He leaves our hearts all desolate,

He plucks our fairest, sweetest flowers;
Transplanted into bliss, they now
Adorn immortal bowers.

The bird-like voice, whose joyous tones,
Made glad these scenes of sin and strife,
Sings now an everlasting song,

Around the tree of life.

Where'er he sees a smile too bright,

Or heart too pure for taint and vice,

He bears it to that world of light,
To dwell in paradise.

Born unto that undying life,

They leave us but to come again;
With joy we welcome them the same,
Except their sin and pain.

And ever near us, though unseen,
The dear immortal spirits tread;
For all the boundless universe
Is life-there are no dead.

THE INDIANS.-JOSEPH STORY.

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. Everywhere, 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 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 should 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 also. Their love, like their hate, stopped not on this side of the grave.

But where are they? Where are the villagers, and warriors, and youths; 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 at their deserted villages. They cast a last glance upon the graves of their fathers. They shed no tears; they utter nɔ cries; they heave no groans. There is something in their hearts which passes speech. 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 nor 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 further, not distant, nor unseen. It is to the gen eral 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 aud misgiv ing as to the past; much of painful recollections; much of dark forebodings.

M

THE NANTUCKET SKIPPER.-JAMES T. Fields.

Many a long, long year ago,

Nantucket skippers had a plan

Of finding out, though "lying low,"

How near New York their schooners ran.

They greased the lead before it fell,

And then by sounding, through the night,
Knowing the soil that stuck so well,

They always guessed their reckoning right.
A skipper gray, whose eyes were dim,
Could tell, by tasting, just the spot,
And so below he'd "douse the glim,"-
After of course, his "something hot."

Snug in his berth, at eight o'clock,
This ancient skipper might be found;
No matter how his craft would rock,

He slept, for skippers' naps are sound.
The watch on deck would now and then
Run down and wake him, with the lead;
He'd up, and taste, and tell the men
How many miles they went ahead.

One night 'twas Jotham Marden's watch,
A curious wag,-the peddler's son ;
And so he mused, (the wanton wretch!)
"To-night I'll have a grain of fun.

"We're all a set of stupid fools,

To think the skipper knows, by tasting, What ground he's on; Nantucket schools

Don't teach such stuff, with all their basting?"

And so he took the well-greased lead,

And rubbed it o'er a box of earth That stood on deck,—a parsnip-bed,

And then he sought the skipper's berth.

"Where are we now, sir? Please to taste." The skipper yawned, put out his tongue, Opened his eyes in wondrous haste,

And then upon the floor he sprung!

The skipper stormed, and tore his hair,
Thrust on his boots, and roared to Marden,

"6 Nantucket's sunk, and here we are

Right over old Marı Hackett's garden!”

WHAT THE OLD MAN SAID.-ALICE ROBBINS. Well, yes, sir,—yes, sir, thankee;

So, so, for my time of life,

I'm pretty gray, and bent with pains
That cut my nerves like a knife.
The winters bear hard upon me,
The summers scorch me sore;
I'm sort o' weary of all the world,
And I'm only turned three-score.

My good old father is ninety,
And as hearty as a buck;

You wont find many men of his age
So full of vigor and pluck;

He felled the first tree cut in the place
And laid the first log down;
And living an honest temperate life,
He's the head man of the town.

But you see when I was twenty or so,
I wanted to go to the city,

And I got with a wild set over there,
That were neither wise nor witty;
And so I laid the foundation, sir,
Of what you see to-day,-
Old, little a-past the prime of life,
And a general wasting away.

"Taint a natural fever, this, sir;
It's one no doctor can cure;
I was made to bear strong burdens,-
Ox-like, and slow but sure.

But I only lived for my pleasures,

Though I had been Christian bred; I lived for self, sir, and here's the end, Crawling about half-dead.

Well, well, 'twont do to think on't;

I try to forget my pain,

My poisoned blood, and my shattered nerves,

My wreck of body and brain;

Only I saw you drinking just now,

Drinking that devil's drain;

There's where I liked to have stepped into hell,

And gone by the fastest train.

You don't like my blunt speech, mebbe;

Well, 'tisn't the nicest cut,

Only when a man's looked over the brink,

He knows what he's talking about;

And if, with his eyes wide open,

He's walked straight into the flame,

And nothing less than the mercy of God,
Has turned his glory to shame,

Then, when he says there's a drunkard's hell,
You'd better believe it is true;

I've fought with the devil hand-to-hand,

And tested him through and through;