YOUNG Calidore is paddling o'er the lake;
His healthful spirit eager and awake
To feel the beauty of a silent eve,
Which seem'd full loth this happy world to
leave,

The light dwelt o'er the scene so lingeringly.
He bares his forehead to the cool blue sky,
And smiles at the far clearness all around,
Until his heart is well nigh overwound,
And turns for calmness to the pleasant green
Of easy slopes, and shadowy trees that lean
So elegantly o'er the waters' brim
And show their blossoms trim.

Scarce can his clear and nimble eyesight follow
The freaks and dartings of the black-wing'd
swallow,

Delighting much to see it half at rest,
Dip so refreshingly its wings and breast
'Gainst the smooth surface, and to mark anon
The widening circles into nothing gone.

And now the sharp keel of his little boat
Comes up with ripple, and with easy float,
And glides into a bed of water-lilies:

The little chapel, with the cross above,
Upholding wreaths of ivy; the white dove,
That on the windows spreads his feathers light,
And seems from purple clouds to wing its flight.

Green-tufted islands casting their soft shades
Across the lake; sequester'd leafy glades,
That through the dimness of their twilight show
Large dock-leaves, spiral fox-gloves, or the glow
Of the wild cat's-eyes, or the silvery stems
Of delicate birch-trees, or long grass which hems
A little brook. The youth had long been view-
ing

These pleasant things, and heaven was bedewing
The mountain flowers, when his glad senses
caught

A trumpet's silver voice. Ah! it was fraught
With many joys for him : the warder's ken
Had found white coursers prancing in the glen :
Friends very dear to him he soon will see;
So pushes off his boat most eagerly.
And soon upon the lake he skims along,
Deaf to the nightingale's first under-song;
Nor minds he the white swans that dream so
sweetly:

Broad-leaved are they, and their white canopies His spirit flies before him so completely.

Are upward turn'd to catch the heavens' dew.

Near to a little island's point they grew;

Whence Calidore might have the goodliest view
Of this sweet spot of earth. The bowery shore

Went off in gentle windings to the hoar

And light blue mountains: but no breathing

man

With a warm heart, and eye prepared to scan
Nature's clear beauty, could pass lightly by
Objects that look'd out so invitingly
On either side. These gentle Calidore
Greeted, as he had known them long before.

The sidelong view of swelling leafiness,
Which the glad setting sun in gold doth dress,
Whence, ever and anon, the joy outsprings,
And scales upon the beauty of its wings.

The lonely turret, shatter'd, and outworn, Stands venerably proud-too proud to mourn Its long-lost grandeur: fir-trees grow around, Ay, dropping their hard fruit upon the ground.

[For the National Magazine.]

THE LOST.

BY H. L. SPENCER.

SWEET violets on a grassy mound
Beside a river pure and bright,
Perfume the airs that breathe around
At morning, noon, and night.

Awaken'd by the genial rays

Of spring-time, from the sod they burst, And smiling, met our tearful gaze,

Of all the wild-wood flowers the first.

So they, for whom our tears are shed,
Have pass'd to purer joys above:
O, say not they are lost, are dead-
Theirs is a home of light and love.

the consequent limitation of the power of each nation. This contest, however, was frequently interrupted by treaties and arrangements respecting boundaries, some of which had reference to the occupation of Acadia; and at length, by a stipulation made at the Peace of Utrecht, the province was finally ceded to Great Britain.

The change of sovereignty does not appear at first to have effected any material alteration in the condition of the people. It was intended to secure their obedience by intermixing them with English colonists; but the presence of a feeble garrison at Annapolis, and the emigration of hardly half-a-dozen English families, were for many years nearly all that marked the supremacy of England. The old inhabitants remained on the soil which they had

subdued, scarcely conscious that they had changed their rulers. They took, indeed, an oath of fidelity and submission to the English king; but in return they were promised indulgence in "the true exercise of their religion, and exemption from bearing arms against the French or Indians." On account of this, they became known under the name of the "French neutrals." For nearly forty years from the Peace of Utrecht, they were left undisturbed in the possession of their prosperous seclusion. "No tax-gatherer counted their folds; no magistrate dwelt in their hamlets. The parish priest made their records, and regulated their successions. Their little disputes were settled among themselves, with scarcely an instance of an appeal to English authority at Annapolis. The pas

Thus were the Acadians happy in their neutrality, and in the abundance which they drew from their native land. They formed, as it were, one great family. Their morals were of unaffected purity. Love was sanctified and calmed by the universal custom of early marriages. The neighbors of the community would assist the new couple to raise their cottage, while the wilderness offered land. Their numbers increased, and the colony, which had begun only as the trading station of a company with the monopoly of the fur trade, counted perhaps sixteen or seventeen thousand inhabitants."*

tures were covered with their herds and
flocks; and dikes, raised by extraordinary
efforts of social industry, shut out the rivers
and the tide from the alluvial marshes of
exuberant fertility. The meadows thus
reclaimed were covered by richest grasses,
or fields of wheat, that yielded fifty and
thirtyfold at the harvest. Their houses
were built in clusters, neatly contructed
and comfortably furnished; and around
them all kinds of domestic fowls abounded.
With the spinning-wheel and the loom
their women made, of flax from their own
fields, of fleeces from their own flocks,
coarse but sufficient clothing. The few
foreign luxuries that were coveted could
be obtained from Annapolis or Louisburg
in return for furs, or wheat, or cattle. | lution.

Bancroft's History of the American Revo

Giving the village its name, and pasture to flocks predicament. They could not pledge themwithout number.

selves to join in war against the land of
their origin and love; and so, in a letter
signed by a thousand of their men, they
pleaded rather for leave to sell their lands
and effects, and abandon the peninsula for
other homes, which France, as they sup-
posed, would generously provide. But
Cornwallis would offer them no choice,
save between unconditional allegiance and
the total confiscation of their property.
"It is for me," said he, "to command and
to be obeyed;" and as he had the power
to enforce his unjust exactions, the poor
Acadians were subjected to the most
merciless severities. Their papers and
records, the titles to their estates and in-
heritances, were taken from them.
cases where their property was demanded
for the public service, they were informed
that "they were not to be bargained with
for payment." An order to this effect,
says Mr. Bancroft, may still be read in
the council records at Halifax. They
were told that they must comply, without

In

At length, England vigorously undertook to colonize the country, and from that time the independence of these simple people began to be seriously affected. In March, 1749, proposals were made to dis-making any terms, and that" immediately," banded officers, soldiers, and marines, to accept and occupy the vacant lands; and before the end of June, more than fourteen hundred persons, under the auspices of the British Parliament, were conducted by Colonel Edward Cornwallis into the harbor of Chebucto. "There, on a cold and sterile soil, covered to the water's edge with one continued forest of spruce and pine, whose thick underwood and gloomy shade hid rocks and the rudest wilds, with no clear spot to be seen or heard of," rose the present town of Halifax. Before winter, three hundred houses were covered in. At a place now called Lower Horton, a blockhouse was also raised, and fortified by a trench and a palisade; while, on the present site of Windsor, a fort was soon erected, to protect the communications with the town. These positions, with Annapolis on the Bay of Fundy, secured the peninsula to the English, a part of which had now again become matter of dispute between the French and British governments.

|

or "the next courier would bring an order for military execution upon the delinquents." And when on some occasions they delayed in providing firewood for their oppressors, it was told them from the government, that if they did not do it in proper time, the soldiers should "absolutely take their houses for fuel." Under pretence of fearing that they might rise in behalf of France, escape to Canada, or convey provisions to the French garrisons, they were ordered to surrender their boats and firearms; which, accordingly, they did, leaving themselves defenseless, and without the means of flight. Not long afterward, orders were given to the English officers to punish the Acadians at discretion, should they in any case behave amiss; if the troops were annoyed, vengeance was to be inflicted on the nearest, whether the guilty one or not, after the rate of "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth."

These, and similar severities, were in course of perpetration for nearly seven years.

Meanwhile the French, who dis