Her hair is decked with ocean shell, The vermeil bright is on her brow, The peag zone enclasps her well, Her heart is sad beneath it now, She weeps, and weeps for thee. With early dawn thou hiedst away, In reckless sports the hours to while, Oh! sweet as flowers, in moonlit ray, Shall be thy look, thy voice, thy smile, When again she looks on thee! Oh! come, come then with me.” Scarce ceased the strain, when silence deep, As broods o’er an unbroken sleep, Seemed hovering round; then slowly came A glow athwart the darkling night, Bursting at length to mid-day flame, And bathing hill and vale in light. While suddenly a form flits by With step as fleet, as through the sky The morning songster skims along Preceded by his matchless song. So glided she; yet not unseen Her graceful gait, her brow serene, Her finely modelled limbs so round, Her raven tresses all unbound, That flashing out, and hidden now, Waved darkly on each snowy shoulder,— As springing from the mountain’s brow, Eager and wild that one to know, The hunter hurried to behold her. On, on the beauteous phantom glides Beneath the sombre, giant pines That stud the steep and rugged sides Of pendant cliffs, and deep ravines; Down many a wild descent and dell O’ergrown with twisted lichens rude; Yet where she passed a halo fell To guide the footsteps that pursued,— Like that fell wonder of the sky That flashes o’er the starry space, And leaves its glitt’ring wake on high, For man portentous truths to trace. And onward, onward still that light Was all which beamed upon the sight. Of figure he could naught descry, Invisible it seemed to fly; Alluring on with magic art That half disclosing, hid in part. Bright, beautiful, resistless Fate! Oh! what is like thy magic will, Which men in blind obedience wait, Yet deem themselves unfettered still! By thee impelled that hunter sped Through shadowy wood, o’er flowery bed; When angels else, beneath his eye, Had passed unseen, unnoticed by. The Indian brave! that stoic wild, Philosophy’s untutored child, A being, such as wisdom’s torch Enkindled ’neath the attic porch, Where the Phoenician stern and eld, His wise man[2] to the world revealing, Divined not western wildness held Untutored ones less swayed by feeling; Whose firm endurance fire nor stake Nor torture’s fiercest pangs might shake. Yes! matter, mind, the eternal whole, In apprehension revelling free, Evolved that fearlessness of soul Which Greece[3] saw but in theory.