Familiar to the childish mind were tales
    Of rock-girt isles amid a desert sea,
  Where unexpected stretch the flowery vales
    To soothe the shipwrecked sailor’s misery. 
  Fainting, he lay upon a sandy shore,
  And fancied that all hope of life was o’er;
  But let him patient climb the frowning wall,
  Within, the orange glows beneath the palm tree tall,
  And all that Eden boasted waits his call.

  Almost these tales seem realized to-day,
  When the long dullness of the sultry way,
  Where “independent” settlers’ careless cheer
  Made us indeed feel we were “strangers” here,
  Is cheered by sudden sight of this fair spot,
  On which “improvement” yet has made no blot,
  But Nature all-astonished stands, to find
  Her plan protected by the human mind.

  Blest be the kindly genius of the scene;
    The river, bending in unbroken grace,
  The stately thickets, with their pathways green,
    Fair lonely trees, each in its fittest place. 
  Those thickets haunted by the deer and fawn;
  Those cloudlike flights of birds across the lawn;
  The gentlest breezes here delight to blow,
  And sun and shower and star are emulous to deck the show.

  Wondering, as Crusoe, we survey the land;
  Happier than Crusoe we, a friendly band;
  Blest be the hand that reared this friendly home,
  The heart and mind of him to whom we owe
  Hours of pure peace such as few mortals know;
  May he find such, should he be led to roam;
  Be tended by such ministering sprites—­
  Enjoy such gaily childish days, such hopeful nights! 
  And yet, amid the goods to mortals given,
  To give those goods again is most like heaven.

    Hazelwood, Rock River, June 30th, 1843.

The only really rustic feature was of the many coops of poultry near the house, which I understood it to be one of the chief pleasures of the master to feed.

Leaving this place, we proceeded a day’s journey along the beautiful stream, to a little town named Oregon.  We called at a cabin, from whose door looked out one of those faces which, once seen, are never forgotten; young, yet touched with many traces of feeling, not only possible, but endured; spirited, too, like the gleam of a finely tempered blade.  It was a face that suggested a history, and many histories, but whose scene would have been in courts and camps.  At this moment their circles are dull for want of that life which is waning unexcited in this solitary recess.

The master of the house proposed to show us a “short cut,” by which we might, to especial advantage, pursue our journey.  This proved to be almost perpendicular down a hill, studded with young trees and stumps.  From these he proposed, with a hospitality of service worthy an Oriental, to free our wheels whenever they should get entangled, also, to be himself the drag, to prevent our too rapid descent.  Such