Page:The Poets and Poetry of the West.djvu/469

 ISAAC H. JULIAN. Isaac H. Julian, a descendant of one of the pioneers of Indiana — who emigrated from North Carolina in the year 1807 — was born in Wayne county, in that State, June nineteenth, 1823. His father died when he was an infant. Isaac enjoyed such com- mon school advantages as were available to a boy who worked on a farm. When he was twenty-five years of age he turned his attention from agriculture to the study of law. Since that time he has written much in prose and verse, for the newspapers of Indiana, and was a regular contributor to the National Era and to The Genius of the West. In October, 1851, he published, at Richmond, an interesting pamphlet on " The History of the Whitewater Valley." Mr. Julian is now editor of The True Repuhlicaii, Centerville, Indiana. BOONE IN THE WILDERNESS.* Bkight waved thy woods, Kentucky, In the Summer's sunset glow ; Enamored evening smiled upon The scene outspread below ; Nature's Eden, wild, magnificent. Fresh from her hand was there ; Even angels might admiring gaze Upon a scene so fair. Like a mighty temple, dark and old, Waved the dim wilderness ; God's ancient music spoke his praise Amid the spreading trees. igrating party, only he and his brother reached their des- tination. Soon after, it was found necessary for the latter to return to the settlements for supplies, and Daniel Boone was left alone in the wilderness, seven hundred miles from the nearest white settlement, and spent almost three months in this solitary mode of life, amusing himself by hunting and exploring expeditions. He is supposed to have been the only white man at that time west of the AUeghauies. — Vide Timothy Flinfs Life of Boone, p. 62, et seq. By the dark and lonely rivers, Flowing on in light and shade, The red man and his shaggy train, In sole dominion strayed. From the forest's deep recesses, Whence curls that wreath of smoke ? By what startling crack of rifle Are their slumbering echoes woke ? For twice two score of nights and days. The observant savage race Have marked, with wonder and with fear. The dreadful stranger's trace. He has reared his lodge among them, He has hunted far and wide — Alone in the vast wilderness, To range it is his pride ! Now at nightfall by his cabin door He marks the stars appear — His heart is filled with home-bred joy — He smiles at thought of fear ! Woe to your fair dominion, Woe to your day of fame, (453)
 * In one of Boone's visits to Kentucky, of all the em-