1.

The morning air was freshly breathing,
The morning mists were wildly wreathing;
Day's earliest beams were kindling o'er
The wood-crown'd hills and murmuring shore.
'Twas summer, and the forests threw
Their chequered shapes of varying hue,
In mingling, changeful shadows seen,
O'er hill and bank, and headland green;
Blithe birds were carolling on high
Their matin music to the sky,

As glanced their brilliant hues along,
Filling the groves with life and song;
All innocent and wild and free
Their sweet, ethereal minstrelsy.
The dew drop sparkled on the spray,
Danced on the wave the inconstant ray;
And moody grief, with dark control,
There only swayed the human soul!

2.

With equal swell above the flood,
The forest-cinctured mountain stood;
Its eastward cliffs, a rampart wild,
Rock above rock sublimely piled.
What scenes of beauty meet his eye,
The watchful sentinel on high!
With all its isles and inlets lay,
Beneath the calm, majestic bay,
Like molten gold all glittering spread,
Where the clear sun his influence shed;
In wreathy-crisped brilliance shone,
While laughed the radiance of the moon.

Round rocks, that from the head-land far
Their barriers reared with murmuring war,
The chaffing stream, in eddying play,
Fretted and dashed its foamy spray;
Along the shelving sands its swell
With hushed and equal cadence fell;
And here, beneath the whispering grove,
Ran rippling in the shadowy cove.
Thy thickets with their liveliest hue,
Aquetnet green! were fair to view;*
Far curved the winding shore, where rose
Pocasset's hills in calm repose;
Or where descending rivers gave
Their tribute to the ampler wave.
Emerging frequent from the tide,
Scarce noticed mid the waters wide,
Lay flushed with morning's roseate smile,
The gay bank of some little isle ;
Where the lone heron plumed his wing,

Or spread it as in act to spring,

Yet paused, as if delight it gave

To bend above the glorious wave.

The following lines allude to a superstition cherished by the present race of Indians called Creeks.

1.

They say that afar in the land of the west,

Where the bright golden sun sinks in glory to rest,
Mid fins where the hunter ne'er ventured to tread,
A fair lake unruffled and sparkling is spread,

Aquenet Green, or Rhode Island, has always been celebrated for its picturesque beauty, and the salubrity of its climate. Its surface is delightfully varied into hill and dale, wood and field."

Where, lost in his course, the wrapt Indian discovers In distance seen dimly the green Isle of lovers.

2.

There verdure fades never, immortal in bloom,
Soft waves the magnolia its groves of perfume;
And low bends the branch with rich fruitage deprest,
All glowing like gems in the crowns of the east ;
There the bright eye of nature in mild glory hovers :
"Tis the land of the sun-beam,-the green Isle of lovers!

3.

Sweet strains wildly float on the breezes that kiss
The calm flowing lake round that region of bliss ;
Where wreathing their garlands of amaranth, fair choirs
Glad measures still weave, to the sound that inspires
The dance and the revel, mid forests that cover
On high with their shade the green Isle of the lover.

4.

But fierce as the snake with his eye-balls of fire, When his scales are all brilliant and glowing with ire, Are the warriors to all, save the maids of their Isle, Whose law is their will, and whose life is their smile; From beauty there valour and strength are not rovers, And peace reigns supreme in the green Isle of lovers.

5.

And he who has sought to set foot on its shore,

In mazes perplext, has beheld it no more;

It fleets on the vision, deluding the view,
Its banks still retire as the hunters pursue;
O! who in this vain world of woe shall discover,
The home undisturbed, the green Isle of the lover!

The following lyrical specimen is a prophecy, put into the mouth of an Indian priest, while under the supposed influence of inspiration. "In grandeur of imagery," says Dr. Drake, "and sublimity of sentiment, in a rich and sonorous flow of versification, it exhibits much which has a claim to very distinguished, and almost unqualified approbation."

1.

O, heard ye around the sad moan of the gale,

As it sigh'd o'er the mountain, and shriek'd in the vale;
"Tis the voice of the Spirit prophetic, who past;
His mantle of darkness around him is cast;

Wild flutters his robe, and the light of his plume
Faint glimmers along through the mist and the gloom;
Where the moon-beam is hidden, the shadow hath gone,
It has flitted in darkness that morrow has none;
But my ear drank the sound, and I feel in my breast
What the voice of the spirit prophetic imprest.
O saw ye that gleaming unearthly of light ?*
Behold where it winds o'er the moor from our sight!
"Tis the soul of a warrior who sleeps with the slain,
How long shall the slaughtered thus wander in vain ?
It has past through the gloom of the forest, it flies,-
But I feel in my bosom its murmurs arise.

2.

Say, what are the races of perishing men?

They darken earth's surface, and vanish again;

• Among their various superstitions, they (the Algonquins) believe that the vapour which is seen to hover over moist and swampy places, is the spirit of some person lately dead.—M‘Kenzie, quoted by Mr. Eastburn.

As the shade o'er the lake's gleaming bosom that flies With the stir of their wings, where the wild fowls arise, That has past, and the sun-beam plays bright as before,

So speed generations, remember'd no more;

Since earth from the deep, at the voice of the spirit,
Rose green from the waters, with all that inherit
Its nature, its changes. The oaks that had stood
For ages, lie crumbling at length in the wood.
Where, now, are the race in their might who came forth
To destroy and to waste, from the plains of the north?
As the deer through the brake, 'mid the forests they sped,
The tall trees crash'd around them, earth groaned with
their tread;

He perish'd, the Mammoth,*—in power and in pride,
And defying the wrath of YOHEWAH,† he died!

3.

And say, what is man, that his race should endure,
Alone, through the changes of nature secure?

An Indian chief, of the Deleware tribe, who visited the Governor of Virginia, during the revolution, informed him, that it was a tradition handed down from their fathers, that, in ancient times, a herd of these tremendous animals came to the Bick bone Licks, and began an universal destruction of the bear, deer, elk, buffalo, and other animals, which had been created for the use of the Indians. That the great man above, looking down and seeing this, was so enraged, that he seized his lightning, descended on the earth, seated himself on a neighbouring mountain, on a rock, (on which his seat, and the prints of his feet are still to be seen) and hurled his bolts among them, till the whole were slaughtered, except the big bull, who, presenting his forehead to the shafts, shook them off as they fell, but missing one at length, it wounded him in the side, whereon, springing round, he bounded over the Ohio, the Wabash, the Illinois, and finally over the great lakes, where he is living at this day.'"-Jefferson's Notes.

"I have retained this word (YOHEWAH) in the text, because it sounds well; and, for the purpose of poetry, it is of little consequence whether it be a significant word, or a mere series of guttural noises."Note by the Editor.