SONG OF THE EVIL SPIRIT OF THE WOODS. * QUA VIA DIFFICILIS, QUAQUE EST VIA NULLA.............' Now the vapour, hot and damp, Through the misty ether spreads ; Hark! I hear the traveller's song, * The idea of this poem occurred to me in passing through the very dreary wilderness between Batavia, a new settlement in the midst of the woods, and the little village of Buffalo upon Lake Erie. This is the most fatiguing part of the route, in travelling through the Genesee country to Niagara. + "The Five Confederated Nations (of Indians) were settled along the banks of the Susquehannah and the adjacent coun Hither, sprites, who love to harm, Where the bird of carrion flits, try, until the year 1779, when General Sullivan, with an army of 4,000 men, drove them from their country to Niagara, where, being obliged to live on salted provisions, to which they were unaccustomed, great numbers of them died. Two hundred of them, it is said, were buried in one grave, where they had encamped."-MORSE's American Geography. * The alligator, who is supposed to lie in a torpid state all the winter in the bank of some creek or pond, having previously swallowed a large number of pine-knots, which are his only sustenance during the time. + This was the mode of punishment for murder (as Father CHARLEVOIX tells us) among the Hurons." 'They laid the dead body upon poles at the top of a cabin, and the murderer was obliged to remain several days together, and to receive all that dropped from the carcass, not only on himself but on his food." VOL. II.. 10 Hither bend you, turn you hither O'er the damp earth, pale and dying! To the Fiend presiding there! * "We find also collars of porcelain, tobacco, ears of maize, skins, etc. by the side of difficult and dangerous ways, on rocks, or by the side of the falls; and these are so many offerings made to the spirits which preside in these places." -See CHARLEVOIX's Letter on the Traditions and the Religion of the Savages of Canada. Father HENNEPIN, too, mentions this ceremony; he also says, Then, when night's long labour past, There let every noxious thing Rankling all, the wretch expires! TO MRS. HENRY T-GHE, ON READING HER "PSYCHE." TELL me the witching tale again, For never has my heart or ear Hung on so sweet, so pure a strain, So pure to feel, so sweet to hear! 1802. "We took notice of one barbarian, who made a kind of sacrifice upon an oak at the Cascade of St. Antony of Padua, upon the river Mississippi."-See HENNEPIN'S Voyage into North America. Say, Love! in all thy spring of fame, And even thy errors were divine! Did ever Muse's hand, so fair, A glory round thy temple spread ? Did ever lip's ambrosial air Such perfume o'er thy altars shed ? One maid there was, who round her lyre But all her sighs were sighs of fire, The myrtle wither'd as she breathed! Oh! you that Love's celestial dream Let not the senses' ardent beam Too strongly through the vision glow! Love sweetest lies conceal'd in night, The night where Heaven has bid him lie; Oh! shed not there unhallow'd light, Or, PSYCHE knows, the boy will fly ! * * See the story in APULEIUS. With respect to this beautiful allegory of Love and Psyche, there is an ingenious idea sug |