Still as the serpent’s hushed advance, The hunter, with unmoving glance, Wound on to where a beech-tree lay Half buried in the snowy sand: He crouches ’neath its sapless spray To nerve his never-failing hand. A whiz—a start—her rolling eye Hath caught the danger lurking nigh. She flies, but only for a space; Then turns with sad reproachful face; Then rallying forth her wonted strength, She backward threw her matchless head, Flung on the wind her tap’ring length, And onward swift and swifter sped,— O’er sward, and plain, and snowy strand, By mossy rocks, through forests grand, Which there for centuries had stood Rustling in their wild solitude. On, on, in that unwearied chase With tireless speed imbued, Went sweeping with an eldrich pace Pursuing and pursued! ’Till, as the sinking orb of day, Glowed brighter with each dying ray, The fleetness of that form was lost, Dark drops of blood her pathway crost, And faint and fainter drooped that head,— She falters—sinks—one effort more— ’Tis vain—her noontide strength has fled— She falls upon the shore. One eager bound—the Hunter’s knife Sank deep to end her struggling life; Yet, e’en as flashed the murd’rous blade, There came a shrill and plaintive cry: The Hind was not—a beauteous maid Lay gasping with upbraiding eye. The glossy head and neck were gone, The snowy furs that clasped her round; And in their place the peag zone, And raven hair that all unbound Upon her heaving bosom lies And mingles with the rushing gore, The sandaled foot, the fawn-like eyes; All, all are there—he needs no more— “Echucha—ha!” The dream hath passed; Cold clammy drops were thick and fast Upon the awakened warrior’s brow, And the wild eye that flashed around To penetrate the dark profound, Seemed fired with Frenzy’s glow. Yet all was still, while far above, Nestling in calm and holy love, The watchful stars intensely bright Gleamed meekly through the moonless night. The Hunter gazed,—and from his brow Passed slowly off that fevered glow, For what the troubled soul can bless Like such a scene of loveliness? He raised his quiver from his side, And downward with his antlered prey, To meet his lone Ojibway bride, He gaily took his joyous way. A. F. H. ----- [1] The Alleghany. [2] Zeno imagined his wise man, not only free from all sense of pleasure, but void of all passions, and emotions capable of being happy in the midst of torture. [3] The stoics were philosophers, rather in words than in deeds. * * * * * MY GRANDMOTHER’S TANKARD. BY JESSE E. DOW.