With tatter'd hat, and beard unshorn, The squatter by his hearth unclean, He drove them through the logs again. And as he scratch'd, and chewd his quid, Close round a gaping circle press, Of ragged children plump and brown, In buckskin bag, with head of axe, No cups from foreign lands are seen, But HUNGER, ravenous guest! was there, And TOIL, blest sinnewer of the poor! Thy callous hand, and stubborn tread, Still made the hardest cabin floor What though the wolves with mingling howl, All night harrangued their answering brood; And that vile hag, the big horn'd owl, More hideous, hollow'd through the wood, Our pilgrim as he dropt to rest, Well pleas'd would listen to their lay, And as the cabin planks he prest,, Snore chorus to their lullaby. Soon as the dawn of morning broke, The red-bird whistled as he past, The turkey, from the tallest trees, Soon as the coming skiff he sees, And seeks the mountain's side again. The streaming ducks in rapid file, And pigeons darkening many a mile, And now the source of morning beams Upon the pilgrim's skiff it gleams, And plays upon the glassy deep: And where encircling mountains bend, He heard the whistling rustic's noise- Fast by the the river's shelving side, He climb'd the mouldering bank sublime, Struck with the forest deep and gray, Where scatter'd round by mighty Time, The ruins of the former lay; Here rose the sycamores immense, And stretch'd their whiten'd arms around, From eating floods the best defence, And hugest of the forest found The sugar trees erect and tall, Arrang'd their stately thousands here, The limpid sweets from every tree, Set by the entering augur free, And through small tubes of elder flow. Amid this maple forest gay, Where one prodigious log was rear'd, The kettles rang'd in black array With wooden pails from tree to tree, The singing rustics walk'd their round, And with their mingling jokes and glee, The deep and hollow woods resound. A little hut with leaves bespread, To shield the rustics from the night, With blankets for a transient bed, And moss cramm'd in each crevice tight. To see the thickening syrrup done, Amid the fire enlighten'd woods, The wanton wenches laugh and sing, For well each lightsome lass concludes Her hastening beau is on the wing. With startling whoop, in laughing trim, They fill the kettles to the brim, In feats of chopping wood they strive. The lasses from the kettles neat, Their vigorous sweethearts oft regale, With pliant lumps of sugar sweet, Dropp'd in the cool congealing pail. And while the blazing fire burns high, Within the hut the leaves are prest, Where snug as squirrels close they lie, And Love and Laughter know the rest. "Sweet is the sugar season dear!" The sweetest season is the Spring.” FOR THE PORT FOLIO. THE TABLE D'HOTE, No. V. Self delusion. There is no property of human nature that excites risibility on fairer terms than our total blindness to those follies and vices which form the dark shades of our characters; which diminish and often times destroy the value of our good qualities; and which excite the pity of our friends and the ridicule and contempt of our enemies. From this extraordinary kind of blindness and folly, few menand with deference to the ladies be it added-few women can pretend to an exemption. Hence we frequently see that persons with striking failings which an observer would suppose could not possibly escape their view for a single instant, remain as blind, deaf, and dumb to those blemishes, as if they belonged to the man in the moon, or any other of the illustrious personages with whom fancy or philosophy has peopled the planets. But ludicrous and frequently melancholy as the picture is, it is by no means complete. It holds up to view but half of our folly on this point: for it too often happens that we are so extravagantly deluded as to lay claim to virtues the very opposites to our every-day follies. Were I not disposed to let the reader employ his own imagination by looking among his acquaintances for instances, I might fill a page or two with corroborative cases. The most wonderful instance I have ever met with to illustrate the ideas here submitted to the readers of the Port Folio, and indeed the instance which has given rise to these lucubrations, is that of Dr. Johnson: with the extraordinary powers of his "mighty mind," |