THE FORESTERS. 47 



Nice cakes of wheaten flour, so crisp and good, 

 And piles of honeycombs, ambrosial food ! 

 While in the cheerful looks of all around 

 A still more pleasing, grateful treat we found. 

 Our host intelligent, and fond of news, 

 Long tales of trade and politics pursues; 

 The State's enlarging bounds, so mighty grown, 

 That even the bare extent remains unknown ; 

 Of Europe's wars, and Bonaparte's glories, 

 Wolves, rifles, Louisiana, whigs and tories ; 

 Of bears and wildcats, many a tale relates, 

 With every circumstance of place and dates ; 

 Till leaden sleep our weary eyes assailed, 

 And spite of eloquence at length prevailed. 



The following morning found us on the way, 

 Through woods of walnut trees conversing gay, 

 W T hose limbs enormous spread sublime around, 

 Their huge forefathers mouldering on the ground ; 

 The soil with leaves and showers of nuts was spread, 

 While millions more hung yellow overhead. 

 Here maples towered with little troughs below, 

 From whose gashed sides nectareous juices flow ; 

 The half-burnt logs, and stakes erected near, 

 Showed that the sugar camp once flourished here.(31) 

 Ye generous woodsmen ! let this bounteous tree, 

 Forever sacred from your axes be ; 

 O let not mangling wounds its life destroy I 

 But the nice auger for the axe employ ; 

 So shall these trees for ages lift their head, 

 And green and fresh their thickening foliage spread ; 



