The Sun.
London, England, 1845-12-19 00:00:00

SIMMONDS'S COLONIAL MAGAZINE.

It is not often that the Colonial Magazine 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 we-re over the woods,
As the sun stole out from their solitudes •
The moss was white on the maple's trunk,
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 men-sired stroke,
That the woodman how'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 born 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 leok'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.

THE NEW LONDON MAGAZINE.

This is the fourth appearance of this new candidate
for public favour, which is an agreeable melange of useful
and entertaining information. We would commend
" The Bachelor's Encyclopedia of Practical Economy"
to the attentive perusal of all yowig men beginning the
world. The present paper propounds the art of living
upon 701. a year, and shows clearly how it may be ac-
complished. The lovers of fun will be delighted with
Obadiah Goosequill, and Mr. Tippletoddy, while gossip-
ing with the olden poets, will introduce many a reader
for the first time to one of the most brilliant wits of the
Court of Charles I, and at the same time one of our
most elegant lyric poets, Sir John Suckling. There is a
great deal of pleasant reading in the New London Ma-
gazine.