On all its cliffs and arching bays, They pour intent their ardent gaze— Each airy, wild, fantastic sight, They scan with ever new delight, As if the very earth-clod there Had something more than earthly fair, And every rock that wall’d the shore Were jewel set, or bright with ore; Each pebble on the saffron sands, They search with prying, chemic hands, By glass or magnet, lest perchance Aught should escape a grosser glance: The fragile little helix shell Along the shore their steps impel, Intent each speck’d and striped whorl To find a mass of orient pearl: The fallen trunk they search with care, For mark of ancient hatchet there; Or scan the antler bleach’d and dry With curious, searching, eager eye. Hours thus elapse: and every hour Is fraught with some expressive power; But now a task must be essayed, They seek the island’s central shade; And first they pass a thicket green, Where birch and aspen intervene, And next a grove of sombre hue, Where spruce and fir arrest the view; A hill succeeds, and then a wold, With pines encumber’d, sere and old, That stretch their branches dead and bare, High forked amid the upper air— Beyond, a beetling rock is seen, Of massy granite—crown’d with green, And from its clefts a limpid stream Pours on the sight its silver gleam, And murm’ring on its downward way Speeds idly to a neighb’ring bay. Here pause the travellers, joy’d to meet Such lonely, wild, and still retreat; And oft the streamlet’s mossy side They press, to taste the crystal tide, Or lost in pleasing converse gay, Review the devious, toilsome way. But hark! a sound or voice is heard, A human voice—perchance a bird? Or, in some spiral cliff around, Can rushing winds produce the sound? Or is the gaunt hyena here? To Azid—’tis a voice of fear! But hark again—the softening sound Reverb’rates as if cavern-bound. They pause, they list—a strain is sung, ’Tis in the well-known Indian tongue. They list—a female voice essays This fond lament of other days. EDNEE’S SONG. 1. To sunny vales—to balmy skies, My though—a flowery arrow flies. I see the wood—the bank—the glade, Where first a wild-wood girl I played: I think on scenes and faces dear; They are not _here_—they are not _here_. 2. In this cold sky—in this lone isle I meet no friend’s—no mother’s smile: I list the wind—I list the wave, They seem like songs around the grave, And all my heart’s young joys are gone; It is alone—it is alone. 3.