THE

AMERICAN INDIAN's SONG.

STRANGER, stay! nor wish to climb
The heights of yonder hills sublime;
For there strange shapes and spirits dwell,*
That oft the murmuring thunders swell,
Of pow'r from the impending steep

To hurl thee headlong to the deep!

But secure with us abide,

By the winding river's side;

Our gladsome toil, our pleasures share,
And think not of a world of care.

The lonely cayman,† where he feeds
Among the green high-bending reeds,
Shall yield thee pastime; thy keen dart
Through his bright scales shall pierce his heart.

The Indians believe some of their high mountains to be inhabited by

supernatural beings.

+ Cayman-the Alligator.

102

THE AMERICAN INDIAN'S SONG.

Home returning from our toils,
Thou shalt bear the tyger's spoils;

And we will sing our loudest strain
O'er the forest-tyrant slain!

Sometimes thou shalt pause to hear
The beauteous cardinal sing clear,
Where hoary oaks, by time decay'd,
Nod in the deep wood's pathless glade;
And the sun with bursting ray
Quivers on the branches grey.

By the river's craggy banks, O'erhung with stately cypress-ranks, Where the bufh-bee* hums his song, Thy trim canoe shall graze along.

To-night at least, in this retreat, Stranger! rest thy wand'ring feet; To-morrow, with unerring bow,

To the deep thickets fearless we will go.

The bush-bee hives on shrubs and low trees..

MONODY,

WRITTEN

AT

MATLOCK.

MONODY,

WRITTEN AT

MATLOCK,

1791.

MATLOCK! amid thy hoary-hanging views,
Thy glens that smile sequester'd, and thy nooks
Which yon forsaken crag all dark o'erlooks,
Once more I meet the long-neglected Muse,
As erst when by the mossy brink and falls
Of solitary WENSBECK, or the side

Of CLYSDALE'S cliffs, where first her voice she try'd,
We wander'd in our youth.-Since then, the thralls
That wait life's upland road have chill'd her breast,
And much, as much they might, her wing depress'd-
Wan Indolence, resign'd, her dead'ning hand

Laid on her heart, and Fancy her cold wand
Dropp'd at the frown of fortune; yet once more
I call her, and once more her converse sweet,