Its refluent and unclouded light
Resplendent on the tranquil night.
And myriads of stars that move,
Obedient to the power above,
Holding their silent intercourse
Onward in their aerial course,
Forever sparkling pure and bright
'Mid regions of crystal light.
The hour when lovers love to meet,
In sweet embrace, in converse sweet;
Whispering love's tale to listening ears,
Their fondest hopes-their wildest fears,
When lips meet lips, in raptured bliss,
In passion's deep and fervid kiss;
When hearts in rapture fondly blend,
And dream not that such moments end;
The swelling breast, the bursting sigh,
Love wildly beaming from each eye,
Hand clasped in hand and heart to heart,
In smiles to meet, in tears to part,-
Alas! They cannot last for ever;
Time, chance, or fate may soon dissever;
Then in those eyes we love are starting
The pearly tear-drop shed at parting.
Gemmed like the morning flower with dew;
One last embrace, one kiss-adieu!
It was the hour when on his cot,
No more repining o'er his lot,
The toil-worn lab'rer in repose,
Forgetful of his many woes;
And every sense is buried deep
In sweet forgetfulness of sleep,
No saddening thought obtruding there,
To fester with corroding care;
No dreams of dark ambition wake
His senses from their tranquil state.
Sleep on! Let no fear beguile,
For vice would quail beneath that smile
Which on his lips rests playfully-
Proof of the heart's tranquillity.
Not so with those who nursed in power,
Who boast a kingdom for a dower,
The wealthy poor, the poorly great-
The beggar kings of many a state,
Boasting a long ancestral line,
And ruling by a "right divine;"
The slaves of fortune or of power,
But seldom realize an hour
Of gentle peace, of tranquil rest,
Like that which fills the poor man's breast.
Sleep on! The eye of Heaven will keep
Its guardian watch upon thy sleep.
The moon shone soft from its meridian height,
Bathing the Indian camp with humid light,
When on the night air, wildly there arose
A shriek that startled each from his repose.
Some danger threatened their beloved chief.
And each in haste drew near to his relief.
Stricken and low by some strange malady,
To them unknown, and knowing not the remedy,
In vain their prophet chanted incantations,
Or in their mystic rites performed oblations;
In vain their medicine man his knowledge tried,
The strange disease his remedies defied,
And ere the morning dawn the chieftain died.
In consternation dread, they formed his bier,
And o'er his grave in silence shed a tear.
But ere another sun had passed away,
The chieftain's wife and children stricken lay.
Each day increased the horror and the dread,
As through their camp the dire contagion spread;
It seemed that fate with unrelenting hand,
Had doomed the remnant of their fated band.
In vain when, racked with pain, the sufferer cried
For help from those untouched-it was denied.
Fear held them spell-bound, palsied every sense;
To aid was to incur the pestilence.
When writhed the warrior, hadst thou seen
The conquering anguish on his mien;
In the last struggle of his stalwart frame,
His dauntless courage not e'en death could tame;
His longing eyes fixed on his fragile wife,
So loved, alas! the dismal wreck of life;
How as his glazing eyes meet hers in death,
He heaved a bitter sigh with his last breath;
The last fond look bestowed on things below,
He winged his spirit's flight to "MANITO."
And near him his attenuated wife,
In the last struggle of departing life,
With deep despair, tore from her anguished breast The lovely baby that knew no other rest;
Lest the foul breath of dire pestilence—
As yet unstricken-soon might bear it hence,
While others prayed for death, in shrieking prayer,
And others raved-the madness of despair;
And many a wandering brain, by fever wrought,
The burning tongue the crystal waters sought;
Exhausted fell ere they could reach the wave,
No hand to help them and no friend to save.
In vain the mother cried, the child, the daughter,
For one sweet drop, a simple cup of water;
While those who reached it with remaining breath,
Took their last drop and quivering sank in death.
To us in health, it seemed a little thing,
To have some friend a cup of water bring;
Yet when 'tis proffered unto feverish lips
Worn by disease, and these its coolness sips,
Of sweet refreshments, it will give
Strength to the weak, and make the eye revive;
Will give a shock of pleasure to the frame,
Robbing disease of many a throbbing pain.
It is a trifling thing to speak a phrase
Of common comfort, or of little praise;
By almost daily use its sense nigh lost;
Sweet drop of comfort, at but little cost.
Yet on the ear of him who thought to die
Without one gentle word, one pitying sigh;
To perish by himself, unmourned, alone:-
On such an ear will sympathy's sweet tone
Fall like sweet music from the distant spheres,
And the glazed eyes overflow with crystal tears:
Relax the knotted hand, and palsied frame,
To feel the bonds of fellowship again.
And e'en when death his sad pilgrimage seals,
'Tis joy to know that there is one who feels,
That one of the great family is near
To shed a tear of pity over his bier.
Not thus the dying savage that lay
Upon the shore, at Green Point, on that day.
Those left untouched by raging pestilence,
Dreading the awful malady, fled hence;
Shed on the sufferers one pitying sigh,
One frenzied look, and left them there to die.
And when the day was ended, and the night
Refulgent with the moon's unclouded light,
And twinkling stars that gemmed the heavens above,
Looked down upon the scene with eyes of love,
The solitude was broken by the bowling
Of the fierce wolf, around the stricken prowling.
These, and the noisome buzzard of the wood,
Feasted on those unburied by the flood.
And thus they died! the beautiful, the brave!
Some on the river bank, some in its wave;
No kindred arm outstretched to aid or save;
No hand, alas! to furnish even a grave!
And now as Indian maid, or children glide
In light canoe upon the silver tide;
In solemn silence and with recumbent head,
They pass this spot with undissembled dread.
And to the "Spirit Great," ascends a prayer
For those who suffered, they who perished there.
This dreadful disease followed the tribe in their wanderings, and carried off great numbers of the old inhabitants of Saginaw, in May, 1854, desolating their villages in their reserves on the shores of Lake Superior.
Perhaps the best remembered as well as the most extraordinary phenomenon was that which took place in December, 1835. On Christmas day of that year a heavy fall of snow covered the frozen ground, which was followed on the 26th by a mist, and this was succeeded in turn by a drizzling rain. The rain ceased suddenly, the clouds lowered, grew dark and assumed such appearances as would lead the spectator to believe the end of the world to be at hand. The storm king at length broke loose, swooped down from the northwest in black night, uprooting trees, sweeping everything in his track, and carrying with him such a current of icy air that men and animals not then in shelter were frozen. This storm was as sudden as it was strange and unaccountable. It is remembered by the old settlers, and forms for them a mark on the page of time.
The comet and wandering star created some excitement in the settlement, which soon died away.
Scarcely two months after the treaty of Saginaw was signed the "Black Day" rose upon the Indians. On the morning of Sunday, Nov. 8, 1819, the sun rose upon a cloudy sky, which assumed, as
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