Than the old inmates to my love, my thoughts, This accident encountered me: I heard 2. A sound of music touched mine ears, or rather, Indeed, entranced my soul: as I stole nearer, Invited by the melody, I saw ΕΙ This youth, this fair-faced youth, upon his lute, 3. A nightingale, Nature's best-skilled musician, undertakes The well-shaped youth could touch, she sang him down The nightingale, did with her various notes 4. Some time thus spent, the young man grew at last Whom art had never taught cliffs, moods, or notes Had busied many hours to perfect practice. To end the controversy, in a rapture Upon his instrument he plays so swiftly, So many voluntaries, and so quick, That there was curiosity in cunning, Concord in discord, lines of differing method Meeting in one full centre of delight. 5. The bird (ordained to be Music's true martyr) strove to imitate These several sounds; which, when her warbling throat Failed in, for grief down dropt she on his lūte, And brake her heart. It was the quaintest sadness To see the conqueror138 upon her hearse To weep a funeral elegy of tears. 6 He looked upon the trophies of his art, Then sighed, then wiped his eyes; then sighed and cried, "Alas! poor creature, I will soon revenge This cruelty upon the author of it. Henceforth this lute, guilty of innocent blood, Shall never more betray a harmless peace To an untimely end: and in that sorrow As he was dashing it against a tree, I suddenly stept in. WE wait for thy coming, sweet wind of the south, The stone from the mouth of the sepulchre rolled Hark, that sweet carol! With delight And Nature, in her brightening looks, 3 THE DELIGHTS OF SPRING. Mary Howitt. The Spring, she is a blessed thing, She is the mate of birds and bees, The partner of their revelries, Our star of hope through wintry hours, The little brooks run on in light, As if they had a chase of mirth; FORD The skies are blue, the air is balm; 4. THE FIRST WARM DAY OF SPRING. Horace Smith. The perfume and the bloom that shall decorate the flower How awful is the thought of the wonders under ground, 5. A WELCOME TO SPRING.-Wm. G. Simms. O! thou bright and beautiful day, They bound with a feeling long suppressed, And sweets thou breathest with every breath. 6. THE BIRDS OF SPRING. Sing on by fane and forest old, by tombs and cottage eaves, What is this mighty breath, ye sages, say, Thomson. Instructs the fowls of heaven; and through their breast These arts of love diffuses? What, but God? CXLII. THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 1. TRAITS OF CHARACTER. - Flint. AN Indian seldom jests. He usually speaks low, and under his breath. Loquacity is with him an indication of being a trifling character, and of deeds inversely less as his words are more The young men, and even the boys, have a sullen, moody, and unjoyous countenance; and seem to have little of that elastic gayety with which the benevolence of Providence has endowed the first days of the existence of most other beings. In this general remark, we ought not, perhaps, to include the squaw, who shows some analogy of feeling to the white female. The males evidently have not the quick sensibilities, the acute perceptions, of most other races. They do not easily sympathize with what is enjoyment or suffering about them. Nothing but an overwhelming excitement can arouse them. They seem callous to all the passions, but rage. Every one has remarked how little surprise they express for whatever is new, strange, or striking. True, it is partially their pride that induces them to affect this indifference, for, that it is affected, we have had numberless opportunities to discover. It is, with them, not only pride, but calculation, to hold in seeming contempt things which they are aware they cannot obtain and possess. But they seem to be born with an instinctive determination to be independent, if possible, of nature and society, and to concentrate within themselves an existence, which, at any moment, they seem willing to lay down. Their impassible fortitude and endurance of suffering, their contempt of pain and death, invest their character with a kind of moral grandeur. Some part of this may be the result of their training, discipline, and exercise of self-control; but it is to be doubted whether some part be not the result of a more than ordinary degree of physical insensibility. It has been said, but with how much truth we do not pretend to say, that, in undergoing amputation, and other surgical operations, their nerves do not shrink, or show the same tendency to spasms, with those of the whites. When the savage - to explain his insensibility to cold-called upon the white man to recollect how little his own face was affected by it, in consequence of its constant exposure, the savage added, " My body is all face." Surely it is preposterous to admire, as some pretend to do, the savage character in the abstract. Let us make every effort to convey pity, mercy, and immortal hopes, to their rugged bosoms. Pastorals that sing savage independence and generosity, and gratitude and happiness in the green woods, may be Arcadian enough to those who never saw savages in their wigwams, or never felt the apprehension of their nocturnal and hostile yell, from the depth of the forest around their dwelling. But let us not undervalue the comfort and security of municipal and social life; nor the sensibilities, charities, and endearments, of a civilized home. Let our great effort be to tame and domesticate the Indians. Their happiness, steeled against feeling, at war with nature, the elements, and one another, can have no existence, except in the visionary dreamings of those who have never contemplated their actual condition. It is curious to remark, however, that, different as are their religions, their discipline, and their standards of opinion, in most respects, from ours, in the main they have much the same notion of a great, respectable, and good man, that we have. If we mark the universal passion for military display among our ow race, and observe what place is assigned by common feeling, as well as history, to military prowess, we shall hardly consider it a striking difference from our nature, that bravery, and contempt of death, and reckless daring, command the first place in their hom age. But, apart from these views, the same traits of characte. that entitle a man to the appellation of virtuous and good, and that insure respect among us, have much the same bearing upon the estimation of the Indians. In conversing with them, we are struck with surprise, to observe how widely and deeply the obligations of truth, constancy, honor, generosity, and forbearance, are felt and understood among them. As regards their vanity, we have not often had the fortune to contemplate a young squaw at her toilet; but, from the studied arrangement of her calico jacket, from the glaring circles of ver |