THE INCHCAPE ROCK.

No stir in the air, no stir in the sea;
The ship was still as she could be ;
Her sails from heaven received no motion,
Her keel was steady in the ocean.

Without either sign or sound of their shock,
The waves flowed over the Inchcape rock;
So little they rose, so little they fell,
They did not move the Inchcape bell.

The abbot of Aberbrothok

Had placed that bell on the Inchcape rock,
On a buoy in the storm it floated and swung,
And over the waves its warning rung.

When the rocks were hid by the surge's swell,
The mariners heard the warning bell;
And then they knew the perilous rock,
And blessed the abbot of Aberbrothok.

The sun in heaven was shining gay,

All things were joyful on that day;

The sea-birds screamed as they wheeled round, And there was joyance in their sound.

The buoy of the Inchcape bell was seen
A darker speck on the ocean green;
Sir Ralph the Rover walked his deck,
And he fixed his eye on the darker speck.

His heart was mirthful to excess,
But the rover's mirth was wickedness.

His eye was on the Inchcape float;
Quoth he, "My men, put out the boat,
And row me to the Inchcape rock,
And I'll plague the abbot of Aberbrothok."

The boat is lowered, the boatmen row,
And to the Inchcape rock they go;
Sir Ralph bent over from the boat,

And he cut the bell from the Inchcape float.

Down sunk the bell with a gurgling sound;

The bubbles rose, and burst around:

Quoth Sir Ralph, "The next who comes to the rock Won't bless the abbot of Aberbrothok."

Sir Ralph the Rover sailed away;
He scoured the seas for many a day;

And now grown rich with plundered store,
He steers his course for Scotland's shore.

So thick a haze o'erspreads the sky,
They cannot see the sun on high;
The wind hath blown a gale all day,
At evening it hath died away.

On the deck the Rover takes his stand
So dark it is they see no land;
Quoth Sir Ralph, "It will be lighter soon,
For there is the dawn of the rising moon.'

"Canst hear," said one," the breakers roar? For methinks we should be near the shore.

Now where we are I cannot tell,

But I wish we could hear the Inchcape bell."

They hear no sound; the swell is strong;
Though the wind hath fallen, they drift along;
Till the vessel strikes with a shivering shock:
O, Death! it is the Inchcape rock.

Sir Ralph the Rover tore his hair,
Well might he rave in black despair;
The waves rush in on every side;
The ship is sinking beneath the tide.

SOUTHEY.

THE INDIANS.

Aews; ow like long o. FORESTS; sound sts. JUDGMENT; ĕnt, not Üni. INFANTS, sound nts. WARM; sound r. WESTERN; er as in her ; tern, ot tun.

THERE is, in the fate of these unfortunate beings, much to awaken our sympathy, and much to disturb the sobriety of our judgment; much which may be urged to excuse their own atrocities; much in their characters which betrays us into an involuntary admiration. What can be more melancholy than their history? By a law of their nature, they seem destined to a slow, but sure extinction. Every where, at the approach of the white man, they fade away. We hear the rustling of their footsteps, like that of the withered leaves of autumn, and they are gone forever. They pass mournfully by us, and they return no more.

Two centuries ago, the smoke of their wigwams and the fires of their councils rose in every valley, from Hudson's Bay to the farthest Florida, from the ocean to the Mississippi and the lakes. The shouts of victory and the war-dance h 255, 297.

o 115.

rang through the mountains and the glades. The thick arrows and the deadly tomahawk whistled through the forests; and the hunter's trace and dark encampment startled the wild beasts in their lairs. The warriors stood forth in their glory.

The young listened to the songs of other days. The mothers played with their infants, and gazed on the scene with warm hopes of the future. The aged sat down, but they wept not. They would soon be at rest in fairer regions, where the Great Spirit dwelt, in a home prepared for the brave, beyond the western skies. Braver men never lived; truer men never drew the bow. They had courage, and fortitude, and sagacity, and perseverance, beyond most of the human race.

They shrank from no dangers, and they feared no hardships. If they had the vices of savage life, they had the virtues also. They were true to their country, their friends, and their homes. If they forgave not injury, neither did they forget kindness. If their vengeance was terrible, their fidelity and generosity were unconquerable alr Their love, like their hate, stopped not on this side of the grave.

But where are they? Where are the villagers, and warriors, and youth; the sachems and the tribes; the hunters and their families? They have perished. They are consumed. The wasting pestilence has not alone done the mighty work. No, nor famine, nor war. There has been a mightier power, a moral canker, which has eaten into their heart-cores; a plague, which the touch of the white man communicated; a poison, which betrayed them into a lingering ruin.

The winds of the Atlantic fan not a single region which they may now call their own. Already the last feeble remnants of the race are preparing for their journey beyond the Mississippi. I see them leave their miserable homes, the aged, the helpless, the women, and the warriors, "few and

faint, yet fearless still." The ashes are cold on their native hearths. The smoke no longer curls round their lowly cabins.

They move on with a slow, unsteady step. The white man is upon their heels, for terror or despatch; but they heed him not. They turn to take a last look of their deserted villages. They cast a last glance upon the graves of their fathers. They shed no tears; they utter no cries; they heave no groans. There is something in their hearts which

passes speeck.

There is something in their looks, not of vengeance or submission, but of hard necessity, which stifles both; which chokes all utterance; which has no aim or method. It is courage absorbed in despair. They linger but for a moment. Their look is onward. They have passed the fatal stream. It shall never be repassed by them, — no, never. Yet there lies not between us and them an impassable gulf. They know and feel that there is for them still one remove farther, not distant, nor unseen. It is to the general burial-ground

of their race.

Reason as we may, it is impossible not to read in such a fate much that we know not how to interpret; much of provocation to cruel deeds and deep resentments; much of apology for wrong and perfidy; much of pity mingling with indignation; much of doubt and misgiving as to the past; much of painful recollections; much of dark forebodings.

JUDGE STORY.

ATROCITY; extreme cruelty. GLADES ; natural openings in the forest. LAIR; a bed or couch of a wild beast. SAGACITY; the faculty of readily discerning and distinguishing ideas, of separating truth from falsehood PERFIDY; a violation of a trust reposed, treachery.