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TO THE RAINBOW.

'Neath the willow's wavy boughs,
Dolly, singing, milks her cows;
While the brook, as bubbling by,
Joins in murmuring melody.
Swains to fold their sheep begin,
Dogs, loud barking, drive them in.
Hedgers now along the road
Homeward bend beneath their load;
And, from the long, furrowed seams,
Ploughmen loose their weary teams;
Ball, with urging lashes mealed,
Still so slow to drive afield,

Eager blundering from the plough,
Wants no whip to drive him now;
At the stable-door he stands,
Looking round for friendly hands
To loose the door its fastening pin,
And let him with his corn begin.
The night-wind now, with sooty wings,
In the cotter's chimney sings;
Now, as stretching o'er the bed,
Soft I raise my drowsy head,
Listening to the ushering charms
That shake the elm-tree's massy arms,
Till sweet slumbers stronger creep,
Deeper darkness stealing round;
Then, as rocked, I sink to sleep,
'Mid the wild winds' lulling sound.

TO THE RAINBOW. - Campbell.

TRIUMPHAL arch, that fill'st the sky
When storms prepare to part,

I ask not proud Philosophy

To teach me what thou art.

242

TO THE RAINBOW.

Still seem as to my childhood's sight,

A midway station given,

For happy spirits to alight

Betwixt the earth and heaven.

Can all that Optics teach unfold
Thy form to please me so,
As when I dreamed of gems and gold
Hid in thy radiant bow?

When Science from creation's face
Enchantment's veil withdraws,
What lovely visions yield their place
To cold, material laws!

And yet, fair bow, no fabling dreams,
But words of the Most High,
Have told why first thy robe of beams
Was woven in the sky.

When o'er the green, undeluged earth
Heaven's covenant thou didst shine.
How came the world's gray fathers forth
To watch thy sacred sign?

And when its yellow lustre smiled
O'er mountains yet untrod,
Each mother held aloft her child,
To bless the bow of God.

Methinks, thy jubilee to keep,
The first-made anthem rang
On earth, delivered from the deep,
And the first poet sang.

HYMN OF THE CHEROKEE INDIAN.

Nor ever shall the Muse's eye
Unraptured greet thy beam;
Theme of primeval prophecy,
Be still the poet's theme!

The earth to thee her incense yields,
The lark thy welcome sings, -
When, glittering in the freshened fields,
The snowy mushroom springs.

How glorious is thy girdle cast
O'er mountain, tower, and town;
Or mirrored in the ocean vast,
A thousand fathoms down!

As fresh as yon horizon dark,
As young thy beauties seem,
As when the eagle from the ark
First sported in thy beam.

For, faithful to its sacred page,

Heaven still rebuilds thy span;
Nor lets the type grow pale with age,
That first spoke peace to man.

243

HYMN OF THE CHEROKEE INDIAN.-I. McLellan, Jr.

LIKE the shadows in the stream,

Like the evanescent gleam
Of the twilight's failing blaze,
Like the fleeting years and days,
Like all things that soon decay,
Pass the Indian tribes away.

R

244

HYMN OF THE CHEROKEE INDIAN.

Indian son and Indian sire!
Lo! the embers of your fire
On the wigwam hearth burn low,
Never to revive its glow!
And the Indian's heart is ailing,
And the Indian's blood is failing.

Now the hunter's bow 's unbent,
And his arrows all are spent!
Like a very little child

Is the red man of the wild;

To his day there 'll dawn no morrow;
Therefore is he full of sorrow.

From his hills the stag is fled,
And the fallow deer are dead,

And the wild beasts of the chase

Are a lost and perished race;

And the birds have left the mountain,
And the fishes the clear fountain.

Indian woman, to thy breast
Closer let thy babe be pressed,
For thy garb is thin and old,
And the winter wind is cold;
On thy homeless head it dashes,
Round thee the grim lightning flashes.

We, the rightful lords of yore,
Are the rightful lords no more;
Like the silver mist we fail,
Like the red leaves in the gale, -
Fail like shadows, when the dawning
Waves the bright flag of the morning.

By the river's lonely marge
Rotting is the Indian barge;

CHIDHAR THE PROPHET

And his hut is ruined now
On the rocky mountain-brow;
The fathers' bones are all neglected,
And the children's hearts dejected.

Therefore, Indian people, flee
To the furthest western sea;
Let us yield our pleasant land
To the stranger's stronger hand;
Red men and their realms must sever;
They forsake them, and forever!

CHIDHAR THE PROPHET.

FROM THE GERMAN OF RÜCKERT, BY MILNES.

CHIDHAR THE PROPHET, ever young,
Thus loosed the bridle of his tongue.

I journeyed by a goodly town,
Beset with many a garden fair,
And asked with one who gathered down
Large fruit how long the town was there.
He spoke, nor chose his hand to stay,
"The town has stood for many a day,
And will be here forever and aye."

A thousand years went by, and then
I went the selfsame road again.

No vestige of that town I traced,
But one poor swain his horn employed, -
His sheep unconscious browsed and grazed,
I asked, "When was that town destroyed?"
He spoke, nor would his horn lay by,
"One thing may grow and another die,
But I know nothing of towns, - not I."

245

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