Our children's fearless feet may bound, Free as the chamois leaps : Teach them in song to bless the band If, by the wood-fire's blaze, When winter-stars gleam cold, Forget not then the shepherd-race, Who made the hearth a holy place! Look on the white Alps round! If yet the sabbath bell Comes o'er them with a gladdening sound, Think on the battle-dell! For blood first bath'd its flowery sod, That chainless hearts might worship God! THE MESSENGER-BIRD. Some of the native Brazilians pay great veneration to a certain bird that sings mournfully in the night-time. They say it is a messenger which their deceased friends and relations have sent, and that it brings them news from the other world. See Picart's Ceremonies and Religious Customs. THOU art come from the spirits' land, thou bird! Through the dark pine-grove let thy voice be heard, We know that the bowers are green and fair In the light of that summer shore, And we know that the friends we have lost are there, They are there-and they weep no more! And we know they have quench'd their fever's thirst For there must the stream in its freshness burst, And we know that they will not be lur❜d to earth By the feast, or the dance, or the song of mirth, Though they sat with us by the night-fire's blaze, And heard the tales of our fathers' days, But tell us, thou bird of the solemn strain! We call and they answer not again— -Do they love-do they love us yet? * An expedition was actually undertaken by Juan Ponce de Leon, in the 16th century, with the view of discovering a wonderful fountain, believed by the natives of Puerto Rico to spring in one of the Lucayo Isles, and to possess the virtue of restoring youth to all who bathed in its waters.-See Robertson's History of America. Doth the warrior think of his brother there, And the father of his child? And the chief, of those that were wont to share His wanderings through the wild? We call them far through the silent night, We know, thou bird! that their land is bright, do they love there still? But say, THE STRANGER IN LOUISIANA. An early traveller mentions a people on the banks of the Mississippi who burst into tears at the sight of a stranger. The reason of this is, that they fancy their deceased friends and relations to be only gone on a journey, and being in constant expectation of their return, look for them vainly amongst these foreign travellers. Picart's Ceremonies and Religious Customs. "J'ai passé moi-même," says Chateaubriand in his Souvenirs d'Amerique, "chez une peuplade indienne qui se prenait à pleurer à la vue d'un voyageur, parce qu'il lui rappelait des amis partis pour la Contrée des Ames, et depuis long-tems en voyage." WE saw thee, O stranger, and wept! We look'd for the youth of the sunny glance, The path of his arrows a storm to flee! But there came a voice from a distant shore: He was call'd-he is found 'midst his tribe no more! |