Unsheltered from its fever-beam,
Unfanned upon the sleeping stream.

9.

One is gazing on the other-
At his belted waist a knife;
Hath his moody mate another?

Feelings in his breast are rife,

Fell thoughts, which he were fain to smother :"My fellow-slave- his breath to free

From its abode of misery,

To wanton in yon blessed sky,
-Pity's self could not deny
Her benison to such a deed;

Shall he die lingering on, or bleed

At once, and give this bloated tongue

That draught for which it yearneth long;
That ruddy rill, too bright and sweet,
All for dread of one short howl,

To stagnate in a tank so foul,

And thus both withered frames to cheat-
Shall he linger on or bleed ?"

Alas! 'tis horrible to read

Such language, and such longings base,

In dissolution's murky face;

But the sun is hot and high,

And phrenzy reasoneth awry,

And torture scoffs at sympathy,

And dearth on her own brood will feed.

10.

Blind fear-that vile uncertain guilt,
At times on erring impulse built,
That bids its own reflection grow

In the form it would lay low,

Then dreads whom it has dreamed a foe;
That looks to see a murderer rise
T'anticipate the murdering steel,
And fall itself the sacrifice

The sidelong search, that doth reveal
Unto each the other's heart;
These may hold them well apart,
Well may occupy their eyes:
But say what vision can surprise,
Can rivet, on the boundless blue
His glance, the feebler of the two?
Till each dilating orb doth fail,
Suffused, I wot not whence or how,
(They have lacked their lymph till now,)
Is it can it be a sail?

11.

If the neck, already bent

Despairing to the headsman's blow,
To close unshrived, a life ill-spent,
Should the meed of mercy know;

If relenting heav'n had sent

An angel to the shades below,

To bid the lost forget their woe

Once more, in hope's gay element;

Could life, thus rescued from the block,

Rally with a livelier shock,

Joy, wilder, more convulsive, breathe

Thro' their dim ranks, than lurks beneath

Th' arrested lip, the whirling brain
Of the reunited twain ?

12.

Sail ho! the winds are nought as yet,
O'er billows long unused to toss,
But hither, hither lies her course,
And the currents draw their net
Propitious, and the sails are set
Aloft, t' entrap the truant flaws-
Near, blest relief, and nearer draws-
Still 'twere strange if mortal leaven
Forbore to curse the hours which may
Yet lapse in hideous delay;
While minutes grow to hours of pain,
And hours must emulate that day,
Which shudders thro' a lonely reign
Of months, beneath the polar heaven.
13.

A breeze hath risʼn and died again—
And the red sun with tempered glow
(Will they chide his loitering now?)
Almost his latest leave hath ta'en-
He gilds the coming bark, so near,
That they can hear the shrilly call
Ring thro' the calm still atmosphere;
And see the topmen, one and all,
Climb upward in the air so clear,
And downward at its bidding fall:
And now a very voice, their ear
Can catch, and one essays to hail—
Alas! that such a feeble note,
A broken and abortive wail,
Should issue from a human throat!
The tenants of the tiny boat
Such voice can ill avail-

They who ride so loftily

At hand, say, can they not espy
The prison-shell, the peopled mote,
That darkles in their very shade,
And looks and longs in vain for aid?
-Such were easy to descry

But they are busy, and night is nigh.
Again, that voice, its import learn,
From creaking spars and wheeling stern,

Will their ark of safety turn?

Thro' falling mist and fading ray,

To snatch their last lone hope away,

And fate thus revel in its sway,
Over wretches such as they?

14.

I ween it matters not to one,
The stronger but an hour ago ·
If past all human weal or woe,
(Thus the rigid members show,)
'Tis well his pilgrimage is done -
His comrade leaneth all alone,
O'er the paly trunk, unwaking,
At his side to share his doom,

And looks upon the brightness breaking
Around amid the gathering gloom,

Where linger (well he knows for whom,) The sharks their sheeny pastime taking: Still still the keel beneath him raking, Till the very boat is shaking

- Can he view them without quaking?

15.

That sail - a moment since hard by ;,
Is it far, or is it near?
For a film is in his eye,
And a rushing in his ear;
Yet a truce to blank despair,
One trial, for that life to dare,
Which ev'n to agony is dear
Ofttimes, and it were forfeit here:

One test, and that, God wot, he dareth-
-He plunges in the brine!

'Tis omnipotence that spareth,

That altho' around him shine

Eyes that minister to death,

And waters, that so slight a breath
Hath sorry title to defy,

And jaws that gape, and fins that fly
Are menacing each coward limb;
He hath still the strength to swim,
To poise, to urge, perchance to save
His body from that weltering grave,
Which already closeth o'er him,
All except the tangled hair
Floating, rising, failing, there,
And the skinny arms so bare
Faintly flashing out before him.

16.

This lulling but deceitful calm-
Has it beguiled her of her speed

In vain ? Still is their none to heed,
No eye, no ear, no tongue t' alarm

(Whom twice he dared to deem decreed

To shield and sooth him in his need,)

The host, awaiting but a word,
And prompt to give, as he to crave
Relief. Hark! wheeling from the wave,
Soars again the ocean-bird:

His voice his hailing, shall be heard!

- A thousand blessings on that beak,
Whose piercing and discordant shriek,
Unerring as unwitting guide
Lures many an idler to the side-
Their eyes are glancing far and wide;
Nor rest, till surest aid applied,

VOL. VII.

He, the abandon'd late of hope,
Instinctively hath caught the rope
Uncoiled and tumbling to his touch-
Life ebbs in that convulsive clutch
And the rough mariners, who draw
His upward weight, look on with awe,
And shiver as they stoop to scan
The ghastly remnant of a man,
Like a lone corse repossest
In pastime of a sprite unblest,
To plough the wat'ry wilderness:
Toiling whence they cannot guess,
And he as hardly may disclose:
Be theirs to tend his stark repose;
And be the vessel's course retraced-
And let the pinnace skim the waste-
If perchance some wreck forlorn,

Hath spared this dripping wretch, to warn
Of others in a like estate;

Heaven grant, if such there be that wait,
That they no longer have to mourn
Woes, our exertion may abate,
Our sympathies alleviate:

-Listen!-have they found his mate?

18.

On a pallet couch of straw

All tenderly and smoothly spread, The stricken twain have met once more Unwitting of so soft a bed,

And silently, as meet the dead:

Flaps the awning overhead,

Meet shelter from the falling dew,

And ye may see the stars shine through

Each rift, and dally with each shred,

Of the loop-holes not a few;

And many a glimpse of heavenly blue,
And cloudlet verging into view,
Of tiny shape and spotless hue,
Flits over, soothingly to woo
But in vain those lids of lead:
Around be those who, mutely poring,
Or idling by with muffled tread,
(Blindly hopeless of restoring,)
Would seal the fate they are deploring
Ere the vital spark is fled:

Others, with a keener quest,

Have bared again each clammy breast,
And found the heart not all at rest;

Life, lurking in its inmost urn,

Tho' sorely smitten and opprest,

Still pleading lowly to return:

God guide and prosper, till they learn

What weight of ills this frame may bear,
What agony and fearful care,

Yet regain its features fair,

Its arm of strength, its eye of fire,

His heav'n-descended form and air

-True, theirs may be a faltering trust,
And 'tis a weary way that must
Be trod, and watchers oft shall tire
Ere the flame, so loth t' expire,
Rekindle in such drooping dust;
But nurse them heedfully and well-

70

I know by many a faithful token
That this chill, o'ermastering spell,
Tho' it bind, shall yet be broken-
And many a rosy cheek shall pale
When they, the ruddy and the hale,
The rescued, shall recount their tale.

DEER-HUNTING VS. DEAR-HUNTING.

BY A QUINQUEGENARIAN.

"I never nurst a dear gazelle

To glad me with its soft black eye,
But when it came to know me well,
And love me, it was sure to die."

I LIKE a magnificent opening ; — as thus: - The effulgent sun, as he sank beneath the shadowy veil of the dusky horizon, tinging with celestial glory the circumambient clouds, shed a parting ray on the door of the Burlington and Wixham stage as it toiled along the Cranstown turnpike, heavily laden with thirteen inside and two outside passengers.

The insides were such as nature, education, and their tailors had made them. The outsides were my friend Sam. Weatherby and myself. Sam and I were College cronies of four years' standing. I hardly know how we first became intimate; our rooms were far apart, and our names at opposite ends of the alphabet. Nevertheless, we happened to be thrown together pretty often at the beginning of the course, and contracted a sort of chemical affinity- an indecomposible union of unlike substances. I was pleased with his fine manliness of character and appearance, his perfect unsophisticatedness (shade of Johnson forgive me,) and Green-mountain simplicity. I liked to hear his innumerable stories, told in his own odd way, of Vermont wars, and ghosts, and pretty lasses; especially and most seriously did I incline to his marvellous tales of multitudinous exploits by flood and field, done against the dwellers of earth, air, and sea. Clouds of blue pigeons darkening the sky, brooks teeming with Epicurean trout-woods overrun by herds of stately deer; these were the visions which swam before my amazed imagination as I drank in the magnificent recitals of my Nimrod.