Our wily Indian foe,

In the days when we were pioneers,
FIFTY YEARS AGO!

We shunned not labor; when 'twas due,
We wrought with right good will;
And, for the home we won for them,
Our children bless us still.

We lived not hermit lives, but oft
In social converse met;

And fires of love were kindled then,
That burn on warmly yet.
O pleasantly the stream of life
Pursued its constant flow,

In the days when we were pioneers,
FIFTY YEARS AGO!

We felt that we were fellow-men;
We felt we were a band
Sustained here in the wilderness

By Heaven's upholding hand.
And, when the solemn Sabbath came,
We gathered in the wood,
And lifted up our hearts in prayer
To God, the only Good.

Our temples then were earth and sky;
None others did we know

In the days when we were pioneers,
FIFTY YEARS AGO!

Our forest life was rough and rude,
And dangers closed us round,
But here, amid the green old trees,
Freedom we sought and found.

SONG OF THE PIONEERS.

Oft through our dwellings wintry blasts
Would rush with shriek and moan;
We cared not-though they were but frail,
We felt they were our own!

O free and manly lives we led,

Mid verdure or mid snow,

In the days when we were pioneers,
FIFTY YEARS AGO!

But now our course of life is short;
And as, from day to day,

We're walking on with halting step,
And fainting by the way,
Another land, more bright than this,
To our dim sight appears,

And on our way to it we'll soon
Again be pioneers!

Yet while we linger, we may all

A backward glance still throw
To the days when we were pioneers,
FIFTY YEARS AGO!

355

BYRON'S FINEST IMAGE.

[The following lines, from Lord Byron's English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, refer to Henry Kirke White, a too ardent student, born at Nottingham, England, March 21, 1785, and died at Cambridge, England, Oct. 19, 1806. Byron says of H. K. White: "His poems abound in such beauties as must impress the reader with the liveliest regret that so short a period was allotted to talents which would have dignified even the sacred functions he was destined to assume."]

Unhappy White! while life was in its spring,

And thy young muse just waved its joyous wing,
The spoiler came; and all thy promise fair
Has sought the grave, to sleep for ever there.
Oh! what a noble heart was here undone,
When Science 'self destroy'd her favorite son!
Yes, she too much indulged thy fond pursuit,
She sow'd the seeds, but death has reap'd the fruit.
'Twas thine own genius gave the fatal blow,
And help'd to plant the wound that laid thee low:
So the struck eagle, stretch'd upon the plain,
No more through rolling clouds to soar again,
Viewed his own feather on the fatal dart,
And wing'd the shaft that quiver'd in his heart;
Keen were his pangs, but keener far to feel,
He nurs'd the pinion which impelled the steel;
While the same plumage that had warm'd his nest,
Drank the last life-drop of his bleeding breast.

KINDRED HEARTS.

MRS. HEMANS.

H! ask not, hope thou not too much
Of sympathy below;

Few are the hearts whence one same touch
Bids the sweet fountains flow:

Few and by still conflicting powers
Forbidden here to meet--

Such ties would make this life of ours
Too fair for aught so fleet.

It may

be that thy brother's eye
Sees not as thine, which turns
In such deep reverence to the sky,
Where the rich sunset burns:

It may be that the breath of spring,
Born amidst violets lone,

A rapture o'er thy soul can bring-
A dream, to his unknown.

The tune that speaks of other times

A sorrowful delight!

The melody of distant chimes,

The sound of waves by night,

The wind that, with so many a tone,

Some chord within can thrill,—

These may have language all thine own,
To him a mystery still.

Yet scorn thou not for this, the true

And steadfast love of

years;

The kindly, that from childhood grew,

The faithful to thy tears!

If there be one that o'er the dead
Hath in thy grief borne part,

And watch'd through sickness by thy bed,--
Call his a kindred heart!

But for those bonds all perfect made,
Wherein bright spirits blend,

Like sister flowers of one sweet shade,
With the same breeze that bend,
For that full bliss of thought allied,
Never to mortals given,-

Oh! lay thy lovely dreams aside,

Or lift them unto heaven!