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n\ost needed its conveniences: his eldest little
girl, whom he had just placed at a respecta*
hie boarding-school, was brought home to as
sist her mother in taking care of the younger
children. His life’s labor was lost—worse
than lost, for he had to begin the world again
with a stigma, if not upon his honesty, cer
tainly upon his prudence and good sense.
And all this misery arose from his not per
ceiving that every individual in the world is
bound to provide for the responsibilities he
has himself incurred., before he assists others
to answer theirs; from his weakly yielding to
the importunities of one who had no claim
on him, and whose previous want of fore
sight, duly considered, held out little promise
for the future, without reflecting on the para
mount claims not only of his own creditors,
but of the wife he had undertaken to main
tain, and of the children of whose being he
was the author, and for whose welfare and
•education, as far as in him lay, he was an
swerable to the Almighty; and from his not
perceiving that it is dishonesty, and not liber
ality, to give that which we cannot afford,
and which, if every one had their own, would
not be ours to give ; and that people’s success
in business does not depend upon their being
good-natured or kind-hearted, but upon their
-conducting their affairs with steady prudence
and a conscientious regard to all their en
gagements —dangerous and dazzling fallacies,
which have mined many a well-intentioned
man, who might have gone happily and pros
perously through the world on the simple but
comprehensive maxim—“ be just before you
ARE GENEROUS.”
Sulcctcit Poctrj).
GENERAL BUTLER, A POET.
The following beautiful verses are the pro
duction of Gen. Wm. 0. Butler, the Demo
cratic candidate for the Vice Presidency. As
a specimen of lyric poetry they are worthy to
take high rank in our national anthology and
if the bards and bardlingsof the republic (“for
their name is legion,”) only yield him their
suffrages, he will be wafted to the high office
he seeks on the wings of the muses! It is
refreshing to see an able follower of Mars—•
occasionally lay aside his sword, and become
a successful disciple of Apollo. But to the
poem:—
THF BOAT HORN.
O, boatman, wind that horn again,
For never did the list’ning air
Upon its lambent bosom bear
So wild, so soft, so sweet a strain !
What though thv notes are sad and few,
By every simple boatman blown.
Yet is each pulse to nature true,
And melody in every tone.
How oft, in boyhood’s joyous day,
Unmindful of thelasping hours,
I’ve loitered on my homeward way,
By wild Ohio’s brink of flowers,
While some lone boatman from the deck
Poured his soft numbers on that tide,
As if to charm from storm and wreck,
The boat where all his fortunes ride !
Delighted Nature drank the sound,
Enchanted—Echo bore it round,
In whispers soft and softer still,
From hill to plain, and plain to hill,
Till e’en the thoughtless frolic-boy,
Elate with hope and wild with joy,
Who gamboled by the river’s side,
And sported with the fretting tide,
Feels something new prevade his breast,
Change his light step, repress his jest;
Bends o’er the flood his eager ear,
To catch the sounds far off, yet dear —
Drinks the sweet draught, yet knows not why
The tear of rapture fills his eye.
And can ho now, to manhood grown,
Tell why those notes, simple and lone,
As on the ravished ear they fell,
Bind every sense in magic spell I
There is a tide of feeling given
To all on earth, its fountain Heaven,
Beginning with the dewy flower,
•lust ope’d in Flo -a’s vernal bower —
(vising creation’s orders through,
With louder mariner, brighter hue ;
’Tis sympathy ! its ebb and flow
Hives life its hues, its joy and wo.
(Music, the spirit that can move
Its waves to war, or lull to love—
Can cheer the sailor ’mid the wave,
And bid him on ! nor fear the grave—
Inspire the pilgrim on his road,
And elevate his soul to God.
( hen, boatman ! wind that horn again!
I hough much of sorrow marks its strain.
’ et are its note to sorrow dear ;
M hat though they wake fond memory’s tear!
i ears are sad memory’s sacred feast,
And rapture oft her chosen guest!
RETRIBUTION.
Though the mills of God grind slowly,
Yet they grind exceeding small;
■tuough with patience he stands waiting,
With exactness grinds he all.
§ ® unr HS !E S3 Hi 11 IF ®IBA la Y ® ASSTFIFiB*
©rigina ftoctrj).
For the Southern Literary Gazette.
INTERCEPTED LETTERS-NO. 111.
From a College Boy to his Friend at Home.
Dear Edward, I got your kind letter in May,
And really was glad to receive it;
Tho’ perhaps from my not having written you’ll say
That you’re not much inclined to believe it.
But really I meant to have written before,
And thought every day I would do it;
The’, to tell the plain truth, letter-writing’s a bore,
It takes ine so long to get through it.
Now, Ned, if I only could see you to-night,
By Virgil! I’d do some tall talking ;
But, somehow or other I never can write,
The pen sets my fancies a-balking.
I was sorry to hear that aunt Sarah was sick,
Though I hope before this she is better;
Pray tell cousin Lizzie to write to me quick,
She promised to send me a letter.
I’m getting along pretty well in my class,
Though I love neither Euclid nor Latin ;
The man who invented them both was an :
Please use any word that comes pat in.
We had a grand riding a few nights ago,
And came off with very few crosses ;
But the way we did streak it around wasn’t slow; —
We hired of L—p—n the horses !
All of us bore torches and waved them about,
And huzzaed for Taylor in chorus ;
The people with wonder and terror rushed out,
But onward our fleet horses bore us !
One of us, —it wont do to mention his name, —
Got a fall and a pretty good bruising ;
The Faculty hinted that it was a shame
To indulge in such Quixotic cruising.
Oh Ned! I have fallen in love —head and ears—
With a young and most beautiful creature, —
Like a Peri at Eden’s fair gate she appears,
So lovely her form and each feature !
And then, too, her father is wealthy, they say,
And will give her a very large dower;
I hope when I ask her she will not say ‘ Nay,’
For wealth, my dear fellow, is power!
Miss M is still single, though justly admired, —
I presume she’s in no haste to marry;
For a prize like her hand must be greatly desired,
And all wonder why she should tarry !
And then, there’s Miss L—n, a beautiful girl,
I think, by the way, you would suit her;
Come up, and the banner of Cupid unfurl —
It is time you looked out for the future.
The Seniors have got through their duties to-day,
To the joy of the weary committee ;
And the Faculty too, I will venture to say,
Will none of them deem it a pity.
C —y took the first honor, and all are agreed
That ’tis really a tribute of merit;
I hope it will happen in my time of need,
That I his good fortune inherit!
Come up to Commencement, dear Ned, if you can,
I’ll show you fair girls by the dozen :
There’s Augusta and Rosa, Louisa and Ann,
And Lizzie—much like my sweet cousin.
And these are not half, —but I must go to bed,
For really I’m wonderful sleepy ;
Please burn up this letter as soon as ’tis read,
And believe me, yours, faithfully, P. P.
Franklin College.
BALLAD.
They have doom’d us to part,
But they cannot decree
That, in flying, mv heart
Shall not cling still to thee ;
They may rob my sad eyes
Os thy form, if they will,
But my memory still flies,
With my heart, to thee still!
They have broken the bands
Which our hopes had entwined,
But in vain would their hands
Ouraffections unbind;
They are link’d with a clasp
Which no fortune can shake,
And though tyrants may grasp,
We defy them to break.
And when fondly they dream
That our passion is gone,
We shall laugh at each scheme
Which would leave us undone ;
Still blest to renew
Those ties, which, to part,
When they seemed to undo,
Was undoing the heart. [Lanneau.
®!)c (£s3cnjiot.
For the Southern Literary Guzette.
BYRON.
BY MISS ELIZA G. NICHOLS.
This marvellous prodigy, contemplated
through the vista of the past, gleams forth as
a beacon more dazzling from the gloom which
encircles it. We view him a strange incarna
tion of genius and soul, virtue and vice. A
genius whose refulgence bent its halo with
the skies, —a soul whose lofty imaginings,
wrapped in its immortal mantle, linked itself
with eternity—vices whose embodiment with
virtues and misfortunes divested them of half
their enormity. All that was elevated, enno
bling and praiseworthy, and much that was
frail and wilful, combined to form one of the
most sublime and wondrous characters that
ever incurred the calumny of enemies, or
awakened the sympathy of friends. To speak
of Byron is to include his passions and mis
fortunes, for like a lava stream, melancholy
scathing passions thrill, wild and fervid, in
every line of his soul-inspiring productions.
They fed the poetic fires which glowed ever
in his spirit; and their fitful impulses ener
gized his Lara, Chillon, and Abydos. But
these volcanic fires neverburst forth in their in
tensity till he was spurned by the world and all
things to which he clung for solace, and
his proud and susceptible heart was thrown
back upon itself. Misfortunes interwove
themselves with every event of his untoward
life, and blent their appalling hue with every
element of his nature. We cannot apply the
same moral standard in judging of the charac
ter of Lord Byron that may be applied to one
whose circumstances, and temperament is
of a different cast. For who may fathom
the passionate depth of feeling which lives in
a poet’s spirit, or prescribe the actions of one
whose every impulse, every hope, has suf
fered the mildew of disappointment I The
wonder is, that, under such circumstances, he
had not become an abandoned outcast! a reck
less inebriate ! Few would have had the moral
firmness to resist excess. The world termed
him a misanthrope, a skeptic, a voluptuary.
Had he been a misanthrope the charge could
require no extenuation on his part; it was the
sin of the world; it had irritated, thwarted,
calumniated him; and taught him in turn to
suspect, hate, and shun his kind. From
childhood, however, he had been a being ot
generous and noble impulse. Upon a heart
of over-wrought sensitiveness, misfortunes of
a most withering nature pressed. Byron had
a natural defect to struggle against; he was a
cripple, and any natural deformity is calcula
ted to give a melancholy tone to character.
An attachment too of his early youth had
proved destructive to his happiness; the poet
bo vgave the wealth of his enthusiastic heart
to this unreal hope. He had a soul that yield
ed itself wholly, undividedly; it would cling
like the ivy round a mouldering turret and
would writhe beneath the hand of the being
’ that had spurned it. But, though the early
j dream of his life had been darkened, he still
looked with changeless confidence on his
heartless wife, who joined loudest in the
calumny against him. It is painful to record
soulless ingratitude against one of my own
sex: but love for Lady Byron was a desecra
tion to the lofty spirit that enshrined it; his
purity and strength of soul were exuding be
fore the senseless being who had not the sen
sibility to appreciate it. The undying strength
and purity of his feelings towards his w fe
and child are shown in the fact that he never
sought a legal dissolution of their union,
though separated irrevocably by her own de
cree. He spurned the thought of a second
marriage, though many nobler, purer and more
generous hearts beat for the poet exile. Wrap
pjng himself in the mantle of the past he
brooded over its maddening scenes and became
a gloomy misanthrope. Yet in the midst of
all these evidences her heart was so callous
and unyielding that she could refuse to look
upon his lifeless corpse ; and could carry her
unfeeling revenge beyond the grave, and
teach a child to forget its parent and despise
his memory, while the last accent that lin
gered on his dying lips were “my child and
my wife.” The world called him skeptic too,
but who could blame him if he rejected the
pedantic ceremonies, the spurious mockery
their creeds presented, whose purest inculca
tions seemed to be bigotry, faction, and strife
for precedence? And does that wife blame
herself with none of his excesses, his derelic
tions? He was what she had made him. Is
she not chargeable from numberless causes,
for his irreligion, and moral delinquencies ?
For it is in women’s power to portray in
her example and deportment the true beau
ties of religion; and by her pure and con
sistent life to fasten convictions, which in
vain the philosophical sophistries of the
world may teach. Read his “ Prayer of Na
ture”, and say he was not a worshipper; hear
his dying resignation, “Thy will, not mine,
be done,” and say his noble spirit did not re
cognize its God. It is hard for those who
love to dwell among his lofty aspirations,
and catch the lingering cadence of his min
strelsy, to believe that Byron was a skeptic.
His spirit passed quietly from earth, as fades
the sunlight from the western sky.
The strong, overmastering strains of passion
with which his writings are fraught, are cen
sured by some, as baneful, and demoralizing.
But their blame is illiberal; for itwas only in
this fitful, fervid strain of poesy, that he
might unburden his spirit, and soothe the
burning woes that hurtled in his soul. When
all lies wrecked, the mind ruined, the spirit
broken, a wailing knell will echo above the
crushed fragments, hallowing the moulder
ing urn, —even as that proud bird, whose
voice mingles with the whirlwind, will lay it
down upon the dark earth and still its lofty
song when its crest lies bleeding, its pinion bro
ken. Byron was the untimely victim of a cold
and ungenerous world; the hand whose mas
ter strokes awoke the “Poet’s Shell” to its
most sublime and thrilling meloJy, no longer
strikes its tremulous chords. Yet their petty
efforts to veil his glory is but spreading a
gossamer athwart the sun; it blazes refulgent
still. He lent a halo to the age in which he
lived, and threwa lustre of immortality round
every theme of his pen; he spread the witche
ry of his song over spirits that were madden
ing in envy and revenge against him. When
we have summed up all his merits, and his
frai 1 ties, we feel with his biographer, that, “It
would have been immeasurably praiseworthy
if he had shown all the force and splendor of
his mighty poetical energies without any
mixture of their clouds, their baneful light
nings, or their storms; that is, it would have
been admirable if he had been an angel and ,
not a many What marvel that he was hated
envied, wronged by meaner souls; they had
no consonance with a spirit such as his; nor
could they assimilate their gross tastes to his
heaven-aspiring themes, for mortality may
not hold converse with immortality. Hate
and envy love a “ shining mark” though the
footsteps of the tempest may crush the violet
and bow the drooping lilies’ head—the light
ning’s fitful fires love to play round the loftiest
pinnacle. Though earth had no lethean for
the miseries that were drinking up his vital
energies, yet he reached the Ultima Thule of
his most ambitious hopes, chained captive the
spirits of men by his enthralling minstrelsy,
and received the laureate halo that should
never fade; but bright, beautiful and immortal,
gather a fresher green from each succeeding
age. _______
SIN.
Man-like is it to fall into sin,
Fiend-like is it to dwell therein,
Christ-iike is it for sin to grieve,
God-like is it all sin to leave.
[Longfellow*
75