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النشر الإلكتروني

The veil of cloud was lifted, and below | Departs with silent pace! That spirit Glowed the rich valley, and the river's flow

Was darkened by the forest's shade,
Or glistened in the white cascade ;
Where upward, in the mellow blush of
day,

The noisy bittern wheeled his spiral way.

I heard the distant waters dash, I saw the current whirl and flash, And richly, by the blue lake's silver beach,

The woods were bending with a silent reach.

Then o'er the vale, with gentle swell,
The music of the village bell

Came sweetly to the echo-giving hills; And the wild horn, whose voice the woodland fills,

Was ringing to the merry shout,
That faint and far the glen sent out,
Where, answering to the sudden shot,
thin smoke,

through thick-leaved branches, from the dingle broke.

If thou art worn and hard beset

With sorrows, that thou wouldst forget, Af thou wouldst read a lesson, that will keep

hy heart from fainting and thy soul

from sleep,

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moves

In the green valley, where the silver

brook,

From its full laver, pours the white cascade;

And, babbling low amid the tangled woods,

Slips down through moss-grown stones with endless laughter.

And frequent, on the everlasting hills, Its feet go forth, when it doth wrap itself In all the dark embroidery of the storm, And shouts the stern, strong wind. And here, amid

The silent majesty of these deep woods, Its presence shall uplift thy thoughts from earth,

As to the sunshine and the pure, bright air

Their tops the green trees lift. Hence gifted bards

Have ever loved the calm and quiet

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In many a lazy syllable, repeating
Their old poetic legends to the wind.

And this is the sweet spirit, that doth
fill

The world; and, in these wayward days of youth,

My busy fancy oft embodies it,
As a bright image of the light and beauty
That dwell in nature; of the heavenly
forms

We worship in our dreams, and the soft hues

That stain the wild bird's wing, and flush the clouds

When the sun sets. Within her tender, The tall, gray forest; and a band

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BURIAL OF THE MINNISINK.

ON sunny slope and beechen swell,
The shadowed light of evening fell;
And, where the maple's leaf was brown,
With soft and silent lapse came down,
The glory, that the wood receives,
At sunset, in its golden leaves.

Far upward in the mellow light
Rose the blue hills. One cloud of white,
Around a far uplifted cone,

In the warm blush of evening shone ;
An image of the silver lakes,
By which the Indian's soul awakes.

But soon a funeral hymn was heard Where the soft breath of evening stirred

Of stern in heart, and strong in hand,
Came winding down beside the wave,
To lay the red chief in his grave.

They sang, that by his native bowers
He stood, in the last moon of flowers,
And thirty snows had not yet shed
Their glory on the warrior's head;
But, as the summer fruit decays,
So died he in those naked days.

A dark cloak of the roebuck's skin Covered the warrior, and within Its heavy folds the weapons, made For the hard toils of war, were laid; The cuirass, woven of plaited reeds, And the broad belt of shells and beads.

Before, a dark-haired virgin train
Chanted the death dirge of the slain;
Behind, the long procession came
Of hoary men and chiefs of fame,
With heavy hearts, and eyes of grief,
Leading the war-horse of their chief.

Stripped of his proud and martial
dress,

Uncurbed, unreined, and riderless,
With darting eye, and nostril spread,
And heavy and impatient tread,
He came; and oft that eye so proud
Asked for his rider in the crowd.

They buried the dark chief; they freed
Beside the grave his battle steed;
And swift an arrow cleaved its way
To his stern heart! One piercing neigh
Arose, and, on the dead man's plain,
The rider grasps his steed again.

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"A BAND, OF STERN IN HEART, AND STRONG IN HAND, CAME WINDING DOWN." - Page 10.

TRANSLATIONS.

[Don Jorge Manrique, the author of the following poem, flourished in the last half of the fifteenth century. He followed the profession of arms, and died on the field of battle. Mariana, in his History of Spain, makes honorable mention of him, as being present at the siege of Uclés; and speaks of him as "a youth of estimable qualities, who in this war gave brilliant proofs of his valor. He died young; and was thus cut off from long exercising his great virtues, and exhibiting to the world the light of his genius, which was already known to fame." He was mortally wounded in skirmish near Cañavete, in the year 1479.

The name of Rodrigo Manrique, the father of the poet, Conde de Paredes and Maestre de Santiago, is well known in Spanish history and song. He died in 1476; according to Mariana, in the town of Uclés; but, according to the poem of his son, in Ocana. It was his death that called forth the poem upon which rests the literary reputation of the younger Manrique. In the language of his historian, "Don Jorge Manrique, in an elegant Ode, full of poetic beauties, rich embellishments of genius, and high moral reflections, mourned the death of his father as with a funeral hymn." This praise is not exaggerated. The poem is a model in its kind. Its conception is solemn and beautiful; and, in accordance with it, the style moves on, calm, dignified, and majestic.]

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