ight-lined foliage throws,
While from thy pulp a healing balsam flows,
Whose power the suffering wretch from pain can free!
My pensive footsteps ever turn to thee!
Since oft, while musing on my lasting woes,
Beneath thy flowery white bells I repose,
Symbol of friendship dost thou seem to me;
For thus has friendship cast her soothing shade
O'er my unsheltered bosom's keen distress:
Thus sought to heal the wounds which love has made,
And temper bleeding sorrow's sharp excess!
Ah! not in vain she lends her balmy aid:
The agonies she cannot cure, are less!

"Towards the end of summer various kinds of foreign birds hasten, impelled
by an inexplicable instinct, from unknown regions, and across immense
oceans, to gather the profuse grains of this island; and the brilliancy of
their expanded plumage forms a contrast to the trees embrowned by the sun.
Such, among others, are various kinds of paroquets, the blue pigeon, called
here the pigeon of Holland, and the wandering and majestic white bird of
the Tropic, which Madame de la Tour thus apostrophised:--

SONNET

TO THE WHITE BIRD OF THE TROPIC.

Bird of the Tropic! thou, who lov'st to stray
Where thy long pinions sweep the sultry line,
Or mark'st the bounds which torrid beams confine
By thy averted course, that shuns the ray
Oblique, enamour'd of sublimer day:
Oft on yon cliff thy folded plumes recline,
And drop those snowy feathers Indians twine
To crown the warrior's brow with honours gay.
O'er Trackless oceans what impels thy wing?
Does no soft instinct in thy soul prevail?
No sweet affection to thy bosom cling,
And bid thee oft thy absent nest bewail?
Yet thou again to that dear spot canst spring
But I my long lost home no more shall hail!

"The domestic inhabitants of our forests, monkeys, sport upon the dark
branches of the trees, from which they are distinguished by their gray and
greenish skin, and their black visages. Some hang suspended by the tail,
and balance themselves in air; others leap from branch to branch, bearing
their young in their arms. The murderous gun has never affrighted those
peaceful children of nature. You sometimes hear the warblings of unknown
birds from the southern countries, repeated at a distance by the echoes of
the forest. The river, which runs in foaming cataracts over a bed of rocks,
reflects here and there, upo