OSCEOLA.

BY W. J. SNELLING, OF BOSTON, MASSACHUSSETS.

I.

Strike triumph's most exulting string,

Tell to the heavens with loud acclaim,

A hero's soul is on the wing;

And boldly let the trump of fame
To glorify the red-man's name
Tell the admiring world a tale
To make the cheek of wonder pale.

II.

Within a prison's irksome gloom,
Beneath a sultry southern sky,
Portal of his last home, the tomb,
Lay the red warrior down to die.
His raven locks in disarray,
A squalid mat his only bed,
And not one friend to raise his head,
Ebbs that proud spirit fast away.
And thither armèd men repair
On his last agonies to stare :
Sheep in the field, they dread not here
The nervous arm, the brow severe,
The trumpet voice, whose faintest tone
Oft made the many quail to one.

III.

Unworthy fate! the costliest grave
The proudest country ever gave

Her noblest chief, for battle won,
High heart, strong arm, and patriot zeal,
And truth and wisdom tried as steel,

Were thy fit meed, brave "Rising Sun."
O! rightly named, though never yet
Has rising sun so darkly set.

Would our dishonor and our crime
Were blotted from the book of time;
Or if the record black must tell

Our sons how Osceola fell,

Then "damned to everlasting fame"
Let Jessup's live with Arnold's name.

Iv.

Our country's stars and stripes were flying
Where the red warrior lay dying:

A ray of the meridian sun
Upon the chieftain's blanket shone.
A moment glanced that eagle eye
Where freedom's banner floated high.
"And draw ye near, my foes!" he said,
"And for a brief space raise my head,

And smooth my long dishevelled hair:
Bring me my arms; my rifle bring;
Give me my belt of wampum string,
And let my knife's keen point be bare.
Now raise ye me, for fain I would
Depart as Osceola should,
As with his weapon in his hand
He battled for his native land.

V.

"Though loth, I do not fear, to die: Attest it, Withlacoochè's stream, Where Osceola's battle-cry

Blent with the foeman's dying scream.
Ye woods, where soft Soovannee flows,
Bear witness, if I feared my foes,

Or shrunk from death or pain.
Where'er the baffled bayonet
By tomahawk and knife were met,
The issue tells the white man yet
I have not lived in vain :

Though my parched lips and burning brow
Give warning that my hour is nigh:
His dastard joy assures even now

That Osceola cannot die,

But leaves behind a deathless name
Coeval with his murderer's shame.

VI.

"Roll down that flag, which mocking waves
Its desecration over slaves.

Is that the flag of freedom?-No.
Did freedom's pennon ever flow

O'er robbers and invaders' wars?

Can liberty descend to guile,

Or, shameless, fight for sordid spoil?

Pull down those stripes, pull down those stars!

I asked but freedom-and ye gave

The freedom of the lonely grave.

This all that I can call my own!

I slew your youth-their hearts are cold

Who bartered liberty for gold.

Pull down those stripes; those stars pull down;

Or rather let their honors wave

Where pirates haunt or dwells the slave.

VII.

"Dash, wife, thy sorrow from thine eyes,

My body, not my spirit, dies;

While on the soil the spoiler reft
But one true Seminole is left.
O! better on his father's grave

He sleeps the sleep of death,
Than trust to that which cannot save
The Christian's broken faith.
In life and death, in good and ill,
My spirit shall be with you still :
Still on the breeze the stirring call
Shall edge the blade, and wing the ball,
And waken into life the shades
Of the primeval Everglades."

VIII.

Before the setting of the day
The mounting spirit soared away:
And strangers on his ashes tread-
Peace to the lion-hearted dead.

OUR PORTRAIT GALLERY.-NO. XXI.

WILLIAM HAMILTON MAXWELL,

Author of "My Life," "Wild Sports of the West," "Stories of Waterloo," &c. It has been our fortune, good or ill as you like to call it, to have mixed much in the society of that class, which the French comprehensively designate by the title of "artiste," including thereby, poet, painter, musician, sculptor, song-writer, play-wright, actor, author, and all the hoc genus omne of those "diverting vagabonds," who, themselves content to sip the cold teetotalism of Helicon, kindly convert their skulls into goblets, from which publishers and others sip their wine withal. Now, I by no means would insist, that a man cannot keep better, but he certainly cannot keep pleasanter company. The very dark sides of their character are so relieved by the flashes of genius which illustrate their works; their foibles their vanities their egotisms-their fits of sulkiness and ill humour, are all so tinged with the "coleur de rose" light that plays over their happier moments, that what in less-gifted temperaments, had degenerated into coarse selfishness, or morose isolation, with them is but the black cloud shadowing the landscape as it passes, deepening every dell and ravine, where the instant after, the bright sun will be sparkling and glittering. The irritabile genus is a delectabile genus-shining, corruscating, and illuminating the murky atmosphere of this work-o'-day world of cotton and cambric, timber, tallow, and tobacco, soaring above the meaner cares and vulgar contentions of common life, into the high mountains of far-reaching fancy, or strolling with uncertain step, in the dim twilight of some calm valley of thought-rendering, by the magic of genius, the hours of sickness light-making society in solitude-tempering the wind of adversity to the heart shorn of its happiness-making even the humblest heart to participate in the same thrill of pleasure that princes feeland connecting, by the mighty electricity of mind, the highest and the lowestthat the proud man and the poor should go down to drink at the same well; and the same sparkling fountain should pour forth its treasures alike for prince and peasant.

This is, indeed, a bright prerogative-honour, then, to those whose gift it is, and into whose nature one ray the more of godlike essence enters, whether toiling by the midnight lamp, over the long mouldering pages which age and years have half obliterated; or with more excursive fancy, treading the unexplored realms of imagination, teaching men what they might be, while showing what they are.

Happy were it that those, who thus minister to our pleasures, were themselves debarred from the sorrows they so generously relieve in others. But, alas! the world has its cares for them as for us: the common fortune of mortality is pretty equally distributed; and the more circumscribed realm of their occupations is not destitute of those crosses and misfortunes which await those who adventure upon the broad ocean of life. Hence we have the widely-spread scandal of the irritability of genius-the improvidence of talent-the recklessness of ability-the envy of authorship—the rivalry and rancour of the race of those whose head is substitute for their hand; for, unfortunately, the circumstances of their position place them ever before the public eye;-they are always “en scene" their successes and failures are daily topics-and the happiness of their home is but the reflex of public approbation. With them there is no trade-wind of fortune; all is variable, changing, and unsettled-the effort of to-day may be chilled by the failure of to-morrow, and the very fear of the result will prejudice the endeavour.

In proportion as the sphere of a man's occupations narrow, so much the more is he convinced that his is the only path in life worth following. The merchant, whose white-sailed barks float on every sea from Labrador to China, is as nothing in his own estimation compared with him whose new poem is just published, or whose "positively last night" is announced for Saturday. And