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"Wilt weave a melancholy song;
And sweet the strain shall be, and long --
The melodies of death."

This is a changing world. Those whom we learn to love, die; and thou wilt chronicle for me their departure, and keep in memory their virtues. Earth has many sorrows; and when the dews of feeling gather on my heart, and glisten in my eye, thy treasured words, in kindness spoken, shall be music in my ears; and when years are multiplied, and my hand has forgotten to act, and my heart ceased to feel, thou shalt have a place in my library with the "world's illustrious," companioned with the mighty minds of old, whose names with thee shall be familiar as household words.

Too often the promises of men, like music, when passed, are obsolete; and we know that "passing away!" is the language of earth; besides, we are not the keepers of ourselves, nor the rulers of our own ways. But what I have promised, that will I do; and after many days, thou shalt bear witness that, like the faithful Samuel of old, "I KEPT MY WORD." *****

P. S. Cousin Will, this is St. Valentine's day. I wish I could write you something that would so strike the chord of cherished memories, as to make your heart vibrate for ever to their pleasant melodies.

My little pet Nickie is recovering, so for a time heaven will have one angel less, but Mrs. B---'s circle has one more, and may it be long ere it is broken.

New-York Institution for the Blind, June 16, 1849.

The Chief of the Ojibeway tribe, during his recent stay in New-York, gave us a call. His very tread is majesty, and, while being escorted through the house, he stopped to shake hands with every one, and spoke so tenderly to the little boys and girls, that they were moved even to tears. He told those who held their heads down, that if the Indians had them they would lash them to boards to make them grow straight. When all were assembled in the Chapel, Mr. Chamberlain introduced him. Then Miss Cynthia arose, and in her own sweet voice, welcomed him as follows: --

Oh, welcome, thou stranger, our hearts' warm emotions
Are clustering round thee, thou Chief of the brave;
We dream of the hour when with holy devotion,
Thy people first welcomed our sires from the wave.

We love thy harangues, thy war-song and story
Thy pine-wooded forests, so leafless and drear,
The red child of Nature, that bursts forth in glory,
To chase from its covert the fleet-footed deer.
But mostly, we cherish the heart where the spirit
Hath planted its impress, all deathless and bright,
For the children of promise by birthright inherit
The fountain of knowledge that gloweth with light.
But, sire, thou wilt leave us; when absent, remember
The hearts who have welcomed thy coming to-day,
And fondly will pray for the fate of thy people,
Whose children, like spring-time, are passing away.

To which the great Chief replied so beautifully and so affectingly that I can give you no conception of his words. He speaks English imperfectly, but his figures and illustrations are so fine -- nearly every sentence had in it some picture from Nature, gathered by her own child. The master spirits of olden time, the thunders of whose eloquence shook the Grecian forum and awed the world, were from the forest; and like them the chief of the Ojibeways studied beneath the broad canopy of the sky, by the light of the myriad stars, and gathered his imagery amid the cloud-capped hills of the West, where the red man in his native pride follows the buffalo in chase, and where Missouri's waters in prism beauties dash, steers his bark canoe.

Speaking of his brethren of the forest, he said: "Nature has given the Indian a great and good heart, and if you would know what religion and learning would do for him, hold a diamond in the sunbeams and watch its sparkling. True, my people see the glories of yonder sun, and dance with delight when he comes up from the waves; but a far brighter light shines in upon your minds. You have learned of God and the Bible, and I hope when the shades of night have fallen on the world, and you go to rest, and the angels are leaning over you listening to your whispered prayers, you will not forget the children of the forest. And when the morning breaks may blessings fall upon them like showers of raindrops upon withered flowers."

A fly might as well try to take the altitude of a mountain, as for me to attempt to give you an idea of his eloquence. His object in passing through the country is to excite, if possible, an interest in behalf of his wronged and oppressed people. At the next session of Congress he purposes petitioning Government for a tract of land in the Northwest Territories, which shall be to the Indian an inheritance for ever, to be neither bought nor sold by any nation. Then, with proper efforts, he thinks civilization, agriculture, the arts and sciences, religion and refinement, may be introduced among them with comparative ease.

In the course of his remarks he exclaimed: "Upon whose grounds do your proud institutions rest? Where dug you the stones of which they are piled, and from whose forests were their timbers hewed? Who welcomed your fathers from the sea, and whose wigwams hid them from the storm, their enemies, and beasts of the wood? Who smoked with them the pipe of peace, and showed them lakes and streams running like silver currents upon the bosom of the earth, and when their French foes came down from the north with battle-axe and spear, who, like the Chief of the Mohawks, harangued his braves, and bared his own breast, and nobly fell in their defence? But oh! we will speak no more of this. Too many of our sires sleep side by side in their angry blood where they fell. The Indian has done evil, but he has sometimes done good; and how much he has been wronged, the Great Spirit and his angels only know. When I look over these grain fields, so far as the eye can reach, my aching heart asks, What has my people received in return? What have the pale faces given in exchange for all these garden scenes? They have taught our lips to thirst for firewater instead of our mountain springs, and our bows and arrows we have laid down for the white man's thunder-sticks, and no more can we chase the fleet-footed deer, or follow the fox to his hole, or the wolf to his cave; for we are weary and our spirits do fail, and our hearts grow sick and die within us."