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THE LAST PLAGUE OF EGYPT.-REV. A. CLEVELAND COXE.

Deep night o'er thy waters, thou dark-rolling Nile,
And the Hebrew sleeps trembling, his lord with a smile,
For a voice comes in dreams to the children of God:
But the proud have no whisper that Death is abroad!

So, nestled in rocks, when the whirlwind is nigh,
They hear its far coming-the birds of the sky!
While trees it must shiver in leaf and in form,
Are hush as the stillness that heralds the storm.

And the Memphian, at midnight, lay smiling and pleased,
His sin all unshriven, his God unappeas'd,

Till o'er his dark slumbers chill shadows were curl'd,
And the soul of the dreamer was far from the world.

And he lay in the coils of the death-spirit, mute,
With a seal on his lips, like the blast in the fruit;

And he seem'd as when hoar frost hath stiffen'd the flower. 'Twas the blight of the Lord, 'twas the touch of his power.

But still was the starlight, while shrouded and hid,
Death brooded o'er palace, and cold pyramid;
No voice on the midnight; no larum of wrath;
No sound of the whirlwind-but only its path.

And a cry was in Egypt, when rose the red morn,
For a thousand pale mothers bewail'd their first born;
And Memnon's sweet music that greeted the Sun
Was lost in the moan of a nation undone.

And shriek'd the young wife o'er the child of her pain,
That never should breathe on her bosom again,
And breasts that were warm with their nursling before;
But heaved, in her grief, for the boy that she bore.

And the bride shrunk aghast, like the death-stricken dove,
When she woke in the cold frozen lock of her love;
And a groan for the noble, the lovely outpour'd,
A wail for the battle they waged with the Lord.

And they seem'd like the willows, that, left on the steep,
Are bent o'er the wreck of the forest to weep,

Or lilies that dripping, and drooping of form,
Shed tears o'er the broken, the spoil of the storm.

Ye join not the wailing, ye dwellers of Zan!
Hath the death-angel spared ye, that smote as he ran?
Oh, the blood-sprinkled lintel hath stayed his proud reign,
And watch'd at your threshold the Lamb that was slain.

RETURN OF THE WEPT OF WISH-TON-WISH.-JAMES FENIMORE COOPER.

The movement of the timid hare is scarce more hurried, or more undecided, than that of the creature who now suddenly presented herself to the warriors. It was apparent, by the hesitating and half-retreating step that succeeded the light bound with which she came in view, that she dreaded to advance, while she knew not how far it might be proper to retire. For the first moment, she stood in a suspended and doubting posture, such as one might suppose a creature of mist would assume ere it vanished, and then meeting the eye of Conanchet, the uplifted foot retouched the earth, and her whole form sunk into the modest and shrinking attitude of an Indian girl, who stood in the presence of a Sachem of her tribe. As this female is to enact no mean part in that which follows, the reader may be thankful for a more minute description of her person.

The age of the stranger was under twenty. In form she rose above the usual stature of an Indian maid, though the proportions of her person were as light and buoyant as at all comported with the fullness that properly belonged to her years. The limbs, seen below the folds of a short kirtle of bright scarlet cloth, were just and tapering, even to the nicest proportions of classic beauty; and never did foot of higher instep, and softer roundness, grace a feathered moccason. Though the person, from the neck to the knees, was hid by a tightly-fitting vest of calico and the short kirtle named, enough of the shape was visible to betray outlines that had never been injured, either by the mistaken devices of art or by the baneful effects of toil. The skin was only visible at the hands, face, and neck. Its lustre having been a little dimmed by exposure, a rich, rosy tint had usurped the natural brightness of a complexion that had once been fair even to brilliancy. The eye was full, sweet, and of a blue that emulated the sky of evening; the brows, soft and arched; the nose, straight, delicate, and slightly Grecian; the forehead, fuller than that which properly belonged to a girl of the Narragansetts, but regular, delicate, and polished; and the hair, instead of dropping in long straight tresses of jet black, broke out of the restraints of a band of beaded wampum, in ringlets of golden yellow.

The peculiarities that distinguished this female from the

others of her tribe, were not confined alone to the indelible marks of nature. Her step was more elastic; her gait more erect and graceful; her foot less inwardly inclined, and her whole movements freer and more decided than those of a race doomed from infancy to subjection and labor. Though ornamented by some of the prized inventions of the hated raco to which she evidently owed her birth, she had the wild and timid look of those with whom she had grown into womanhood. Her beauty would have been remarkable in any region of the earth, while the play of muscle, the ingenuous beaming of the eye, and the freedom of limb and action, were such as seldom pass beyond the years of childhood, among people who, in attempting to improve, so often mar the works of nature.

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Why has Conanchet sent for a woman from the woods ?" "Narra-mattah, come near ;" returned the young chief, changing the deep and proud tones in which he had addressed his restless and bold companion in arms, to those which better suited the gentle ear for which his words were intended. "Fear not, daughter of the morning, for those around us are of a race used to see women at the council-fires. Now look, with an open eye-is there anything among these trees that seemeth like an ancient tradition? Hast ever beheld such a valley, in thy dreams? Have yonder Pale-faces, whom the tomahawks of my young men spared, been led before thee by the Great Spirit, in the dark night?"

The female listened, in deep attention. Her gaze was wild and uncertain, and yet it was not absolutely without gleamings of a half-reviving intelligence. Until that moment, she had been too much occupied in conjecturing the subject of her visit to regard the natural objects by which she was surrounded: but with her attention thus directly turned upon them, her organs of sight embraced each and all, with the discrimination that is so remarkable in those whose faculties are quickened by danger and necessity. Passing from side to side, her swift glances ran over the distant hamlet, with its little fort; the buildings in the near grounds; the soft and verdant fields; the fragrant orchard, beneath whose leafy shades she stood, and the blackened tower, that rose in its centre, like some gloomy memorial, placed there to remind the spectator not to trust too fondly to the signs of peace and loveliness that reigned around. Shaking back the ringlets that had blown about her temples,

the wondering female returned thoughtfully and in silence to her place.

"Tis a village of the Yengeese!" she said, after a long and expressive pause. "A Narragansett woman does not love to look at the lodges of the hated race."

"Listen.-Lies have never entered the ears of Narra-mattah. My tongue hath spoken like the tongue of a chief. Thou didst not come of the sumach, but of the snow. This hand of thine is not like the hands of the women of my tribe; it is little, for the Great Spirit did not make it for work; it is of the color of the sky in the morning, for thy fathers were born near the place where the sun rises. Thy blood is like spring water. All this thou knowest, for none have spoken false in thy_ear. Speak-dost thou never see the wigwam of thy father? Does not his voice whisper to thee, in the language of his people?"

The female stood in the attitude which a sibyl might be supposed to assume, while listening to the occult mandates of the mysterious oracle, every faculty entranced and attentive.

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Why does Conanchet ask these questions of his wife? He knows what she knows; he sees what she sees; his mind is her mind. If the Great Spirit made her skin of a different color, he made her heart the same. Narra-mattah will not listen to the lying language; she shuts her ears, for there is deceit in its sounds. She tries to forget it. One tongue can say all she wishes to speak to Conanchet; why should she look back in dreams, when a great chief is her husband?"

The eye of the warrior, as he looked upon the ingenuous and confiding face of the speaker, was kind to fondness. The firmness had passed away, and in its place was left the winning softness of affection, which, as it belongs to nature, is seen, at times, in the expression of an Indian's eye, as strongly as it is ever known to sweeten the intercourse of a more polished condition of life.

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Girl," he said with emphasis, after a moment of thought, as if he would recall her and himself to more important duties, "this is a war-path; all on it are men. Thou wast like the pigeon before its wing opens, when I brought thee from the nest; still the winds of many winters had blown upon thee. Dost never think of the warmth and of the food of the lodge in which thou hast past so many seasons?"

"The wigwam of Conanchet is warm; no woman of the tribe hath as many furs as Narra-mattah."

"He is a great hunter! when they hear his moccason, the

beavers lie down to be killed! But the men of the Pale-faces hold the plow. Does not 'the driven snow' think of those who fenced the wigwam of her father from the cold, or of the manner in which the Yengeese live?"

His youthful and attentive wife seemed to reflect; but raising her face, with an expression of content that could not be counterfeited, she shook her head in the negative.

"Does she never see a fire kindled among the lodges, or hear the whoops of the warriors as they break into a settlement ?"

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Many fires have been kindled before her eyes. The ashes of the Narragansett town are not yet cold."

"Does not Narra-mattah hear her father speaking to the God of the Yengeese? Listen-he is asking favor for his child!" "The Great Spirit of the Narragansett has ears for his people."

"But I hear a softer voice! 'Tis a woman of the Pale-faces among her children; cannot the daughter hear?"

Narra-mattah, or 66 the driven snow," laid her hand lightly on the arm of the chief, and she looked wistfully and long into his face, without an answer. The gaze seemed to deprecate the anger that might be awakened by what she was about to reveal.

"Chief of my people," she said, encouraged by his still calm and gentle brow to proceed, "what a girl of the clearings sees in her dreams shall not be hid. It is not the lodges of her race, for the wigwam of her husband is warmer. It is not the food and clothes of a cunning people, for who is richer than the wife of a great chief? It is not her father speaking to their Spirit, for there is none stronger than Manitou. Narramattah has forgotten all: she does not wish to think of things like these. She knows how to hate a hungry and craving race. But she sees one that the wives of the Narragansetts do not see. She sees a woman with a white skin; her eyes look softly on her child in her dreams; it is not an eye, it is a tongue! It says, what does the wife of Conanchet wish ?-is she cold? here are furs-is she hungry? here is venison-is she tired? the arms of the pale woman open, that an Indian girl may sleep. When there is silence in the lodges, when Conanchet and his young men lie down, then does this pale woman speak. Sachem, she does not talk of the battles of her people, nor of the scalps that her warriors have taken, nor of the manner in which the Pequots and Mohicans fear her tribe.

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