Striking the hour, that fill'd my ear,

As I lay in my dream; yet was it a chime
That told of the flow of the stream of time.
For a beautiful clock from the ceiling hung,
And a plump little girl for a pendulum swung;
(As you've sometimes seen in a little ring
That hangs in his cage, a Canary bird swing ;)
And she held to her bosom a budding bouquet,
And as she enjoy'd it, she seem'd to say,

66 Passing away! passing away!"

Oh, how bright were the wheels that told

Of the lapse of time as they moved round slow, And the hands as they swept o'er the dial of gold, Seem'd to point to the girl below.

58

"PASSING AWAY."

And lo! she had changed ;—in a few short hours
Her bouquet had become a garland of flowers,
That she held in her outstretch'd hands, and flung
This way and that, as she, dancing, swung;
In the fulness of grace and womanly pride,
That told me she soon was to be a bride;
Yet then, when expecting her happiest day,
In the same sweet voice I heard her say,
"Passing away! passing away!"

While I gazed at that fair one's cheek, a shade
Of thought, or care, stole softly over,
Like that by a cloud in a summer's day made,
Looking down on a field of blossoming clover.
The rose yet lay on her cheek, but its flush
Had something lost of its brilliant blush;

And the light in her eye, and the light on the wheels,
That march'd so calmly round above her,

Was a little dimm'd, as when evening steals

Upon noon's hot face:—yet one couldn't but love her, For she look'd like a mother, whose first babe lay Rock'd on her breast, as she swung all day ;— And she seem'd, in the same silver tone to say, "Passing away! passing away!"

While yet I look'd, what a change there came!
Her eye was quench'd, and her cheek was wan;
Stooping and staff'd was her wither'd frame,
Yet just as busily swung she on ;

The garland beneath her had fallen to dust;
The wheels above her were eaten with rust;
The hands, that over the dial swept,

Grew crooked and tarnish'd, but on they kept,

INDIAN NAMES.

And still there came that silver tone

From the shrivell'd lips of the toothless crone,—
(Let me never forget till my dying day

The tone or the burden of her lay,)—

59

INDIAN NAMES.

BY MRS. LYDIA HUNTLEY SIGOURNEY.

"How can the red men be forgotten, while so many of our states and territories, bays, lakes, and rivers, are indelibly stamped by names of their giving?"

YE say they all have pass'd away,

That noble race and brave,

That their light canoes have vanish'd

From off the crested wave.

That, mid the forests where they roam'd,

There rings no hunter's shout;

But their name is on your waters,
Ye may not wash it out.

"Tis where Ontario's billow

Like ocean's surge is curl'd,

Where strong Niagara's thunders wake
The echo of the world,

Where red Missouri bringeth

Rich tribute from the west,

And Rappahannock sweetly sleeps

On green Virginia's breast.

Ye say their conelike cabins,

That cluster'd o'er the vale,
Have disappear'd, as wither'd leaves
Before the autumn's gale;