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The sun to me is dark
And silent as the moon,

When she deserts the night,

Hid in her vacant 2 interlunar cave.
Since light so necessary is to life,
And almost life itself, if it be true
That light is in the soul,

She all in every part, why was this sight
To such a tender ball as the eye confined,
So obvious and so easy to be quench'd?
And not, as feeling, through all parts diffused,
That she might look at will through every pore?
Then had I not been thus exiled from light,
As in the land of darkness, yet in light,
To live a life half dead, a living death,
And buried; but, O yet more miserable!
Myself my sepulchre, a moving grave.

1 bereaved, deprived of. 2 interlunar, belonging to the time when the moon is invisible. This is for a day or two before and after the time of new moon.

1

NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS.

mys-te'-ri-ous

pro-gen'-i-tors

in-quis'-i-tive

Not many generations ago, where you now sit encircled with all that exalts and embellishes civilized life, the 1 rank thistle nodded in the wind, and the wild fox dug his hole unscared. Here lived and loved another race of beings. Beneath the same sun that rolls over your head, the Indian hunter pursued the panting deer; gazing on the same moon that smiles for you, the Indian lover wooed his dusky mate. Here the wigwam blaze beamed on the tender and helpless, and the council-fire glared on the wise and daring. Now they dipped their noble limbs in your sedgy lakes, and now they paddled the light canoe

along your rocky shores. Here they warred; the echoing whoop, the bloody grapple, the defying death-song, all were here; and when the tiger-strife was over, here curled the smoke of peace.

Here, too, the Indians worshipped; and from many a dark bosom went up a fervent prayer to the Great Spirit. He had not written his laws for them on tables of stone,

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but he had traced them on the tables of their hearts. The poor child of nature knew not the God of revelation, but the God of the universe he acknowledged in everything around. He beheld him in the star that sank in beauty behind his lonely dwelling; in the sacred orb that flamed on him from his midday throne; in the flower that snapped in the morning breeze; in the lofty pine that

defied a thousand whirlwinds; in the timid warbler that never left its native grove; in the fearless eagle, whose untired 2pinion was wet in clouds; in the worm that crawled at his feet; and in his own matchless form, glowing with a spark of that light, to whose mysterious source he bent in humble, though blind adoration.

And all this has passed away. Across the ocean came a pilgrim bark, bearing the seeds of life and death. The former were sown for you; the latter sprang up in the path of the simple native. Two hundred years have changed the character of a great continent, and blotted for ever from its face a whole peculiar people. Art has usurped the bowers of nature, and the anointed children of education have been too powerful for the tribes of the ignorant. Here and there a stricken few remain ; but how unlike their bold, untamable 3 progenitors! The Indian of falcon glance and lion bearing, the theme of the touching ballad, the hero of the pathetic tale, is gone! and his degraded offspring crawls upon the soil where he walked in majesty, to remind us how miserable is man, when the foot of the conqueror is on his neck.

As a race, they have withered from the land. Their arrows are broken, their springs are dried up, their cabins are in the dust. Their council-fire has long since gone out on the shore, and their war-cry is fast fading in the untrodden west. Slowly and sadly they climb the distant mountains, and read their doom in the setting sun. They are shrinking before the mighty tide which is pressing them away; they must soon hear the roar of the last wave, which will settle over them for ever. Ages hence, the inquisitive white man, as he stands by some growing city, will ponder on the structure of their disturbed remains, and wonder to what manner of persons they belonged. They will live only in the songs and chronicles of their

5 exterminators. Let these be faithful to their rude virtues, as men, and pay due tribute to their unhappy fate, as a people.

4

6 SPRAGUE.

1 rank, strong, coarse. 3 2 pinion, wing. progenitors, ancestors, forefathers. pathetic, moving, affecting. 5 exterminators, destroyers. Sprague, Charles Sprague, an American poet.

6

LEAVES FROM AN AËRONAUT.

as-so-ci-a/-tions in-com'-pa-ra-bly

as-sem'-blage
tem'-po-ra-ri-ly

ec'-sta-cy
in-de-scri'-ba-ble

My hour had come, and I entered the car. With a singular taste, the band struck up, at this moment, the melting air of "Sweet Home." It almost overcame me. A thousand associations of youth, of friends, of all that I must leave, rushed upon my mind. But I had no leisure for sentiment. A buzz ran through the assemblage; unnumbered hands were clapping, unnumbered hearts beating high; and I was the cause. Every eye was upon me. There was pride in the thought.

"Let go!" was the word. The cheers redoubled; handkerchiefs waved from many a fair hand; bright faces beamed from every window, and on every side. One dash with my knife, and I rose aloft, a habitant of air. How magnificent was the sight which now burst upon me! How sublime were my sensations! I waved the flag of my country; the cheers of the multitude from a thousand housetops reached me on the breeze; and a taste of the rarer atmosphere elevated my spirits into ecstacy.

2

The city, with a brilliant sunshine striking the spires and domes, now unfolded to view a sight incomparably beautiful. My gondola went easily upward, cleaving the

8

depth of heaven like a vital thing. A diagram placed before you on the table would not permit you to trace more definitely than I now could the streets, the highways, basins, wharves, and squares of the town. The hum of the city arose to my ear, as from a vast beehive; and I seemed the monarch bee, directing the

swarm.

I heard the rattling of carriages, the hearty yo-heavos! of sailors from the docks that, begirt with spars, hemmed the city round. I was a spectator of all, yet aloof and alone. Increasing stillness attended my way; and at last the murmurs of earth came to my ear like the vast vibrations of a bell. My car tilted and trembled as I rose. A swift wind sometimes gave the balloon a rotary motion, which made me deathly sick for a moment; but strong emotion conquered all my physical ailings.

6

My brain ached with the intensity of my rapture. Human sounds had fainted from my ear. I was in the abyss of heaven, and alone with my God. I could tell my direction by the sun on my left; and, as his rays played on the 'aërostat, it seemed only a bright bubble, wavering in the sky, and I a suspended mote, hung by chance to its train. Looking below me, the distant sound and Long Island appeared to the east; the bay lay to the south, sprinkled with shipping: under me, the city, girded with bright rivers and sparry forests.

The free wind was on my cheek and in my locks; afar, the ocean rolled its long blue waves, chequered with masses of shadow and gushes of ruby sunlight; to the north and west, the interminable land, variegated like a map dotted with purple and green and silver, faded to the eye. The atmosphere which I now breathed seemed to dilate my heart at every breath. I uttered some audible expressions. My voice was weaker than the

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