C3 THE FORESTERS. 



There shall your grateful friends with choicest store, 

 And hearts o'erflowing welcome you once more ; 

 There friendship's purest joys will crown the whole, 

 The feast of reason and the flow of soul.'' 



Our boat now ready and our baggage stored, 

 Provisions, mast, and oars and sails aboard, 

 With three loud cheers that echoed from the steep, 

 We launched our skiff Niagara to the deep; 

 The shores recede — the oars resounding play, 

 Fleet through th' unruffled flood we scour away, 

 Till Evening sweet suspends her starry veil, 

 And all around her sparkling orbs prevail. 

 Tiiere, high in front, the Bear's bright splendors glow, 

 His answering glories gild the deep below. 

 Profound and vast, and, as we onward glide, 

 Dance on the bosom of the dimpling tide. 

 Lone Night and listening Silence seemed to sleep 

 On the smooth surface of the glistening deep; 

 Save where the ducks in rising thousands soar, 

 Leaving the dark expanse with lengthened roar, 

 That like a cataract bursts from legions near, 

 And dies in distance on the vacant ear. 

 Meantime young Duncan, as the oar he plies, 

 With voice melodious bids the song arise, 

 The theme Columbia, her sublime increase, 

 " Blest land of Freedom, happiness and peace, 

 Far, far removed from Europe's murderous scene, 

 A wide, a friendly waste of waves between, 

 Where strangers driv'n by tyranny to roam, 

 Still find a nobler and a happier home. 



