Such little cultivation as has hitherto been attempted
has been attended by the most astonishing results; and persons have
actually returned from the West and South, in order to occupy farms in the
neighborhood of Hanover.
In one respect _c'est dommage_; one is grieved to part with the game
that is now so plentiful in the Pines. Owing to the beneficent provision
of the laws of New Jersey, which stringently forbid every description of
hunting in the State during alternate periods of five years, game of
all kinds has an opportunity to multiply; and at the termination of the
season of rest, in October, 1858, there was some noble hunting in the
neighborhood of Hanover. Five years hence, bears and deer will be a
tradition, panthers and raccoons a myth, partridges and quails a vain
and melancholy recollection, in what shall then be known as what was
once the Pines.
* * * * *
THE LAST BIRD.
Little Bird that singest
Far atop, this warm December day,
Heaven bestead thee, that thou wingest,
Ere the welcome song is done, thy way
To more certain weather,
Where, built high and solemnly, the skies,
Shaken by no storm together,
Fixed in vaults of steadfast sapphire rise!
There, the smile that mocks us
Answers with its warm serenity;
There, the prison-ice that locks us
Melts forgotten in a purple sea.
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