Page:Pocahontas, and Other Poems.djvu/192

 THE WESTERN EMIGRANT.

��AN axe rang sharply 'mid those forest shades Which from creation toward the skies had tovver'd In unshorn heauty. There, with vigorous arm Wrought a bold emigrant, and by his side His little son, with question and response, Beguil'd the toil.

" Boy, thou hast never seen

Such glorious trees. Hark, when their giant trunks Fall, how the firm earth groans. Rememberest thou The mighty river, on whose breast we sail'd So many days, on toward the setting sun ? Our own Connecticut, compar'd to that, Was but a creeping stream."

" Father, the brook

That by our door went singing, where I launch'd My tiny boat, with my young playmates round, When school was o'er, is dearer far to me Than all these bold, broad waters. To my eye They are as strangers. And those little trees My mother nurtur'd in the garden bound Of our first home, from whence the fragrant peach Hung in its ripening gold, were fairer, sure, Than this dark forest, shutting out the day."

" What ho ! my little girl ; " and with light step A fairy creature hasted toward her sire,

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