Soon as the woods on shore look dim,
We'll sing at St Ann's our parting hymn.
Row, brothers, row, the stream runs fast,
The Rapids are near and the daylight's past!

Why should we yet our sail unfurl?

There is not a breath the blue wave to curl
But, when the wind blows off the shore,
Oh! sweetly we 'll rest our weary oar.
Blow, breezes, blow, the stream runs fast,
The Rapids are near, and the day-light's past!

Utawas' tide! this trembling moon
Shall see us float over thy surges soon.
Saint of this green Isle! hear our prayers,
Oh! grant us cool heavens and favouring airs.
Blow, breezes, blow, the stream runs fast,
The Rapids are near and the daylight's past!

EPISTLE IX.

TO THE LADY CHARLOTTE R-WD-N.
FROM THE BANKS OF THE ST LAWRENCE.

Nor many months have now been dream'd away
Since yonder sun (beneath whose evening ray
We rest our boat among these Indian isles)
Saw me, where mazy Trent serenely smiles
Through many an oak, as sacred as the groves
Beneath whose shade the pious Persian roves,
And hears the soul of father or of chief,
Or loved mistress, sigh in every leaf! 2
There listening, Lady! while thy lip hath sung
My own unpolish'd lays, how proud I've hung
On every mellow'd number! proud to feel
That notes like mine should have the fate to steal,
As o'er thy hallowing lip they sigh'd along,
Such breath of passion and such soul of song.

zas, appeared to be a long incoherent story, of which I could understand but little, from the barbarous pronunciation of the Canadians. It begins,

Dans mon chemin j'ai rencontré
Deux cavaliers très-bien montés;

And the refrain to every verse was,

A l'ombre d'un bois je m'en vais jouer,

A l'ombre d'un bois je m'en vais danser.

I ventured to harmonize this air, and have published it. Without that charm which association gives to every little memorial of scenes or feelings that are past, the melody may perhaps be thought common and trifling; but I remember when we have entered, at sunset, upon one of those beautiful lakes into which the St Lawrence so grandly and unexpectedly opens, I have heard this simple air with a pleasure which the finest compositions of the first masters have never given me; and now there is not a note of it which does not recal to my memory the dip of our oars in the St Lawrence, the flight of our boat down the Rapids, and all those new and fanciful impressions to which my heart was alive during the whole of this very interesting voyage. The above stanzas are supposed to be sung by those voyageurs who go to the Grande Portage by the Utawas River. For an account of this wonderful undertaking, see SIR ALEXANDER MACKENZIE'S General History of the Fur Trade, prefixed to his Journal.

At the Rapid of St Ann they are obliged to take out part, if not the whole, of their lading. It is from this spot the Canadians consider they take their departure, as it possesses the last church on the island, which is dedicated to the tutelar saint of voyagers.-MACBENZIE'S General History of the Fur Trade.

2. Avendo essi per costume di avere in veneratione gli alberi grandi ed antichi, quasi che siano spesso ricetaccoli di anime beate." -Pietro della Valle, Part. Second. Lettera 16 da i giardini di Sciraz.

Oh! I have wonder'd, like the peasant boy Who sings at eve his sabbath strains of joy, And when he hears the rude, luxuriant note Back to his ear on softening echoes float, Believes it still some answering spirit's tone, And thinks it all too sweet to be his own! I dream'd not then that, ere the rolling year Had fill'd its circle, I should wander here In musing awe; should tread this wondrous world, See all its store of inland waters hurl'd In one vast volume down Niagara's steep,' Or calm behold them, in transparent sleep, Where the blue hills of old Toronto shed Their evening shadows o'er Ontario's bed!Should trace the grand Cadaraqui, and glide Down the white Rapids of his lordly tide Through massy woods, through islets flowering fair, Through shades of bloom, where the first sinful pair For consolation might have weeping trod, When banish'd from the garden of their God! Oh, Lady! these are miracles, which man, Caged in the bounds of Europe's pigmy plan, Can scarcely dream of: which his eye must see, To know how beautiful this world can be! But soft!--the tinges of the west decline, And night falls dewy o'er these banks of pine. Among the reeds, in which our idle boat Is rock'd to rest, the wind's complaining note Dies, like a half-breathed whispering of flutes; Along the wave the gleaming porpoise shoots, And I can trace him, like a watery star, 2 Down the steep current, till he fades afar Amid the foaming breaker's silvery light, Where yon rough Rapids sparkle through the night! Here, as along this shadowy bank I stray, And the smooth glass-snake, 3 gliding o'er my way, Shows the dim moonlight through his scaly form, Fancy, with all the scene's enchantment warm, Hears in the murmur of the nightly breeze, Some Indian Spirit warble words like these:

From the clime of sacred doves, 4 Where the blessed Indian roves, Through the air on wing, as white As the spirit-stones of light,5

I When I arrived at Chippewa, within three miles of the Falls, it was too late to think of visiting them that evening, and I lay awake all night with the sound of the cataract in my ears. The day following I consider as a kind of era in my life, and the first glimpse which I caught of those wonderful Falls gave me a feeling which nothing in this world can ever excite again.

To Colonel Brock, of the 49th, who commanded at the Fort, I am particularly indebted for his kindness to me during the fortnight I remained at Niagara. Among many pleasant days, which I passed with him and his brother officers, that of our visit to the Tuscarora Indians was not the least interesting. They received us all in their ancient costume; the young men exhibited, for our amusement, in the race, the bat-game, etc.,-while the old and the women sat in groups under the surrounding trees: and the picture altogether was as beautiful as it was new to me.

2 ANBUREY, in his Travels, has noticed this shooting illumination which porpoises diffuse at night through the St Lawrence, v. i, p. 29. The glass-snake is brittle and transparent.

4 The departed spirit goes into the Country of Souls, where, according to some, it is transformed into a dove.-CHARLEVOIX, upon the Traditions and the Religion of the Savages of Canada. See the curious Fable of the American Orpheus in LAFITAU, tom. i, p. 402.

The mountains appeared to be sprinkled with white stones, which glistened in the sun, and were called by the Indians manetoe aseniah, or spirit-stones.-MACKENZIE'S Journal.

Which the eye of morning counts
On the Apallachian mounts!
Hither oft my flight I take
Over Huron's lucid lake,

Where the wave, as clear as dew,
Sleeps beneath the light canoe,
Which, reflected, floating there,
Looks as if it hung in air!1

Then, when I have stray'd awhile
Through the Manataulin isle, 2
Breathing all its holy bloom,
Swift upon the purple plume
Of my Wakon-Bird 3 I fly
Where, beneath a burning sky,
O'er the bed of Erie's lake,
Slumbers many a water-snake,
Basking in the web of leaves
Which the weeping lily weaves!4
Then I chase the flow'ret-king
Through his bloomy wild of spring;
See him now, while diamond hues
Soft his neck and winds suffuse,
In the leafy chalice sink,
Thirsting for his balmy drink;
Now behold him all on fire,
Lovely in his looks of ire,
Breaking every infant stem,
Scattering every velvet gem,
Where his little tyrant lip
Had not found enough to sip!

Then my playful hand I steep
Where the gold-thread 5 loves to creep,
Cull from thence a tangled wreath,
Words of magic round it breathe,
And the sunny chaplet spread
O'er the sleeping fly-bird's head, 6
Till, with dreams of honey bless'd,
Haunted in his downy nest

I was thinking h ́re of what CARVER says so beautifully in his description of one of these lakes:When it was calm, and the sun shone bright, I could sit in my canoe, where the depth was upwards of six fathoms, and plainly see huge piles of stone at the bottom, of different shapes, some of which appeared as if they bad been hewn ; the water was at this time as pure and transparent as air, and my canoe seemed as if it hung suspended in that element. It was impossible to look attentively through this limpid medium at the rocks below, without finding, before many minutes were elapsed, your head swim and your eyes no longer able to behold the dazzling scene.> 2. Après avoir traversé plusieurs isles peu considerables, nous en trouvâmes le quatrième jour une famense, nommée l'isle de Manitoualin.-Voyages du Baron de LAHONTAN, tom. i, lett. 15. Manataulin signifies a Place of Spirits, and this island in Lake Huron is held sacred by the Indians.

The Wakon-Bird, which probably is of the same species with

the Bird of Paradise, receives its name from the ideas the Indians have of its superior excellence; the Wakon-Bird being, in their language, the Bird of the Great Spirit.»-Monse.

The islands of Lake Erie are surrounded to a considerable distance by the large pond-lily, whose leaves spread thickly over the surface of the lake, and form a kind of bed for the water-snakes in

summer.

The gold-thread is of the vine kind, and grows in swamps. The roots spread themselves just under the surface of the morasses, and are easily drawn out by handfuls. They resemble a large entangled skein of silk, and are of a bright yellow.-MORSE.

L'oiseau mouche, gros comme un hanneton, est de toutes conleurs, vives et changeantes: il tire sa subsistence des fleurs comme les abeilles; son nid est fait d'un coton très-fin suspendu à une branche d'arbre. Voyage aux Indes Occidentales, par M. Bossu, zd part, lett. xx.

By the garden's fairest spells,
Dewy buds and fragrant bells,
Fancy all his soul embowers
In the fly-bird's heaven of flowers!

Oft, when hoar and silvery flakes
Melt along the ruffled lakes;
When the grey moose sheds his horns,
When the track, at evening, warns
Weary hunters of the way

To the wig-wam's cheering ray,
Then, aloft through freezing air,
With the snow-bird' soft and fair
As the fleece that heaven flings
O'er his little pearly wings,
Light above the rocks I play,
Where Niagara's starry spray,
Frozen on the cliff, appears
Like a giant's starting tears!
There, amid the Island-sedge,
Just upon the cataract's edge,
Where the foot of living man
Never trod since time began,
Lone I sit, at close of day,
While, beneath the golden ray,
ley columns gleam below,

Feather'd round with falling snow,
And an arch of glory springs,
Brilliant as the chain of rings
Round the neck of virgins hung,-
Virgins who have wander'd young
O'er the waters of the west

To the land where spirits rest!

Thus have I charm'd, with visionary lay, The lonely moments of the night away; And now, fresh daylight o'er the water beams! Once more embark'd upon the glittering streams, Our boat flies light along the leafy shore, Shooting the falls, without a dip of oar Or breath of zephyr, like the mystic bark The poet saw, in dreams divinely dark, Borne, without sails, along the dusky flood, 3 While on its deck a pilot angel stood, And, with his wings of living light unfurl'd, Coasted the dim shores of another world!

Yet oh! believe me in this blooming maze
Of lovely nature, where the fancy strays
From charm to charm, where every flow'ret's hue
Hath something strange, and every leaf is new!
I never feel a bliss so pure and still,

So heavenly calm, as when a stream or hill,

1 Emberiza byemalis.—See IMLAY's Kentucky, page 280.

2 Lafitad wishes to believe, for the sake of his theory, that there was an order of vestals established among the Iroquois Indians; but I am afraid that Jacques Carthier, upon whose authority he supports himself, meant any thing but vestal institutions by the cabanes publiques which he met with at Montreal.-See Lafitat, Mœurs des Sauvages Americains, etc. tom. í, p. 173.

3 Vedi che sdegna gli argomenti umani
Si che remo non vuol, në altro velo,
Che l' ale sne tra liti si lontani.

Vedi come l' ha dritte verso 'l cielo
Trattando l' aere con l'eterne penne,
Che non si mutan, come mortal pelo.

DANTE, Purgator, cant. ii.

Or veteran oak, like those remember'd well,
Or breeze or echo, or some wild-flower's smell
(For, who can say what small and fairy ties
The memory flings o'er pleasure as it flies!)
Reminds my heart of many a sylvan dream
I once indulged by Trent's inspiring stream;
Of all my sunny morns and moonlight nights
On Donington's green lawns and breezy heights!

Whether I trace the tranquil moments o'er
When I have seen thee cull the blooms of lore,
With him, the polished warrior, by thy side,
A sister's idol and a nation's pride!
When thou hast read of heroes, trophied high
In ancient fame, and I have seen thine eye
Turn to the living hero, while it read,

For pure and brightening comments on the dead!
Or whether memory to my mind recals
The festal grandeur of those lordly halls,
When guests have met around the sparkling board,
And welcome warm'd the cup that luxury pour'd;
When the bright future star of England's throne
With magic smile hath o'er the banquet shone,
Winning respect, nor claiming what he won,
But tempering greatness, like an evening sun
Whose light the eye can tranquilly admire,
Glorious but mild, all softness yet all fire!
Whatever hue my recollections take,
Even the regret, the very pain they wake
Is dear and exquisite !-but oh! no more-
Lady! adieu-my heart has linger'd o'er
These vanish'd times, till all that round me lies,
Stream, banks, and bowers, have faded on my eyes!

IMPROMPTU,

AFTER A VISIT TO MRS, OF MONTREAL. "T WAS but for a moment-and yet in that time She crowded the impressions of many an hour: Her eye had a glow, like the sun of her clime, Which waked every feeling at once into flower!

Oh! could we have stolen but one rapturous day,
To renew such impressions again and again,
The things we could look, and imagine, and say,
Would be worth all the life we had wasted till then!

What we had not the leisure or language to speak,

We should find some more exquisite mode of revealing, And, between us, should feel just as much in a week, As others would take a millenium in feeling!

WRITTEN

ON PASSING DEADMAN'S ISLAND.'
IN THE GULF OF ST LAWRENCE,

Late in the Evening, September, 1804.
SEE you, beneath yon cloud so dark,
Fast gliding along, a gloomy bark!

This is one of the Magdalen Islands, and, singularly enough, is the property of Sir Isaac Coffin. The above lines were suggested by a superstition very common among sailors, who call this ghost-ship, I think, the flying Dutchman..

Her sails are full, though the wind is still, And there blows not a breath her sails to fill!

Oh! what doth that vessel of darkness bear'
The silent calm of the grave is there,
Save now and again a death-knell rung,
And the flap of the sails with night-fog hung!

There lieth a wreck on the dismal shore
Of cold and pitiless Labrador,

Where, under the moon, upon mounts of frost,
Full many a mariner's bones are toss'd!

Yon shadowy bark hath been to that wreck,
And the dim blue fire that lights her deck
Doth play on as pale and livid a crew,
As ever yet drank the church-yard dew!

To Deadman's Isle, in the eye of the blast,
To Deadman's Isle she speeds her fast;
By skeleton shapes her sails are furl'd,
And the hand that steers is not of this world!

Oh! hurry thee on-oh! hurry thee on,
Thou terrible bark! ere the night be gone,
Nor let morning look on so foul a sight
As would blanch for ever her rosy light!

TO THE BOSTON FRIGATE.' ON LEAVING HALIFAX FOR ENGLAND, OCTOBER 1804.

Νόστου προφασις γλυκερου.
PINDAR. Pyth. 4.

WITH triumph this morning, oh Boston! I hail The stir of thy deck and the spread of thy sail, For they tell me I soon shall be wafted, in thee, To the flourishing isle of the brave and the free, And that chill Nova-Scotia's unpromising strand 2 Is the last I shall tread of American land.

Well-peace to the land! may the people at length, Know that freedom is bliss, but that honour is strength; That though man have the wings of the fetterless wind, Of the wantonest air that the north can unbind,

We were thirteen days on our passage from Quebec to Halifax. and I had been so spoiled by the very splendid hospitality with which my friends of the Phaeton and Boston had treated me, that I was but ill prepared to encounter the miseries of a Canadian ship. The weather, however, was pleasant, and the scenery along the river delightful. Our passage through the Gut of Canso, with a bright sky and a fair wind, was particularly striking and romantic.

Commanded by Captain J. E. Douglas, with whom I returned to England, and to whom I am indebted for many, many kindnesses. In truth, I should but offend the delicacy of my friend Douglas, and, at the same time, do injustice to my own feelings of gratitude, d d I attempt to say how much I owe to him.

2 Sir John Wentworth, the Governor of Nova-Scotia, very kindly allowed me to accompany him on his visit to the college which they have lately established at Windsor, about forty miles from Halifax, and I was indeed most pleasantly surprised by the beauty and fertility of the country which opened upon us after the bleak and rocky wilderness by which Halifax is surrounded. I was told that, in travelling onwards, we should find the soil and the scenery improve, and it gave me much pleasure to know that the worthy Governor has by no means such an inamabile regnum as I was, at first

sight, inclined to believe.

Yet if health do not sweeten the blast with her bloom,
Nor virtue's aroma its pathway perfume,
Unblest is the freedom and dreary the flight,
That but wanders to ruin and wantons to blight!

Farewell to the few I have left with regret,
May they sometimes recal, what I cannot forget,
That communion of heart and that parley of soul,
Which has lengthen'd our nights and illumined our
bowl,

When they've asked me the manners, the mind, or the mien

Of some bard I had known, or some chief I had seen,
Whose glory, though distant, they long had adored,
Whose name often hallow'd the juice of their board!
And still as, with sympathy humble but true,

I told them each luminous trait that I knew,
They have listen'd, and sigli'd that the powerful stream
Of America's empire should pass, like a dream,
Without leaving one fragment of genius, to say
How sublime was the tide which had vanish'd away!
Farewell to the few-though we never may meet
On this planet again, it is soothing and sweet
To think that, whenever my song or my name

Shall recur to their ear, they 'll recal me the same

I have been to them now, young, unthoughtful, and blest,

Ere hope had deceived me or sorrow depress'd!

eye,

But, DOUGLAS! while thus I endear to my mind
The elect of the land we shall soon leave behind,
I can read in the weather-wise glance of thine
As it follows the rack flitting over the sky,
That the faint coming breeze will be fair for our flight,
And shall steal us away ere the falling of night.
Dear DOUGLAS, thou knowest, with thee by my side,
With thy friendship to soothe me, thy courage to guide,
There's not a bleak isle in those summerless seas,
Where the day comes in darkness, or shines but to
freeze,

Not a tract of the line, not a barbarous shore,
That I could not with patience, with pleasure explore!
Oh! think then how happy I follow thee now,
When hope smooths the billowy path of our prow,
And each prosperous sigh of the west-springing wind
Takes me nearer the home where my heart is enshrined;
Where the smile of a father shall meet me again,
And the tears of a mother turn bliss into pain;
Where the kind voice of sisters shall steal to my heart,
And ask it, in sighs, how we ever could part!-

But see!-the bent top-sails are ready to swell— To the boat-I am with thee-Columbia, farewell!

TO LADY H

ON AN OLD RING FOUND AT TUNBRIDGE-Wells.

Tunnebrige est à la même distance de Londres que Fontainebleau l'est de Paris. Ce qu'il y a de beau et de galant dans l'un et dans l'autre sexe s'y rassemble au temps des eaux. La compagnie,= etc. etc.-See Mémoires de Grammont, seconde partie, chap. iii.

TUNBRIDGE-WELLS, August, 1805. WHEN Grammont graced these happy springs, And Tunbridge saw, upon her Pantiles,

The merriest wight of all the kings
That ever ruled these gay gallant isles;

Like us, by day they rode, they walk'd,
At eve they did as we may do,
And Grammont just like Spencer talk'd,
And lovely Stewart smiled like you!

The only different trait is this,

That woman then, if man beset her, Was rather given to saying « yes,» Because, as yet, she knew no better !

Each night they held a coterie,
Where, every fear to slumber charm'd,
Lovers were all they ought to be,

And husbands not the least alarm'd!

They call'd up all their school-day pranks,
Nor thought it much their sense beneath
To play at riddles, quips, and cranks,
And lords show'd wit, and ladies teeth.

As- Why are husbands like the Mint?»
Because, forsooth, a husband's duty

Is just to set the name and print
That give a currency to beauty.

Why is a garden's wilder'd maze
Like a young widow, fresh and fair?»
Because it wants some hand to raise

The weeds, which have no business there!

And thus they miss'd and thus they hit,
And now they struck and now they parried,
And some lay-in of full-grown wit,

While others of a pun miscarried.

'T was one of those facetious nights
That Grammont gave this forfeit ring,
For breaking grave conundrum rites,
Or punning ill, or-some such thing:

From whence it can be fairly traced
Through many a branch and many a bough,
From twig to twig, until it graced
The
hand that wears it now.
snowy

All this I 'll prove, and then to you,
Oh Tunbridge! and your springs ironical,
I swear by H-the-te's eye of blue,
To dedicate the important chronicle.

Long may your ancient inmates give
Their mantles to your modern lodgers,
And Charles' loves in H-the-te live,
And Charles' bards revive in Rogers!

Let no pedantic fools be there,

For ever be those fops abolish'd, With heads as wooden as thy ware, And, Heaven knows! not half so polish'd.

But still receive the mild, the gay,
The few, who know the rare delight
Of reading Grammont every day,
And acting Grammont every night!

ΤΟ

NEVER mind how the pedagogue proses,
You want not antiquity's stamp,
The lip that's so scented by roses,
Oh! never must smell of the lamp.

Old Cloe, whose withering kisses

Have long set the loves at defiance, Now, done with the science of blisses, May fly to the blisses of science!

Young Sappho, for want of employments,
Alone o'er her Ovid may melt,
Condemn'd but to read of enjoyments
Which wiser Corinna had felt.

But for you to be buried in books-
Oh, Fanny! they 're pitiful sages,
Who could not in one of your looks

Read more than in millions of pages!

EXTRACT FROM

THE DEVIL AMONG THE SCHOLARS.»'

Τι κακον ο γελος;

Polymaths, and Polyhistors,
Polyglots and-all their sisters,
The instant I have got the whim in,
Off I fly with nuns and women,
Like epic poets, ne'er at ease
Until I've stolen in medias res!
So have I known a hopeful youth
Sit down, in quest of lore and truth,
With tomes sufficient to confound him,
Like Tohu Bohu, heap'd around him,-
Mamurra' stuck to Theophrastus,
And Galen tumbling o'er Bombastus! 2
When lo! while all that 's learn'd and wisc
Absorbs the boy, he lifts his eyes,
And through the window of his study
Beholds a virgin, fair and ruddy,
With eyes as brightly turned upon him as
The angel's 3 were on Hieronymus,

Saying, 't was just as sweet to kiss her-oh!
Far more sweet than reading Cicero!
Quick fly the folios, widely scatter'd,
Old Homer's laurell'd brow is batter'd,
And Sappho's skin to Tully's leather,
All are confused and toss'd together!
Raptured he quits each dozing sage,
Oh woman! for thy lovelier page:
Sweet book! unlike the books of art,
Whose errors are thy fairest part;
In whom, the dear errata column
Is the best page in all the volume! 4
But, to begin my subject rhyme-
'T was just about this devilish time,

Mamurra, a dogmatic philosopher, who never doubted about any thing, except who was his father. Nulla de re unquam præterquam de patre dubitavit.-In vit. He was very learned—« Là dedans (that is, in his head, when it was opened) le Punique heurte le Persan, l'Hébreu choque l'Arabique, pour ne point parler de la mauvaise intelligence du Latin avec le Grec, etc.-See l'His toire de Montmaur, tom. ii, page 91.

Bombastus was one of the names of that great scholar and quack Paracelsus. Philippus Bombastus latet sub splendido tegmine Aureoli Theophrasti Paracelsi, says Stadelius de circumforanea Literatorum vanitate.-He used to fight the devil every night with a broad-sword, to the no small terror of his pupil Oporinus, who has recorded the circumstance. (See OPORIN. Vit. apud Christian. Gryph. Vit. Select, quorundam Eruditissimorum, etc.) Paracelsus had but a poor opinion of Galen. My very beard (says he in his Paragranum) has more learning in it than either Galen or Avicenna,

#

BUT, whither have these gentle ones,
The rosy nymphs and black-eyed nuns,
With all of Cupid's wild romancing,

Led my truant brains a dancing?

Instead of wise encomiastics
Upon the Doctors and Scholastics,

I promised that I would give the remainder of this poem, but, as my critics do not seem to relish the sublime learning which it contains, they shall have no more of it. With a view, however, to the edification of these gentlemen, I have prevailed on an industrious friend of mine, who has read a great number of unnecessary books, to illuminate the extract with a little of his precious erudition.

ούτως εκείνοις η γλωττα ουδ' αν οργανα τις φων porns ayyelois.-CLEM. ALEXAND. Stromat. Now, how an angel could scold without a tongue, I shall leave the angelic Mrs -to determine.

4 The idea of the Rabbins about the origin of woman is singular. They think that man was originally formed with a tail, like a monkey, but that the Deity cut off this appendage behind, and made woman of it. Upon this extraordinary supposition the following reflection is founded:

If such is the tie between women and men,
The ninny who weds is a pitiful elf,
For he takes to his tail, like an idiot, again,
And he makes a deplorable ape of himself.
Yet, if we may judge as the fashions prevail,
Every husband remembers the original plan,
And, knowing his wife is no more than his tail,
Why he leaves her behind him as much as he can.