THE HUNTER OF THE PRAIRIES,

Ay this is freedom! - these pure skies

Were never stained with village smoke : The fragrant wind, that through them flies, Is breathed from wastes by plough unbroke. Here, with my rifle and my steed,

And her who left the world for me, I plant me, where the red deer feed In the green desert and am free.

For here the fair savannas know

No barriers in the bloomy grass;
Wherever breeze of heaven may blow,
Or beam of heaven may glance, I pass.

In pastures, measureless as air,

The bison is my noble game;

The bounding elk, whose antlers tear
The branches, falls before my aim.

Mine are the river-fowl that scream

From the long stripe of waving sedge; The bear, that marks my weapon's gleam, Hides vainly in the forest's edge;

In vain the she-wolf stands at bay;
The brinded catamount, that lies
High in the boughs to watch his prey,
Even in the act of springing, dies.

With what free growth the elm and plane Fling their huge arms across my way, Gray, old, and cumbered with a train

Of vines, as huge, and old, and gray Free stray the lucid streams, and find

!

No taint in these fresh lawns and shades ; Free spring the flowers that scent the wind Where never scythe has swept the glades.

Alone the Fire, when frostwinds sere
The heavy herbage of the ground,
Gathers his annual harvest here,

With roaring like the battle's sound,
And hurrying flames that sweep the plain,
And smoke-streams gushing up the sky :

I meet the flames with flames again,
And at my door they cower and die.

Here, from dim woods, the aged past
Speaks solemnly; and I behold

The boundless future in the vast

And lonely river, seaward rolled.

Who feeds its founts with rain and dew?
Who moves, I ask, its gliding mass,
And trains the bordering vines, whose blue
Bright clusters tempt me as I pass?

Broad are these streams- my steed obeys,
Plunges, and bears me through the tide.
Wide are these woods -I thread the maze

Of giant stems, nor ask a guide.

I hunt, till day's last glimmer dies
O'er woody vale and grassy height;
And kind the voice and glad the eyes,
That welcome my return at night.

THE DAMSEL OF PERU.

WHERE olive leaves were twinkling in every wind that blew,

There sat beneath the pleasant shade a damsel of

Peru.

Betwixt the slender boughs, as they opened to the

air,

Came glimpses of her ivory neck and of her glossy

hair;

And sweetly rang her silver voice, within that shady nook,

As from the shrubby glen is heard the sound of hidden brook.

'Tis a song of love and valor, in the noble Spanish

tongue,

That once upon the sunny plains of old Castile

was sung;

When, from their mountain holds, on the Moorish

rout below,

Had rushed the Christians like a flood, and swept

away the foe.

Awhile that melody is still, and then breaks forth

anew

A wilder rhyme, a livelier note, of freedom and Peru.

A white hand parts the branches, a lovely face looks forth,

And bright dark eyes gaze steadfastly and sadly toward the north.

Thou look'st in vain, sweet maiden, the sharpest sight would fail,

To spy a sign of human life abroad in all the vale; For the noon is coming on, and the sunbeams fiercely beat,

And the silent hills and forest-tops seem reeling in the heat.

That white hand is withdrawn, that fair sad face

is gone,

But the music of that silver voice is flowing sweetly on,

Not as of late, in cheerful tones, but mournfully

A ballad of a tender maid heart-broken long ago, Of him who died in battle, the youthful and the

brave,

And her who died of sorrow, upon his early

grave.