Day-dreaming is all very well, now and then, on a holiday; but a woman who gushes with moonshine and romance is seldom a good judge of butcher’s meat, or a skilful interpreter of accounts; and a man who aspires at an angel deserves to dine off stringy mutton and underdone potatoes, on cold plates, for the rest of his life.
Young man, think twice before you commit yourself to the romantic young lady, whose impulsive ideal of faithfulness and devotion will never enable her to protect you from short weight, domestic pilferings, and frayed, buttonless linen.
THE SPIRIT OF THE VANISHED ISLAND.
This island was once situated in the midst of the Falls of St. Anthony, on the Mississippi; it has disappeared long since, but its site is said to be haunted at early morning by the spirit of a young Indian, who perished there ages before white men crossed the Atlantic. She was distracted by the faithlessness of her husband, and embarking in her canoe with her first-born infant, drifted down the current of the mighty river, seeking death, which met her at the Falls, within sight of her assembled tribe. When all chance of rescue was past, she rose up and chanted her own death-song, with her child in her arms.
The Island of the Spirit hung
Midway above the wild cascade,
The spray a veil around it flung,
Where rainbows with the sunbeams play’d:
The Mississippi madly swept
In foaming haste on either side,
And then in thundering volume leapt
Over a front of granite wide.
Deep-rooted in the island ark,
Where humid mosses matted grew:
The mighty pines and cedars dark
Aloft their cone-fringed branches threw:
And tender blossoms gently cast
The petals from each calyx frail;
There foot of man had rarely past,
There fell the shadow of no sail.
But feather’d hosts high chorus kept,
And glossy wild-fowl rear’d their brood,
And tremulous mimosas wept
On that storm-cradled solitude.
An Indian girl, resolved to die,
Steer’d once adown those waters wild,
With steady hand and fearless eye,
Bearing along her first-born child.
Her braided hair with shell and flower,
And waving plume was drest;
Impatient of the evil hour
Her bursting heart sought rest;
Riding the death-stream fierce and strong,
Chanting her mournful funeral song.
“I am unloved by thy sire, my boy;
I am unloved, and no more his joy;
I am unloved, and I’ve ceased to be
Aught but his slave, tho’ I brought him thee.
I went at dawning, with dewy feet,
My gallant hunter’s return to greet;
And my fire was kindled long before
He cast the burden of game he bore
Down on the earth at my cabin door!
It was for him that I cared to live;
It was to him that I loved to give
The dower an Indian maiden brought
Of faithful service, and careful thought,
Patience, and strength among hardships taught!
Skilful with arrow, and hook, and snare,
I stay’d the course of the timid hare.
I brought the bird from his joyous height,
I landed the salmon with scales of light;
And beneath my spear
The speckled deer
Hath fallen, when feeding nigh,
And the dusky blue
Of the death-mist grew
Over his large clear eye!
Boy, there are warriors who loved me well,
Warriors who love me yet,
Whose glances flashing and dark’ning tell
How they are under thy mother’s spell:
Shall we trust them and forget?
Revenge and relief
For desperate grief
In passion tumultuous finding?
Hush, tempters, hush!
Beyond ye I rush
To the shroud you spray is winding,
Nor venture again
Thro’ love and thro’ pain
On my heart new fetters binding!
To the good and brave
Our great Sire gave,
When their race of life was run,
The land of shades,
Plains, rivers, and glades,
’Mid the hills of the setting sun;
And we are bound
For that hunting-ground,
Its beautiful tents and regions mild,
Dazed by the waters’ deafening sound;
We are passing, passing from sorrow, child!
Leaving the summer and spring behind,
Cast, in the green leaf, on tide and wind:
Nor will we stay
Tho’ thy sire may pray,
Travel we swiftly on till we sink.
Hark, he is crying,
See, he is trying
To call us back from the foam-crown’d brink!
Are we so dear
Now death is so near?
Then, it is his turn to sorrow in vain,
While he is losing he loves us again!
And I am regretted,
Neglected, who fretted
When the soft blast of the rain-wind blew,
At the dusk and the dawn,
On the lonely lawn,
In gloomy shadows the pine woods threw.
By mighty river and limpid lake,
Where tremulous reeds and branches quake,
I’ve hidden my grief for thy father’s sake.
But I forgive—
Tho’ I would not live,
E’en while he mourns us we’ll hasten hence;
Thou art my own,
My blood and my bone,
Nor will I leave thee in life’s suspense!
They harden’d thy sire
By steel and by fire,
