The sentry pigeon guards from foe
The flock that dots the woods below.

See! on this edge of forest lawn,
Where sleeps the clouded beam,
A doe has led her spotted fawn

To gambol by the stream;
Beside yon mullein's braided stalk
They hear the gurgling voices talk,
While, like a wandering gleam,
The yellow-bird dives here and there,
A feathered vessel of the air.

On, through the rampart walls of rock,
The waters pitch in white,
And high, in mist, the cedars lock
Their boughs, half lost to sight
Above the whirling gulf, - the dash
Of frenzied floods, that vainly lash
Their limits in their flight,
Whose roar the eagle, from his peak,
Responds to with his angriest shriek.

Stream of the wilds! the Indian here,
Free as thy chainless flow,
Has bent against thy depths his spear,
And in thy woods his bow,
The beaver built his dome; but they,
The memories of an earlier day,

Like those dead trunks, that show
What once were mighty pines, - have fled
With Time's unceasing, rapid tread.

Alfred Billings Street.

Canepo, the Lake, N. Y.

W

LAKE CANEΡΟ.

THEN cradled on thy placid breast,
In hushed content I loved to muse,
Too full the heart, too sweet the rest,
For thought and speech to interfuse.

But now, when thou art shrined afar,
Like Nature's chosen urn of peace,
Remembrance, like the evening star,
Begins a vigil ne'er to cease.

Each mossy rock, each fairy isle,
Inlets with thickets overhung,
The cloud's rose-tint or fleecy pile,
And Echo's wildly frolic tongue ;

The light and shade that o'er thee play,
The ripple of thy moonlit wave,
The long, calm, dreamy summer day,
The very stones thy waters lave;

The converse frank, the harmless jest,
The reverie without a sigh,
The hammock's undulating rest,
With fair companions seated by;

Yet linger, as if near thee still,
I heard, upon the fitful breeze,

1

The locust and the whippoorwill,
Or rustle of the swaying trees.

Hills rise in graceful curves around,
Here dark with tangled forest shade,
There yellow with the harvest-ground,
Or emerald with the open glade;

Primeval chestnuts line the strand,
And hemlocks every mountain side,
While, by each passing zephyr fanned,
Azalea flowers kiss the tide.

We nestle in the gliding barge,
And turn from yon unclouded sky,
To watch, along the bosky marge,
Its image in thy waters nigh.

Or, gently darting to and fro,

The insects on their face explore, With speckled minnows poised below, And tortoise on the pebbly floor.

Or turn the prow to some lone bay,
Where thick the floating leaves are spread;
How bright and queen-like the array
Of lilies in their crystal bed!

*

*

*

Henry Theodore Tuckerman.

Catskill Mountains, N. Y.

CATSKILL MOUNTAINS.

AND, lo! the Catskills print the distant sky,

And o'er their airy tops the faint clouds driven, So softly blending, that the cheated eye Forgets or which is earth or which is heaven, Sometimes, like thunder-clouds, they shade the even, Till, as you nearer draw, each wooded height Puts off the azure hues by distance given: And slowly break upon the enamored sight, Ravine, crag, field, and wood, in colors true and bright.

Mount to the cloud-kissed summit. Far below Spreads the vast champaign like a shoreless sea. Mark yonder narrow streamlet feebly flow, Like idle brook that creeps ingloriously; Can that the lovely, lordly Hudson be, Stealing by town and mountain? Who beholds, At break of day, this scene, when, silently, Its map of field, wood, hamlet, is unrolled, While, in the east, the sun uprears his locks of gold,

Till earth receive him never can forget? Even when returned amid the city's roar, The fairy vision haunts his memory yet, As in the sailor's fancy shines the shore. Imagination cons the moment o'er, When first-discovered, awe-struck and amazed, Scarce loftier Jove - whom men and gods adore On the extended earth beneath him gazed, Temple, and tower, and town, by human insect raised. Blow, scented gale, the snowy canvas swell, And flow, thou silver, eddying current, on. Grieve we to bid each lovely point farewell, That, ere its graces half are seen, is gone. By woody bluff we steal, by leaning lawn, By palace, village, cot, a sweet surprise, At every turn the vision breaks upon; Till to our wondering and uplifted eyes The Highland rocks and hills in solemn grandeur rise.

H

*

*

CATSKILL.

*

Theodore S. Fay.

senses at the sight!

OW reel the wildered How vast the boundless vision breaks in view! Nor thought, nor word, can well depict the scene; The din of toil comes faintly swelling up From green fields far below; and all around The forest sea sends up its ceaseless roar Like to the ocean's everlasting chime. Mountains on mountains in the distance rise, Like clouds along the far horizon's verge; Their misty summits mingling with the sky, Till earth and heaven seem blended into one. So far removed from toil and bustling care, So far from earth, if heaven no nearer be, And gazing, as a spirit, from mid-air Upon the strife and tumult of the world, Let me forget the cares I leave behind, And with an humble spirit, bow before The Maker of these everlasting hills.

Bayard Taylor.