This effigy, the strange disusèd form

Of this inscription, eloquently show

His history. Let me clothe in fitting words

The thoughts they breathe, and frame his epitaph:

"He whose forgotten dust for centuries
Has lain beneath this stone, was one in whom
Adventure, and endurance, and emprise,
Exalted the mind's faculties and strung
The body's sinews. Brave he was in fight,
Courteous in banquet, scornful of repose,
And bountiful, and cruel, and devout,
And quick to draw the sword in private feud,
He pushed his quarrels to the death, yet prayed
The saints as fervently on bended knees

As ever shaven cenobite. He loved

As fiercely as he fought.

He would have borne

The maid that pleased him from her bower by night

To his hill castle, as the eagle bears

His victim from the fold, and rolled the rocks

On his pursuers. He aspired to see
His native Pisa queen and arbitress
Of cities; earnestly for her he raised
His voice in council, and affronted death
In battle-field, and climbed the galley's deck,
And brought the captured flag of Genoa back,
Or piled upon the Arno's crowded quay
The glittering spoils of the tamed Saracen.
He was not born to brook the stranger's yoke,
But would have joined the exiles that withdrew
Forever, when the Florentine broke in
The gates of Pisa, and bore off the bolts
For trophies-but he died before that day.

"He lived, the impersonation of an age
That never shall return. His soul of fire
Was kindled by the breath of the rude time
He lived in. Now a gentler race succeeds,
Shuddering at blood; the effeminate cavalier,

THE HUNTER OF THE PRAIRIES.

Turning his eyes from the reproachful past,
And from the hopeless future, gives to ease,
And love, and music, his inglorious life."

THE HUNTER OF THE PRAIRIES.

Ay, this is freedom!-these pure skies

Were never stained with village smoke:
The fragrant wind, that through them flies,
Is breathed from wastes by plough unbroke.
Here, with my rifle and my steed,

And her who left the world for me,
I plant me, where the red deer feed
In the green desert-and am free.

For here the fair savannas know

No barriers in the bloomy grass; Wherever breeze of heaven may blow, Or beam of heaven may glance, I pass. In pastures, measureless as air,

The bison is my noble game;

The bounding elk, whose antlers tear
The branches, falls before my aim.

Mine are the river-fowl that scream

From the long stripe of waving sedge;
The bear that marks my weapon's gleam,
Hides vainly in the forest's edge;
In vain the she-wolf stands at bay;
The brinded catamount, that lies
High in the boughs to watch his prey,
Even in the act of springing, dies.

With what free growth the elm and plane
Fling their huge arms across my way,
Gray, old, and cumbered with a train
Of vines, as huge, and old, and gray!

165

Free stray the lucid streams, and find

No taint in these fresh lawns and shades; Free spring the flowers that scent the wind Where never scythe has swept the glades.

Alone the Fire, when frost-winds sere
The heavy herbage of the ground,
Gathers his annual harvest here,

With roaring like the battle's sound, And hurrying flames that sweep the plain, And smoke-streams gushing up the sky: I meet the flames with flames again,

And at my door they cower and die.

Here, from dim woods, the aged past
Speaks solemnly; and I behold
The boundless future in the vast

And lonely river, seaward rolled.

Who feeds its founts with rain and dew?
Who moves, I ask, its gliding mass,
And trains the bordering vines, whose blue
Bright clusters tempt me as I pass?

Broad are these streams-my steed obeys,
Plunges, and bears me through the tide.
Wide are these woods-I thread the maze
Of giant stems, nor ask a guide.
I hunt till day's last glimmer dies

O'er woody vale and grassy height;
And kind the voice and glad the eyes
That welcome my return at night.

SEVENTY-SIX.

WHAT heroes from the woodland sprung, When, through the fresh-awakened land,

The thrilling cry of freedom rung,

And to the work of warfare strung

The yeoman's iron hand!

SEVENTY-SIX.

Hills flung the cry to hills around,
And ocean-mart replied to mart,

And streams, whose springs were yet unfound,
Pealed far away the startling sound

Into the forest's heart.

Then marched the brave from rocky steep,
From mountain-river swift and cold;
The borders of the stormy deep,

The vales where gathered waters sleep,
Sent up the strong and bold,-

As if the very earth again

Grew quick with God's creating breath, And, from the sods of grove and glen, Rose ranks of lion-hearted men

To battle to the death.

The wife, whose babe first smiled that day,
The fair fond bride of yestereve,

And aged sire and matron gray,
Saw the loved warriors haste away,
And deemed it sin to grieve.

Already had the strife begun ;

Already blood, on Concord's plain, Along the springing grass had run, And blood had flowed at Lexington, Like brooks of April rain.

That death-stain on the vernal sward
Hallowed to freedom all the shore ;
In fragments fell the yoke abhorred-
The footstep of a foreign lord

Profaned the soil no more.

167

Free stray the lucid streams, and find

No taint in these fresh lawns and shades; Free spring the flowers that scent the wind Where never scythe has swept the glades.

Alone the Fire, when frost-winds sere
The heavy herbage of the ground,
Gathers his annual harvest here,

With roaring like the battle's sound, And hurrying flames that sweep the plain, And smoke-streams gushing up the sky : I meet the flames with flames again,

And at my door they cower and die.

Here, from dim woods, the aged past
Speaks solemnly; and I behold
The boundless future in the vast

And lonely river, seaward rolled.

Who feeds its founts with rain and dew?
Who moves, I ask, its gliding mass,
And trains the bordering vines, whose blue
Bright clusters tempt me as I pass?

Broad are these streams-my steed obeys,
Plunges, and bears me through the tide.
Wide are these woods-I thread the maze
Of giant stems, nor ask a guide.
I hunt till day's last glimmer dies

O'er woody vale and grassy height;
And kind the voice and glad the eyes
That welcome my return at night.

SEVENTY-SIX.

WHAT heroes from the woodland sprung, When, through the fresh-awakened land,

The thrilling cry of freedom rung,

And to the work of warfare strung

The yeoman's iron hand!