With tools for ready wit to guide;
And ornaments of seemlier pride,

More fresh, more bright, than princes wear;
For what one moment flung aside,
Another could repair ;

What good or evil have they seen
Since I their pastime witnessed here,

Their daring wiles, their sportive cheer?
I ask-but all is dark between!

They met me in a genial hour,
When universal nature breathed

As with the breath of one sweet flower,-
A time to overrule the power

Of discontent, and check the birth

Of thoughts with better thoughts at strife,
The most familiar bane of life

Since parting Innocence bequeathed
Mortality to Earth!

Soft clouds, the whitest of the year,

Sailed through the sky-the brooks ran clear;
The lambs from rock to rock were bounding;
With songs the budded groves resounding;
And to my heart are still endeared

The thoughts with which it then was cheered;
The faith which saw that gladsome pair
Walk through the fire with unsinged hair.
Or, if such faith must needs deceive-
Then, Spirits of beauty and of grace,
Associates in that eager chase;
Ye, who within the blameless mind
Your favourite seat of empire find-
Kind Spirits! may we not believe

That they, so happy and so fair

Through your sweet influence, and the care
Of pitying Heaven, at least were free

From touch of deadly injury?

Destined, whate'er their earthly doom,
For mercy and immortal bloom?

YE

XX

GIPSIES

1817.

ET are they here, the same unbroken knot
Of human Beings, in the self-same spot!

Men, women, children, yea the frame

Of the whole spectacle the same!

Only their fire seems bolder, yielding light,
Now deep and red, the colouring of night;
That on their Gipsy-faces falls,

Their bed of straw and blanket-walls.

-Twelve hours, twelve bounteous hours are gone,

while I

Have been a traveller under open sky,

Much witnessing of change and cheer,
Yet as I left I find them here!

The weary Sun betook himself to rest ;-
Then issued Vesper from the fulgent west,
Outshining like a visible God

The glorious path in which he trod.
And now, ascending, after one dark hour
And one night's diminution of her power,
Behold the mighty Moon! this way
She looks as if at them-but they
Regard not her :-oh, better wrong and strife
(By nature transient) than this torpid life;
Life which the very stars reprove
As on their silent tasks they move!
Yet, witness all that stirs in heaven or earth!
In scorn I speak not;-they are what their birth
And breeding suffer them to be;
Wild outcasts of society!

ΙΟ

20

And she had made a pipe of straw,
And music from that pipe could draw
Like sounds of winds and floods;
Had built a bower upon the green,
As if she from her birth had been
An infant of the woods.

Beneath her father's roof, alone

She seemed to live; her thoughts her own;

1807

IO

Herself her own delight;

Pleased with herself, nor sad, nor gay;
And, passing thus the live-long day,
She grew to woman's height.

There came a Youth from Georgia's shore—
A military casque he wore,

With splendid feathers drest;

He brought them from the Cherokees;

The feathers nodded in the breeze,

And made a gallant crest.

From Indian blood you

deem him sprung:

But no! he spake the English tongue,

And bore a soldier's name;

And, when America was free

From battle and from jeopardy,

He 'cross the ocean came.

With hues of genius on his cheek

In finest tones the Youth could speak:
-While he was yet a boy,

The moon, the glory of the sun,

And streams that murmur as they run,

Had been his dearest joy.

He was a lovely Youth! I guess

The panther in the wilderness

Was not so fair as he;

And, when he chose to sport and play,

No dolphin ever was so gay

Upon the tropic sea.

Among the Indians he had fought,

And with him many tales he brought

Of pleasure and of fear;

Such tales as told to any maid

By such a Youth, in the green shade,

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He spake of plants that hourly change
Their blossoms, through a boundless range
Of intermingling hues;

With budding, fading, faded flowers

They stand the wonder of the bowers
From morn to evening dews.

He told of the magnolia, spread
High as a cloud, high over head!
The cypress and her spire;

-Of flowers that with one scarlet gleam
Cover a hundred leagues, and seem
To set the hills on fire.

The Youth of green savannahs spake,
And many an endless, endless lake,
With all its fairy crowds

Of islands, that together lie

As quietly as spots of sky
Among the evening clouds.

'How pleasant,' then he said, 'it were
A fisher or a hunter there,

In sunshine or in shade

To wander with an easy mind;

And build a household fire, and find

A home in every glade!

'What days and what bright years! Ah me!

Our life were life indeed, with thee

So passed in quiet bliss ;

And all the while,' said he, 'to know
That we were in a world of woe,

On such an earth as this!'

'Sweet Ruth! and could you go with me

My helpmate in the woods to be,

Our shed at night to rear;

Or run, my own adopted bride,

A sylvan huntress at my side,

And drive the flying deer!

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'Beloved Ruth!'-No more he said.
The wakeful Ruth at midnight shed
A solitary tear:

She thought again-and did agree
With him to sail across the sea,
And drive the flying deer.

'And now, as fitting is and right,

We in the church our faith will plight,
A husband and a wife.'

Even so they did; and I may say

That to sweet Ruth that happy day
Was more than human life.

Through dream and vision did she sink,
Delighted all the while to think
That on those lonesome floods,
And green savannahs, she should share
His board with lawful joy, and bear
His name in the wild woods.

But, as you have before been told,
This Stripling, sportive, gay, and bold,
And, with his dancing crest,

So beautiful, through savage lands

Had roamed about, with vagrant bands
Of Indians in the West.

The wind, the tempest roaring high,
The tumult of a tropic sky,
Might well be dangerous food

For him, a Youth to whom was given
So much of earth-so much of heaven,
And such impetuous blood.

Whatever in those climes he found
Irregular in sight or sound

Did to his mind impart

A kindred impulse, seemed allied

130

To his own powers, and justified

The workings of his heart.

Nor less, to feed voluptuous thought,

The beauteous forms of nature wrought,
Fair trees and gorgeous flowers;
The breezes their own languor lent;
The stars had feelings, which they sent
Into those favoured bowers.