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vol. hi.
i ! From the New Orleans Sunday limes.]
A W arning.
BY MERMINE.
Don’t marry an old man, Pearlita;
Don’t wed your bright youth with his
age—
The gloom of his many long winters
Will darken your life’s summer page.
Don’t marry an old man, Pearlita;
I’m only your old nurse, ’tis true,
But my heart has learned wisdom through
loving,
And all of its love is for you.
!U>w can I be silent, Pearlita,
When the child I have loved and ca
ressed,
Throws her heart, with its treasure of feel
ing’.
To be chilled upon Winter’s cold
breast ?
You are fair as a flower, Pearlita,
Gem-crowned with the dew of the
Dawn;
But you know, dear, such flowers will
perish,
When the shadow of Night drawcth
on !
You are sweet as a bird, my Pearlita,
That sings in the sun-lighted glade—
Tt h not on the snow-cpvcred mountain,
The home of that young bird is made.
You say that you love him, Pearlita,
You can lean on his strength and grow
strong,
You are willing to bloom near his bleak
ness,
To brighten his life with your song !
Ah ! my poor, little, foolish Pearlita,
How little you know what you say—
Would this earth have its song-birds and
blossoms
It December should follow the May ?
You tay that he loves you so truly,
That his words are so noble and grand;
That he'll be both the father and lover,
’Twill be sweet, to obey or command !
Ah 1 child, in your innocent planning,
You forget the sweet bridal of yore,
j Where God, in their morning of being,
Wedded Adam to Eve evermore.
They were equal in youth and in beauty,
They were equal in knowledge and
grace,
And God wishes his truest of bridals
To be copied by all of their race.
Take this lesson to heart, my Pearlita,
And fling all this folly away—
The Rose may not wed with the Snow
flake,
Nor December weave garlands for May.
March 1, 1870.
a i >i >im:ss
OF
JIM. JOHN O. I llltHli.i,
BEFORE THE HIBERNIAN SOCIETY OF SAVAN
NAH, sr. Patrick’s day, 1870.
Mr. President and Gentlemen of the
lUhernian Society:
Ladies and Gentlemen : —The word
'vuliar to our language around which
; r *e dearest associations of life clu>ter,
F the monosyllable, home. It is the key
:e of the grand symphony caught
hoia Angel voices in early childhood, that
"Oy perfected when heard in the other,
bettor home beyond the stars. What a
v '’-‘ Id of thought, of half-forgotten memo-
Ti ‘ s Ones it evoke ! To some it speaks
■ ■ splendid cities, luxurious dwellings,
‘‘ipb-bom dames—jeweled ladies of noble
n ' Cf -, in velvet and satin, and gold bro
' --‘0; to others, of green fields, lowing
Ends, rippling brooks—loving, gentle,
Finely hearts. The voice of its music
1: now plaintive and sad as tke cry of
t,le whip poor-will within the dusky
>om of a southern forest; again it bursts
forth in the loud, triumphant strains of
the Royal Harp that once pealed its vic
torious numbers through Tara’s Halls.
The authors and poets who have en
twined themselves about the great heart
of humanity are they who have written
and sung of home. Charles Dickens—
who—how we love the name —will never
be forgotten, because of his beautiful de
lineations of the people’s domestic life ;
and the memory of Washington Irving—
the kindest, gentlest nature that ever
lived—is cherished by two continents for
his vivid descriptions of home life in the
“dear old land across the water.” And
there is our own silver-tongued Howard
Payne, the poor wanderer, who, houseless
and friendless himself, dying beneath the
loads of a London garret, has taught the
world to sing that sweetest melody ever
penneefby human hands or warbled by
human lips—
“ Home, sweet home,
There’s no place like home.”
Doubtless, as he lay dying of hunger and
cold, in that London attic, with the fogs
of the great city excluding the sunlight,
doubtless it was with this hymn of domes
tic afTectiou upon his lips, and the picture
of his early years, with all its coloring of
light and shade before his dimming eye,
that he passed away to the eternal home,
where want and suffering are never
known.
It is specially at the final moment of
life, when the unknown is about to break
upon us, that this feeling is at its
strength. Who, having once read, can
ever forget the “Dying Gladiator," by
that prince of poesy, whose name will con
tinue to live, surrounded with a halo of
glory, long, long after the hones of. his
infamous traducer shall rot and whiten
upon the plains of oblivion ?
“He leans upon his hand—his manly
brow
Consents to death, but conquers agony,
And his drooped head sinks gradually
low
As through his side the last drops, ebbing
slow
From the red gash, fall heavy one by
one,
Like the first of a thunder shower; and
now
The arena swims around him—he is
gone,
Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hail
ed the wretch who won,
He heard it but be heeded not—his eyes
Were with his heart, and that was far
away.
lie reck’d not of the life he lost nor
prize,
But where his rude hut by the Danube
lay,
There were his young barbarians all at
p^y,
There was their Dacian mother.”
The man is wretched indeed, and above
all others to be pited, who cannot revert
with pleasure to the scenes of his child
hood—to the kindly faces, the half remem
bered prayer, caught in lisping accents
from loving lips; to the kiss that hastened
his loitering footsteps off to school and
welcomed his return; to the thousand
and one little buds of affection that make
up the garden of life. There is nothing
that can obliterate such impressions from
the memory. Take the wings of the
morning aud soar like a bird through the
immensity of space ; wander in distant
climes, amongst strauge people, and view
the ever varying hues of Oriental barbaric
splendor; dive down deep in mid ocean,
to ramble among coral grottos, where
mermaids dwell and Neptune holds his
court, but even then will
“Fond mem’ry bring the light
Os other days around you.”
It is this sentiment so deeply impressed
upon our natures which has caused the
formation of such societies as this which
I have the honor to address to-day. The
Englishman, leaving his native land with
A.ITGUSTA, GrA_., APRIL 2, 1870.
all the glorious recollections of her na
tional greatness crowding upon him, has
given us the society named after the
patron saint of Albion—St. George—who,
we are told in the delicious old romances,
slew the mighty Dragon. The hardy
Scots, whose immortal bard exclaimed in
his matchless verse —
“Breathes there a man with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hat said,
This is my own, my native land !”
have bestowed upon their organization
the patronymic of the good Lj. Andrew;
and the sons of Erin, the tin dren of the
Sacred Isle , which rests uj.'m the waves
of the Atlantic like an EmerJd upon the
bosom of Beauty, rising and fulling with
the music of her sighs, have called their
Society after the place of their nativity—
W; nm-hearted Hibernia. Oh, land of
generous natures, of lovely women and
brave men, how can I find words befitted
to speak thy praise ! Oh, suffering, long
enduring Mother, who clasps thy pro
scribed children in thy manacled arms,
are sending them forth unto stranger lands
with no fortune but thy blessing, their own
stout hearts, and the favor of Heaven,
do we most pity or admire thee ? We
pity for the cruel necessity that forces
such unnatural separation, but are lost in
admiration when we recall tl 3 splendid
deeds performed by those . t ""art and
chivalrous sons whose names are' written
on the pages of history. “Aye, and they,
too, are proud, proud of their country,
their race, their ancestry, their valor,
their Religion—proud of their old Kings,
who warred upon the Dane aud Norman;
of their Priests, who carried the Cross in
triumph from coast to coast, long before
the SaxoH had ceased to worship strange
gods in Druid groves”—proud of Grat
tan —
“Ever glorious Grattan 1 the best of the
good !
So simple in heart, so sublime iu the
rest !
With all which Demosthenes wanted, en
dured,
And his rival or victor in all he
possessed; 1 ’
Os Burke, and Curran, and Sheridan, and
O'Connell, and Emmett—orators whose
eloquence has stirred the hearts of man
kind. Proud of soldiers like Lucan and
O’Niel, and O’Donnell, and MacMahon,
and Neil, and Clebdrne; of poets and au
thors, like Moore, and Goldsmith, and
Swift. There is no country in all the
world but in whose coronel of jewels there
gleams an Emerald. .
It is not long since there was borne to
its rest the remains of one of France’s
bravest and most skillful warriors; and
of Napoleon’s most trusted friends. The
streets of the ga}’ capital were filled with
uncovered people, eager to show respect
to the memory of the great departed.—
Escorted by the highest dignitaries of the
Empire—with the general officers sur
rounded by their brilliant staffs, with all
the garrison of Paris, their arms reversed,
and to the music of the march for the
dead—Adolph Neil, a descendant of a
noble Irish family, was carried to his
tomb with all the honors due to a hero of
the Crimea and Italy, and a Marshal of
France. Another descendant of one of
those noble families who fled from Ire
land with the last of the Stuart Kings,
preferring poverty in a foreign country
with their S rvereign, to splendid opulence
under a usurper in their own land—was
Marshal O’Donnell, Duke of Tetaan, per
haps the ablest statesman and soldi*»r
who basin the last half century controll
ed the destinies of Spain—the land of
Ferdinand and Isabella.
On the night of the 2d of June, 1859,
Fiance was in a blaze of enthusiasm, for
another laurel had been added to the Im
perial brow, aud the suu of Austerlitz
had beamed again upon the Eagles of the
Old Guard. The cannon of the Invalides
announced the joyful intelligence, and
the glad echo was repeated from fort to
fort, until the roar of artillery resounded
from the British Channel to the shores of
the sleeping Mediterranean. From city
and village, and hamlet, went up the loud
huzzas for the brave army that had cov
ered itself and its country with glory
upon the plains of Magenta; while from
saloon, and hotel, and palace, all ablaze
with illuminating lights, issued the vo
luptuous. swell of the waltz, and deux
temps, and galop, and • .
“Soft eyes looked love to eyes that spake
again,”
and mingled with it all—with the roar of
the guns and the notes of the danec
there ascended from every cathedral and
chapel that grand hymn of thanksgiving
t_> the God of Battles, the Te Deum Lau
darnus.
far off from the giddy from
the banks of the Rhone and Garonne,
there comes up a sound louder than the
booming cannon of the Invalides, drown
ing the music of the guns and the music
of the waltz ; louder than the pealing
bells of the Notre Dame, and the strains
of the Te Deum from the grand old grey
cathedral. It is the wail of broken hearts
that will not be comforted; of mothers
Mourning for their first born, their pride;
of wives for lost husbands; of demoiselles
for sweet hearts whom they will never
see again. What cares she, the so rim w
stricken maid of Var or Vancluse, what
cares she for kingly quarrels or questions
of imperial boundary or national glory ?
Away off amongst the rice fields and
marshes of Piedmont, surrounded by the
mutilated and dead braves, who but a
few hours before wore the rosy flush of
health—stark and stiff lies him, the idol
of her heart, who so lately sang to her
the sweet airs of the troubadour in the
love-language of beautiful Provence. In
deed, it seemed but as yesterday that re
clining at her feet, with the purple
grapes pendant over them, and the seduct
ive breezes of the blue Mediterranean
wooiug their glowing cheeks, her darling,
her “troubadour, touched his guitar,” and
sang to her of that theme which, old as
creation, yet never loses its charm, and
which begins and ends with love. And
now he is gone ! alas ! never to return !
Oh ! that she could fly to him to pillow
his livid face upon her warm palpitating
bosom, and kiss again and again his cold,
lips ! Surely their burning, passionate
impress would restore even the dead to
life. Such kisses should win him away
from heaven itself, and the companion
ship of angels ! Oh! that she could
bring him back to his own sunny South
ern land, and bury him beneath the
orange groves and the vineyards that he
loved so well, where she could water
with her tears and keep ever green the
flowers that spring up over the grave of
her hero.
Such is life Mirth and sadness, fes
tivity and soorow, sunshine and Winter
blasts, like twin sisters, go hand in hand
together.
Os that memorable day of June, Ire
land had reason to bo proud; for then,
amid the dead and dying, in front of the
serried battalions of infantry and cavalry
and artillery, in presence of the allied
armies, and by Napoleon 111 himself,
worthy successor of his illustrious uncle
—a scion of a noble Irish refugee who
had clung to the fallen fortunes of his
true King—Patrick Maurice MacMahor,
the hero of the Malakoff, the humbler of
Russian and Austrian pride, the Grand
Cross of the Legion of Honor, and
Knight of the Grand Cross of the Rath,
for his distinguished services which had
decided the .fortunes of the day—was
made a Marshal of France, and created
Duke of Magenta.
Irishmen, treed from the tta thraldom
of your own native land, you are “Kings
amongst men!”
In our own Southern army, there was
a man who had risen from a subordinate
position to be a Major-General. He was
a splendid soldier, of dauntless courage
and great ability. “Upon his banner
victory seemed to wait.”
He was a true Ir .simian, fond of hard
blows, and with a big, noble, generous
heart. In one of the most sanguinary
battles of the late civil conflict he fell,
and his gallant soul
“Mounted among the gods.”
And though his body now lies moulder
ing beneath the sods of the valley, with
none to keep watch and ward but the
eternal hills—in our heart of hearts he
will live forever.
A writer, one of the ablest editors of
our State, concludes a sketch of the fall
en chief in these words: “And when he
fell—when the envious bullet struck him,
aud his heroic blood poured out, we felt
no purer libation was offered than the
life of that spotless Irish soldier—
Patrick Cleburne.”
“We tell bis doom without a sigh,
For he is Freedom’s uow, and Fame’s—
One of the few, the immortal sanies
That were not born to die.”
Gentlemen of the Hibernian Society,
when you did me the honor to invite me
to address you upon this occasion, the
natal day of Ireland’s Patron Saint, it
was naught but the genuine feeling of
my heart that prompted an acceptance;
for I felt that even though the time was
short, and a multiplicity of duties crowded
upon ice, yet I had nothing to fear be
fore an assemblage of friends rather than
critics. Gentlemen, you have been told
of soldiers who, with* their swords, have
carved their names upon the pillars of the
Temple of Fame; of orators and poets
who have held the world bound in chains
of Sequence, and song; of statesmen* who
have made their country great; of
bloody tields and of heroes and patriots
who willingly yielded up life for the
honor of “manhood.” But there is one
whose name, though not mentioned, has
been ever upon my lips, and whose image
is photographed upon all our hearts.
One who is far superior to the poet, the
hero, the patriot, as the heavens are
above the earth. The simple Priest, the
fearless Bishop, defenceless and alone,
traversing a wild and savage country, an
imated with the single hope of convert
ing its people from the fearful rites of
Druidical worship, commands our admi
ration and respect above all others. And
when we remember what wonders his
mission accomplished—and how that
Nation was'brought from black darkness
into the ever-glorious light, who can be
surprised at the enthusiasm with which
all Irishmen observe the anniversary of
the good St. Patrick ? How sublime does
he appear as he stands there upon a car
pet of mystic shamrock leaves, robed in
the vestments of his sacred oflice, with
his extended arms invoking blessings
upon the land of his adoption. At his
feet lies dead and harmless the mangled
serpent whose hissing tongue shall nevar
repeat to the daughters of the Blessed
Isle the old lie with which he beguiled
our first Mother.
St. Patrick, ladies and gentlemen, was
one of those bcautilul characters whose
memory is held in reverence by all who
honor worth; and I care not what be
your creed or your nationality; I care
not whether you come from the frozen
North, or the glowing and teeming
tropics; whether you first saw the light
beside the placid waters of that great
Western ocean which bears upon its
mighty bosom the gold of California and
the spices of the East; or that your
startled gaze opened upon the ice-bound
Siberian Steppes. I care not not whether
you worship the great God—
“With pamp of Roman form,
With the grave ritual hr »ight from Eng
land’s shore, '
Or with the simple faith that asks no
more
Than that the heart be warm.”
All, regardless of birth and belief, should
ever unite with us upon this anniversary
No. 3.