I wheeled around the welcome bark,
As it sought the desolate shore,
And up to heaven, like a joyous lark,
My quivering pinions bore.

And now that bold and hardy few

Are a nation wide and strong;

And danger and doubt I have led them through,
And they worship me in song;

And over their bright and glancing arms,
On field, and lake, and sea,

With an eye that fires, and a spell that charms,
I guide them to victory."

Salmon River.*-BRAINARD.

'Tis a sweet stream; and so, 'tis true, are all That, undisturbed, save by the harmless brawl Of mimic rapid or slight waterfall,

Pursue their way

By mossy bank, and darkly waving wood,
By rock, that, since the deluge, fixed has stood,
Showing to sun and moon their crisping flood
By night and day.

But yet there's something in its humble rank,
Something in its pure wave and sloping bank,
Where the deer sported, and the young fawn drank
With unscared look;

There's much in its wild history, that teems
With all that's superstitious, and that seems
To match our fancy and eke out our dreams,
In that small brook.

Havoc has been upon its peaceful plain,

And blood has dropped there, like the drops of rain; The corn grows o'er the still graves of the slain;

And many a quiver,

Filled from the reeds that grew on yonder hill,

*This river enters into the Connecticut at East Haddam.

Has spent itself in carnage. Now 'tis still,
And whistling ploughboys oft their runlets fill
From Salmon river.

Here, say old men, the Indian Magi made
Their spells by moonlight; or beneath the shade
That shrouds sequestered rock, or dark'ning glade,
Or tangled dell.

Here Philip came, and Miantonimo,

And asked about their fortunes long ago,

As Saul to Endor, that her witch might show
Old Samuel.

And here the black fox roved, that howled and shook
His thick tail to the hunters, by the brook
Where they pursued their game, and him mistook
For earthly fox;

Thinking to shoot him like a shaggy bear,

And his soft peltry, stripped and dressed, to wear,
Or lay a trap, and from his quiet lair

Transfer him to a box.

Such are the tales they tell. 'Tis hard to rhyme
About a little and unnoticed stream,

That few have heard of; but it is a theme
I chance to love:

And one day I may tune my rye-straw reed,
And whistle to the note of many a deed
Done on this river, which, if there be need,
I'll try to prove.

To the Evening Wind.-BRYANT.*

SPIRIT that breathest through my lattice, thou
That cool'st the twilight of the sultry day,

The Talisman has contained some very beautiful poetry, each year of its publication; but this, we had almost said it is the sweetest thing in the language. Not in any one of the Souvenirs, either English or American, has there ever appeared a page of such pure, deep, finished poetry. It has all the characteristics of Bryant's style-his chaste elegance, both in thought and expression,-ornament enough, but not in profusion or display,-imagery that is natural, appropriate, and, in this instance, peculiarly soothing,-select and melodious language,-harmony in the flow of the stanza, gentleness of feeling, and richness of philosophy.-Ed.

Gratefully flows thy freshness round my brow;
Thou hast been out upon the deep at play,
Riding all day the wild blue waves till now,

Roughening their crests, and scattering high their spray,
And swelling the white sail. I welcome thee
To the scorched land, thou wanderer of the sea!

Nor I alone-a thousand bosoms round

Inhale thee in the fulness of delight;
And languid forms rise up, and pulses bound
Livelier, at coming of the wind of night;
And, languishing to hear thy grateful sound,
Lies the vast inland stretched beyond the sight.
Go forth into the gathering shade; go forth,
God's blessing breathed upon the fainting earth!

Go, rock the little wood-bird in his nest,

Curl the still waters, bright with stars, and rouse
The wide old wood from his majestic rest,

Summoning from the innumerable boughs
The strange, deep harmonies that haunt his breast;
Pleasant shall be thy way where meekly bows
The shutting flower, and darkling waters pass,
And 'twixt the o'ershadowing branches and the grass.

The faint old man shall lean his silver head

To feel thee; thou shalt kiss the child asleep,

And dry the moistened curls that overspread

His temples, while his breathing grows more deep;
And they who stand about the sick man's bed,
Shall joy to listen to thy distant sweep,

And softly part his curtains to allow
Thy visit, grateful to his burning brow.

Go-but the circle of eternal change,

That is the life of nature, shall restore,

With sounds and scents from all thy mighty range,
Thee to thy birth-place of the deep once more;
Sweet odors in the sea-air, sweet and strange,
Shall tell the home-sick mariner of the shore;
And, listening to thy murmur, he shall deem
He hears the rustling leaf and running stream.

The Grave of the Indian Chief. PERCIVAL.

THEY laid the corse of the wild and brave

On the sweet, fresh earth of the new day grave, On the gentle hill, where wild weeds waved, And flowers and grass were flourishing

They laid within the peaceful bed,

Close by the Indian chieftain's head, His bow and arrows; and they said,

That he had found new hunting grounds,

Where bounteous Nature only tills

The willing soil; and o'er whose hills,
And down beside the shady rills,
The hero roams eternally.

And these fair isles to the westward lie,
Beneath a golden sun-set sky,
Where youth and beauty never die,

And song and dance move endlessly.

They told of the feats of his dog and gun,
They told of the deeds his arm had done,

They sung of battles lost and won,
And so they paid his eulogy.

And o'er his arms, and o'er his bones,
They raised a simple pile of stones;
Which, hallowed by their tears and moans,
Was all the Indian's monument.

And since the chieftain here has slept,
Full many a winter's winds have swept,
And many an age has softly crept

Over his humble sepulchre.

Escape from Winter.- PERCIVAL.

O, HAD I the wings of a swallow, I'd fly Where the roses are blossoming all the year long;

Where the landscape is always a feast to the eye,
And the bills of the warblers are ever in song;
O, then I would fly from the cold and the snow,
And hie to the land of the orange and vine,
And carol the winter away in the glow

That rolls o'er the evergreen bowers of the line.

Indeed, I should gloomily steal o'er the deep,

Like the storm-loving petrel, that skims there alone;
I would take me a dear little martin to keep
A sociable flight to the tropical zone;
How cheerily, wing by wing, over the sea,

We would fly from the dark clouds of winter away!
And forever our song and our twitter should be,
"To the land where the year is eternally gay."

We would nestle awhile in the jessamine bowers,
And take up our lodge in the crown of the palm,
And live, like the bee, on its fruit and its flowers,
That always are flowing with honey and balm;
And there we would stay, till the winter is o'er,
And April is chequered with sunshine and rain—
O, then we would fly from that far-distant shore,
Over island and wave, to our country again.

How light we would skim, where the billows are rolled
Through clusters that bend with the cane and the lime,
And break on the beaches in surges of gold,

When morning comes forth in her loveliest prime!
We would touch for a while, as we traversed the ocean,
At the islands that echoed to Waller and Moore,

And winnow our wings, with an easier motion,

Through the breath of the cedar, that blows from the shore.

And when we had rested our wings, and had fed

On the sweetness that comes from the juniper groves,

By the spirit of home and of infancy led,

We would hurry again to the land of our loves;

And when from the breast of the ocean would spring,
Far off in the distance, that dear native shore,

In the joy of our hearts we would cheerily sing,
"No land is so lovely, when winter is o'er."