The Sun.
London, England, 1845-12-17 00:00:00

SIMMONDS'S COLONIAL MAGAZINE.

It is not often that the Colonial Alagazine favours us
with poetry. In the present number, however, we find
the following beautiful little poem, and we fear that the
author, like the poet of the olden time, is a prophet also,
and foreshadows but too truly what must be the in-
evitable fate of all aboriginal semi-civilised races:—

THE INDIAN HUNTER.
BY H. W. LONGFELLOW.
When the summer harvest was gather'd in,
And the sheaf of the reaper grew white and thin,
And the ploughshare was in its furrow left,
Where the stubble land had been lately cleft,—
An Indian hunter, with unstrung bow,
Look'd down where the valley lay stretch'd below.
He was a stranger, and all that day
Had been out on the hills, a perilous way;
But the foot of the deer was far and fleet,
And the wolf kept aloof from the hunter's feet,
And bitter feelings pass'd o'er him then,
As he stood by the populous haunts of men.
The winds of autumn were over the woods,
As the sun stole out from their solitudes;
The moss was white on the maple's trun,
And dead from its arms the pale vine shrunk,
And ripen'd the mellow fruit hung, and red
Were the trees' wither'd leaves around it shed.
The foot of the reaper moved slow on the lawn,
And the sickle cut down the yellow corn ;
The mower sung loud by the meadow side,
Where the mists of evening were spreading wide,
And the voice of the herdsman came up the lea,
And the dance went round by the greenwood tree.
Then the hunter turn'd away from that scene,
Where the home of his fathers once had been,
And heard, by the distant and measured stroke,
That the woodman hew'd down the giant oak;
And burning thoughts flash'd o'er his mind
Of the white man's faith, and love unkind.
The moon of the harvest grew high and bright,
As her golden horn pierced the cloud of white;
A footstep was heard in the rustling brake,
Where the beech o'ershadow'd the misty lake,
And a mourning voice and a plunge from shore,
And the hunter was seen on the hills no more.
When years pass'd on, by that still lake side
The fisher look'd down through the silver tide,
And there, on the smooth yellow sand display'd,
A skeleton, wasted and white, was laid;
And 'twas seen, as the waters moved deep and slow,
That the hand was still grasping a hunter's bow.
The present number also contains a valuable paper on
the railway prospects of New South Wales, and a vast
mass of useful statistical colonial information.

MELANCHOLY ACCIDENT AT TILE BLACKWALL
RAlLWAY.—Yesterday, about eleven o'clock in the forenoon,
a young man named Francis Burnand, in the service of the
Blackwell Railway Company as guard, at the Limehouse
station, met with the following accident :—The poor fellow,
who is but 22 years of age, and only three weeks married,
had just returned from breakfast to assume his duties at the
station. Having got on the wrong side for his carriage, he
was about to cross the line, when seeing a carriage coming
in he became undecided, hesitated for a moment, and then
attempted to retreat. In doing so, he fell, and the flange of
the wheel passed over his legs, crushing the left thigh in the
rail, and grinding the bone and flesh to a jelly. The other
foot was also severely lacerated. Ile was removed to the
London Hospital, where the leg was amputated. Little or
no hope of his recovery is entertained.
A vacancy has occurred in the office of Landing
Surveyor of Customs at Portsmouth, by the death of Mr.
Collins, who held that office for a considerable period, and it
is expected that it will be filled by the promotion of Mr. P.
limber, the senior officer of the Landing Department at that
port, and who, from his having acted in that capacity during
the lengthened illness of Mr. Collins, is considered qualified
for tin office alluded to.