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And, when he chose to sport and play.
No dolphin ever was so gay

Upon the tropic sea.

Among the Indians he had fought;

And with him many tales he brought

Of pleasure and of fear;

Such tales as, told to any Maid

By such a Youth, in the green shadę,
Were perilous to hear.

He told of Girls, a happy rout!

Who quit their fold with dance and shout,

Their pleasant Indian Town,

To gather strawberries all day long;

Returning with a choral song

When day-light is gone down.

He spake of plants divine and strange That every hour their blossoms change,

Ten thousand lovely hues!

With budding, fading, faded flowers

They stand the wonder of the bowers

From morn to evening dews.

He told of the Magnolia*, spread

High as a cloud, high over head!

The Cypress and her spire,

-Of flowers that with one scarlet gleam

Cover a hundred leagues, and seem

To set the hills on fire.

The Youth of green savannahs spake,
And many an endless, endless lake,

With all its fairy crowds

Of islands, that together lie

As quietly as spots of sky

Among the evening clouds.

And then he said "How sweet it were

A fisher or a hunter there,

A gardener in the shade,

Still wandering with an easy mind

To build a household fire, and find

A home in every glade!

* Magnolia grandiflora.

+ The splendid appearance of these scarlet flowers, which are scattered with such profusion over the Hills in the Southern parts of North America, is frequently mentioned by Bartram in his Travels.

"What days and what sweet years! Ah me!

Our life were life indeed, with thee

So passed in quiet bliss,

And all the while," said he, " to know

That we were in a world of woe,

On such an earth as this!"

And then he sometimes interwove
Dear thoughts about a Father's love,
"For there," said he, " are spun
Around the heart such tender ties,

That our own children to our eyes -
Are dearer than the sun.

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"Beloved Ruth!"-No more he said.

Sweet Ruth alone at midnight shed

A solitary tear:

She thought again—and did agree

With him to sail across the sea,

And drive the flying deer.

"And now, as fitting is and right,

We in the Church our faith will plight,

A Husband and a Wife."

Even so they did; and I may say

That to sweet Ruth that happy day

Was more than human life.

Through dream and vision did she sink, Delighted all the while to think

That, on those lonesome floods,

And

green savannahs, she should share His board with lawful joy, and bear His name in the wild woods.

But, as you have before been told,

This Stripling, sportive, gay, and bold,

And with his dancing crest

So beautiful, through savage lands

Had roamed about with vagrant bands

Of Indians in the West."

The wind, the tempest roaring high,

The tumult of a tropic sky,

Might well be dangerous food

For him, a Youth to whom was given

So much of earth-so much of Heaven, And such impetuous blood.

Whatever in those Climes he found

Irregular in sight or sound

Did to his mind impart

A kindred impulse, seemed allied

To his own powers, and justified

The workings of his heart.

Nor less to feed voluptuous thought

The beauteous forms of nature wrought,

Fair trees and lovely flowers;

The breezes their own languor lent;

The stars had feelings, which they sent

Into those gorgeous bowers.

Yet, in his worst pursuits, I ween

That sometimes there did intervene

Pure hopes of high intent;

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