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his wife he gathered the following intelligence.
She told him that the Master of Life had fall
en in love with her and her two children, and
had therefore transformed them all into spir
its, with a view of preparing them for a home
in the sky. She also told him that they would
not depart for their future home until the com
ing spring, but would in the meantime roam in
distant countries till the time of his own trans
portation should arrive. Having finished her
communication, she and her children immedi
ately commenced a song, which resembled the
distant winds, when they all r<?se gracefully
from the tree, and leaning forward upon the
air, darted away across the Lake toward the
remote South.
A cheerless and forlorn moon did the poor
Indian spend in his lonely lodge on the mar
gin of the great Lake. Spring came, and just
as the last vestige of snow had melted from
the woods, and at the quiet evening hour, his
spirit-wife again made her appeaVance ac
companied hy her two children. She told her
husband that he might become a spirit by eat
ing a certain berry, lie was delighted with
the idea, and, complying with her advice, he
suddenly became transformed into a spirit, and
having flown to the side of his wife and chil
dren, the party gradually began to ascend in
to the air, when the Master ot Life thought
proper to change them into a family of Shoot
ing Stars. He allotted to each a particular di
vision of the heavens, and commanded them
to remain there forever, as the guardians of
the great nation of Lake Huron.
©ricjinal poetni.
For the Southern Literary Gazette.
FIFTY YEARS.
BY LEILA CAMERON.
Yoars have rolled on, their rapid flight
Scarce marked hy any trace,
Save those deep lines which sorrow’s blight
lias left on thy dear face.
Old time speeds on with stern control,
O’er human smiles and tears;
And thou hast numbered on life’s scroll,
The sum of Fifty Years!
Thy raven locks are gleaming now,
With many a silver thread,
And grief and care upon thy brow,
Their furrows deep have spread.
But still upon thy wayward child,
Beams as in days of yore,—
From thy blue eye go meek and mild,
The smile it overwore.
For fifty years, upon thy head,
The storms of life have beat;
Still thou the toilsome path dost tread,
Though weary are thv feet.
But Father dear, their blighting snows,
Have failed thy heart to chill;
The sunshine of thy spirit glows,
All bright and genial still!
1 know the v, .M ’ oft opprest,
Thy soul W: Ji .’ ires and fears ;
That few have • on thy hours of rest,
Ju atf those fifty years ;
For onward as thy steps advanced,
New scenes of toil and strife
Have met time since thy barque was launched,
Upon the sea of Life !
And yet, dear Father, God has blessed
Thy life with much of good ;
Aud Joy has often been a guest,
Where Grief has sometimes stood.
The shadows which at times have veiled
The future from thy sight;
Have oft dispersed, and thou hast hailed
With joy, the dawning light!
Some in whose friendship thou didst trust,
Have played a traitor’s part;
And some beneath the silent dust.
Heed not thy loving heart.
But on thy am . still fondly leans
The chosen of thv youth ;
And in her eve still kindly beams,
The light of love and truth !
Thy children gather round thy hearth,
A happy household band ;
Bright eyes are dancing in their mirth,
While hand is linked in hand.
SHEtESI 1L 0 ITS &&IB ¥
Thy sons and daughters, Father dear,
Will bless thee with their love,
As peacefully thou drawest, near,
Thy home of rest above !
And oh ! to God we humbly raise
Our fervent, earnest prayer,
To guard thy life through future days
From every wasting care.
And may those future days be crowned,
With all that life endears,
Anti not one grief be in them found,
That marked these Fifty Years !
For the Southern Literary Gazette.
THY SPIRIT IS MY ONLY THRONE.
B Y W M . N . WHITE*.
Thy spirit is my only throne,
Yet proudly may I sing,
The fulness of the pomp and power,
With which I reign a king.
No other monarch lives, 1 deem,
Can boast such dignity Supreme.
My subjects are each gentle thought
That dwells within thy breast;
Each hope and love-awakened fear,
Which robs thee of thy rest.
Thy heart’s best feelings reverent wait,
To do me honor in my state.
And 1 have treasures, but their sheen
Gilds not the rich man’s hoard.
Thy warm affections, pure within,
Are duly round me poured.
These mines such royal tribute bring,
I’m richer far than Lydian king.
Then let not others deem me poor,
Or destitute of sway ;
My wealth and power shall never fail,
Theirs linger but a day ;
While I no loss of mine shall mourn,
Theirs on the whirlwind’s wing arebome.
Athens, Ga.’
sl)c (Essayist.
For the Southern Literary Gazette.
INFLUENCES OF SPRING.
BY C. VAVASOUR IiOLROYD.
“ Once there was a little voice,
Merry as the month of May,
That did cry “ Rejoice ! Rejoice !”
Now—’tis flown away !
I would give a mine of gold,
Could 1 hear that little voice—
Could 1, as in days of old,
At a sound, rejoice.”—Cornwall.
Spring is here again—exquisite Spring! —
with her wealth of loveliness and fragrance
lavished around us, —with her bright skies,
her balmy winds, gay flowers, and her singing
birds, —all those accompaniments which fill
our sense with delight, and our hearts with
gratitude to God. It would almost seem as
though it were intended that in this season,
there should be only happiness on earth—
that so much external beauty should bring
with it a Lethean influence which should ban
ish all remembrance of inward griefs; that
fora time the objective only should have pow
er over us, and our most profound emotion
should be a rejoicing in the goodness of God,
who, mindful of our happiness, has surround
ed us with so much that shall minister to it.
The high blue heavens attracting our upward
gaze seem so full of purity and holy beauty,
that.we can almost fancy we behold the “lid
less eye of God” watching over us; and hush!
that tremor of the air, was it not the shiver of
wings, as the spirits of the blessed, the minis
tering spirits, drew nearer to us in this calm
hour to assure us of their presence and of their
guardianship ? Earth seems almost beautiful
enough now to woo them hack to it. Look
over its fair expanse; the luxuriant and grace
ful foliage ol the frees would make us fancy
that a sudden accession of wealth had enabled
old Mother Earth to clothe and adorn her off
spring with a richer and gayer garb than ever
before.
But let the fancy rest, and read a lesson
from this luxury of apparrelling. It teacheth
us that as the germ of so much beauty lay
concealed in the cherishing lap of earth, while
frosts and storms held dominion around it, so,
hidden and unsuspected, there lieth in our
hearts during the sad, stern winter of our sor
row, the seeds of all the good and excellent
things man then learneth to devise; there is
latent the power to clothe and adorn our lives
with the waving and beautiful foliage which
will enable us to render better and lovelier the
world we dwell in ; by this we would indi
cate those graces of spirit which shall win all
who have knowledge of them to desire to be
like unto us—those virtues whose refreshing
shadow shall attract the desolate and life
weary to sit down beside us, and there gath
er new energy to pursue their toilsome jour
ney —mew strength to struggle with the world’s
temptation.
The Flowers, too, have their lesson to
teach us, —
“ They tell of a season when man was not,
When earth was by Angels trod,
And leaves and flowers in every spot,
Burst forth at the call of God.
When Spirits singing their hymns at even,
Wandered by hill and glade,
And the Lord looked down from the highest Heaven
And blessed what he had made —
The bright, bright flowers.
The blessing remaineth upon them still,
Tho’ often the storm-cloud lowers,
Tho’ frequent tempests may soil and chill,
The gayest of Earth’s fair flowers.
W hen Sin and Death with their sister Grief,
Made a home in tho hearts of men,
The blessing of God on each tender leaf,
Preserved in their beauty then—
Tho bright, bright flowers.
The lily is lovely as when it slept
On the waters of Eden’s lake ;
And sweet is the woodbine as when it crept
In Eden, from brake to brake.
They were left as a proof of the loveliness
Os Adam and Eve’s first home !
They are here as a type of the joys that bless
The Just in a world to come —
The bright, bright flowers.”
With all this loveliness, having with it at this
season the charm of novelty, after winter's as
pect has been so long oppressing us—why is
it that we do not yield to the influences which
surround us; that we turn a deaf ear to the
lessons Nature teacheth? Why does this beau
ty seem only mocking us, the flowers saying
to us, “We are gay and may rejoice in the
sunshine, for we have never cause for sorrow.
It is only you who are called upon to wear
the garb of grief ?” Why does the song of the
bird tell us of joy and gladness, of the warb
ler’s exemption from the woes of our race,
while we are breathing forth only sighs, and
uttering our murmunngs against the ordain
ings of God's Providence ? The very breezes,
revelling in the luxuriant foliage, or wanton
ing with the fragrance of flowers, pierce our
spirits with their glad tones and voices of mel
ody. Where is
‘ that chiTdhood of the heart
Which used to come with Spring T
I can recall the time, when I would lie down
upon a bank under the shadow of a mighty
tree, and trifling with the curious leaves which
mingled with the moss, or the flowers which
relieved its hue, enjoy a degree of happiness
that now excites my wonder and envy, as I
live over in memory those hours—
“ to breathe, to live,
Did such exceeding pleasure to me give.”
As years went by, sunshine and shade,
green leaves and flowers were not quite suf
ficient for such perfect enjoyment, and a choice
hook bore me company, to add to the scene
the charm of romance or poetry. By and by,
a letter from an absent friend was read there in
place of the book; my highest happiness con
sisting now in the expressions of affection
therein repeated to me—in the oft-told tale of
love which is each time pleasanter to hear.
Thus passed away my youth,—but many
years have gone into the past since then ; and
now when the violets appear, and I sink into
the silence of voiceless thought, I am often
oppressed with sadness, not as was Richter’s
immortal old man, who “was unhappy in
spring-time because that is the season of hope,
and rich with phantoms of far happier days
than any which this Aceldama of earth can
realize : for, God be thanked, there is no ask
ing eye directed upwards towards Heaven, to
which Death will not one day bring an an
swer!” But the language of another shall
give expression to the feelings which Spring
awakeneth.
“ I cannot but feel every year, with the re
turn of the violet, how much the shadows of
my mind have deepened since’ its last appear
ance; and. to me, the spring, with all itsjov
and beauty, is generally a time of thoughtful
ness, rather than mirth. Never do the
‘ Fond, strange yearnings from the soul’s deep cel].
Gush for the faces we no more shall see.’
with such uncontrollable power as when all
external nature breathes of life and gladness.
Amidst the bright and joyous things around us,
we are haunted with images of death and the
grave. The force of contrast, not less strong
than that of analogy, is unceasingly remind
ing us of the great gulf that divides us from
those who are now “gone down in silence.”
Some unforgotten voice is ever whispering—
‘And 1 too in Arcadia.’ \Ye remember how
we were wont to rejoice in the soft air and
pleasant sunshine, and these things charm us
no longer ‘because they are not.’ The fare
well sadness of Autumn on the contrary—its
falling leaves and universal imagery of decay
—by bringing more home to us the sense of
our mortality, identifies us more closely with
those who have gone before, and the veil of
separation becomes, as it were, more transpa
rent. We are then impressed with a pervad
ing conviction that ‘we shall go to them
while in Spring every thing seems mournful
ly to echo ‘ they will not return to us.’ ”
AUld thus runs the record of human life.—
The season of buds and blossoms came
around —and on a sunny day in May I was
ont; of a funeral train which took its way to
the burial ground. A small coffin was de
posited in beside a larger grave over
which grass was not yet green. They were
burying my sister by the side of my father,
and thus, in less than a year, two of our house
hold had departed from <jur midst, leavin gon
ly their memories around which the torn and
bleeding tendrils of our affections might cling.
Both were victim's of consumption—the evil
spell which long hung over our house—both
went down into the grave leaving behind them
hearts rent with anguish for their loss.
And in the years which have gone by since
then whom have -I mourned ? The friend of
my girlhood and sister of my love, the child
of fortune, the idol of the lonely old man
whose only child she was, the beloved of an
earnest and manly heart which cherished her
as a wife should be ;■ and, when Death found
her, the proud mother of a boy whose beauty
and rare promise filled her heart with inex
pressible joy. They laid her body in a city
vault till the spring-time came, and the be
reaved husband carried the love of his youth
and buried her among the haunts of her child
hood, where year after year we had welcom
ed the spring-flowers.
There were others—two young girls, my
cousins—whom careful training had well
prepared for life—with richly cultivated minds
—hearts full of warm affections—and adorn
ed with the various graces and accomplish
ments which give a charm to the sterner real
ities of our existence. They passed away—
in the same summer month they closed their
eyes upon the sunshine and flowers.
In the prime cf life and of a noble fame,
another loved as a brother, was called away
from the arms of his bride, and his high sta
tion among men. Again, went down into the
grave, a friend, noble and true, skilled in the
world's wisdom, and in the graces of life—
the eldest of a large family of fatherless chil
dren, the stay of a widowed mother; but he
carried with him his greatest wealth—a se
rene yet triumphant faith, which sustained
him to the last.
I am sad when it is Spring, for again and
again 1 have seen the grave close over mv
children. And when the air is balmiest, and
most redolent with music, then is deepest
and most mournful the sad reality of my
bereavement. At such times I had looked up
on them with the proudest and fondest emo-