“ After many years of warfare,
Many years of strife and bloodshed,
There is peace between the Ojibways
And the tribe of the Dacotahs.”
Thus continued Hiawatha ;
And then added, speaking slowly,
“ That this peace may last for ever,
And our hands be clasped more closely,
And our hearts be inore united,
Give me as my wife this maiden,
Minnehaha, Laughing Water,
Loveliest of Dacotah women.

And the ancient arrow-maker
Paused a moment ere he answered,
Smoked a little while in silence,
Looked at Hiawatha proudly,
Fondly looked at Laughing Water,
And made answer very gravely :
“Yes, if Minnehaha wishes :
Let your heart speak, Minnehaha.”

And the lovely Laughing Water
Seemed more lovely as she stood there,
Neither willing nor reluctant,
As she went to Hiawatha,
Softly took the seat beside liim,
While she said, and blushed to say it,
“ I will follow you, my husband."

This was Hiawatha's wooing :
Thus it was he won the daughter
Of the ancient arrow-maker,
In the land of the Dacotahs.

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.

BORN 1808, NEAR HAVERHILL, MASS.

Mr. Whittier, the Quaker Poet, has lived in Amesbury since 1840. As editor of The New-England Weekly Review," " Pennsylvania Review," and contributor to "The National Era" and "The Atlantic Monthly," he has everywhere devoted himself to the cause of truth and justice. No poet has spoken with more tenderness for humanity, or waged war more constantly and more defiantly with error and oppression. His intense hatred of wrong, and inexhaustible sympathy for struggling manhood, are always expressed with remarkable force and beauty in his prose and poetry.

PRINCIPAL PRODUCTIONS. “Mogg Megom," 1836; "'Tent on the Bench;" “ Voices of Freedom; " " Barefoot Bor;" * Old Portraits and Modern Sketches ;" * Songs of Labor, and Other Poems;” "Snowbound.” Poems in three volumes, or complete in one.

Yet, in the maddening maze of things,

And tossed by storm and flood,
To one fixed stake my spirit clings :

I know that God is good.
Not mine to look where cherubim

And seraphs may not see;
But nothing can be good in him

Which evil is in me.
The wrong that pains my soul below

I dare not throne above.
I know not of his hate : I know

His goodness and his love.
I dimly guess, from blessings known,

Of greater out of sight;
And, with the chastened Psalmist, own

His judgments, too, are right.
I long for household voices gone;

For vanished smiles I long :
But God hath led my dear ones on,

And he can do no wrong.
I know not what the future hath

Of marvel or surprise,
Assured alone that life and death

His mercy underlies.
And, if my heart and flesh are weak

To bear an untried pain,
The bruised reed he will not break,

But strengthen and sustain.
No offering of my own I have,

Nor works my faith to prove : I can but give the gifts he gave,

And plead his love for love.
And so beside the silent sea

I wait the muffled oar :
No harm from him can come to me

On ocean or on shore.
I know not where his islands lift

Their fronded palms in air :
I only know I can not drift

Beyond his love and care.
O brothers ! if my faith is vain,

If hopes like these betray,
Pray for me that my feet may gain

The sure and safer way.

And thou, O Lord ! by whom are seen

Thy creatures as they be,
Forgive me if too close I lean

My human heart on thee.

THE ANGELS OF BUENA VISTA.

“SPEAK and tell us, our Ximena, looking northward far away O’er the camp of the invaders, o'er the Mexican array, Who is losing? who is winning? Are they far? or come they near ? Look abroad, and tell us, sister, whither rolls the storm we hear." “Down the hills of Angostura still the storm of battle rolls. Blood is flowing; men are dying : God have mercy on their souls !” “ Who is losing? who is winning ?” * Over hill and over plain I see but smoke of cannon clouding through the mountain-rain.” “ Holy Mother, keep our brothers! Look, Ximena! look once more !”

Still I see the fearful whirlwind rolling darkly as before, Bearing on in strange confusion friend and foeman, foot and horse, Like some wild an:l troubled torrent sweeping down its mountain

course.”

“ Look forth once more, Ximena!” — “ Ah! the smoke has rolled away;
And I see the Northern ritles gleaming down the ranks of gray.
Hark! that sudden blast of bugles! there the troop of Minon wheels;
There the Northern horses thunder with the cannon at their heels.

" Jesu, pity! how it thickens ! now retreat, and now advance! Right against the blazing cannon shivers Puebla’s charging lance! Down they go, the brave young riders; horse and foot together fall: Like a plowshare in the fallow through them plows the Northern ball.” Nearer came the storm, and nearer, rolling fast and frightful on. “ Speak, Ximena, speak, and tell us who has lost and who has won.” “ Alas, alas ! I know not: friend and fou to rether fall : O'er the dying rush the living : pray, my sisters, for them all! “Lo! the wind the smoke is lifting. Blessed Mother, save my brain ! I can see the wounded crawling slowly out from heaps of slain. Now they stagger, blind and bleeding ; now they fall, and strive to rise: Hasten, sisters, haste and save them, lest they die before our eyes! “O my heart's love! O my dear one! lay thy poor head on my knee: Dost thou know the lips that kiss thee? Canst thou hear me? canst

thou see? O my husband, brave and gentle! O my Bernal ! look once more On the blessed cross before thee! Merey, mercy! all is o'er!”

“ Dry thy tears, my poor Ximena; lay thy dear one down to rest ;
Let his hands he meekly folded ; lay the cross upon his breast :
Let his dirge he sung hereafter, and his funeral masses said :
Today, thou poor bereaved one, the living ask thy aid.”
Close beside her, faintly moaning, fair and young, a soldier lay,
Torn with shot and pierced withi lances, bleeding slow his life away;
But, as tenderly before him the lorn Ximena knelt,
She saw the Northern eagle shining on his pistol-belt.
With a stifled cry of horror straight she turned away her head ;
With a sad and bitter feeling looked she back upon her dead:
But she heard the youth's low moaning, and his struggling breath of

pain ;
And she raised the cooling water to his parching lips again.
Whispered low the dying soldier, pressed her hand, and faintly smiled :
Was that pitying face his mother's ? did she watch beside her child ?
All his stranger words with meaning her woman's heart supplied :
With her kiss upon his forehead, “ Mother!” murmured he, and died.
A bitter curse upon them, poor boy, who led thee forth
From some gentle sad-eyed mother, weeping lonely in the North !”
Spake the mournful Mexic woman, as she laid him with her dead,
And turned to soothe the living, and bind the wounds which bled.
“Look forth once more, Ximena ! “ Like a cloud before the wind
Rolls the battle down the mountains, leaving blood and death behind.
Ah! they plead in vain for mercy; in the dust the wounded strive:
Hide your faces, holy angels! O thou Christ of God, forgive!”
Sink, O Night! among thy mountains ; let the cool gray shadows fall;
Dying brothers, fighting demons, — drop thy curtain over all!
Through the thickening winter twilight, wide apart the battle rolled :
In its sheath the saber rested, and the cannon's lips grew cold.
But the noble Mexic women still their holy task pursued :
Through that long, dark night of sorrow, worn and faint, and lacking

food, Over weak and suffering brothers with a tender care they hung; And the dying foeman blessed them in a strange and Northern tongue. Not wholly lost, O Father! is this evil world of ours; Upward through its blood and ashes spring afresh the Eden flowers ; From its smoking hell of battle, Love and Pity send their prayer; And still thy white-winged angels hover dimly in our air.

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