Added the freedom of the woods, and sought
The bookless wisdom by experience taught,
And learned to love his new-found home, while not

Forgetful of the old; the seasons went
Their rounds, and somewhat to his spirit lent
Of their own calm and measureless content.

Glad even to tears, he heard the robin sing
His song of welcome to the Western spring,
And bluebird borrowing from the sky his wing.

And when the miracle of autumn came,
And all the woods with many-colored flame
Of splendor, making summer's greenness tame,

Burned unconsumed, a voice without a sound
Spake to him from each kindled bush around
And made the strange, new landscape holy ground.

* * * * *

=_Albert Pike, 1809-._= (Manual, p. 523.)

From "Lines on the Rocky Mountains."

=_376._= THE EVERLASTING HILLS.

The deep, transparent sky is full
Of many thousand glittering lights--
Unnumbered stars that calmly rule
The dark dominions of the night.
The mild, bright moon has upward risen,
Out of the gray and boundless plain,
And all around the white snows glisten,
Where frost, and ice, and silence, reign,--
While ages roll away, and they unchanged remain.

These mountains, piercing the blue sky
With their eternal cones of ice,--
The torrents dashing from on high,
O'er rock, and crag, and precipice,--
Change not, but still remain as ever,
Unwasting, deathless, and sublime,
And will remain while lightnings quiver,
Or stars the hoary summits climb,
Or rolls the thunder-chariot of eternal Time.

* * * * *

=_Anne C. Lynch Botta._=

From her "Poems."

=_377._= THE DUMB CREATION.

Deal kindly with those speechless ones,
That throng our gladsome earth;
Say not the bounteous gift of life
Alone is nothing worth.

What though with mournful memories
They sigh not for the past?
What though their ever joyous now
No future overcast.

No aspirations fill their breast
With longings undefined;
They live, they love, and they are blest
For what they seek they find.

They see no mystery in the stars,
No wonder in the plain,
And Life's enigma wakes in them,
No questions dark and vain.

To them earth is a final home,
A bright and blest abode;
Their lives unconsciously flow on
In harmony with God.

To this fair world our human hearts