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SOUTHERN LITERARY GAZETT^
an Jllustratcir tUcckln Journal of I3cllcs~£cttres, Science anl> tljc £lrts.
W M. €. RICHARDS, EDITOR.
©riginal jpoetrn.
For the Southern Literary Gazette.
SKETCHES AMONG THE ALLEGIIANIES4
BY HENRY R. JACKSON.
I.
THE OCEAN VIEW NEAR TALLULAH FALLS.
I hi! I have reached at length a glorious height!
Behold! on every side the mountains rise;
Their summits roll beneath the giddy sight,
Like ocean billows heaved among the skies.
[n wild magnificence upon them lies
The primal forest—kindling in the glow
Os this mild Autumn sun with goldeu dyes,
While, in his slanting ray, their shadows grow,
Broad o’er the paradise of vale and wood below.
11.
flow beautiful! though ftesh from Nature’s God,
They show no footstep of an elder race;
\'o human hand has ever turned their sod,
Or heaved their massive granite from its place ;
The green banks of their floods bear not a trace
)f pomp and power, which have come and gone,
And left their crumbling ruins to deface
The virgin earth—here Nature rules alone ;
The beauty of the hill and valley is her own.
111.
Nor might the future generations know
Aught of the simple people, who have made
Their habitations by the streams that flow
So fresh and stainless from the forest shade,
Who built their council fires on hill and glade,
And in yon pleasant valleys, by the fall
Os crystal founts, perchance, their dead have laid,
But for the names of mountain, river, cataract ail
Significant of thought and sweetly musical.
IV.
MOUNT YONAH—VALE OF NACOOCHEE.
Before me, as I stand, his broad, round head
Mount Yonah lifts tho neighboring hills above,
While, at his foot, all pleasantly is spread
Nao > mjhee’s vale, sweet as a dream-of love.
Cradle of Peace ! mild, gentle as the dove
Whose tender accents from yon woodlands swell,
Must she have been who thus has interwove
Her name with thee, and thy soft, holy spell,
And all of peace which on this troubled globe may
dwell!
V.
Nacoochek —in tradition, thy sweet queen —
Has vanished with her maidens: not again
Along thy meadows shall their forms be seen ;
The mountain echoes catch no more the strain
Os their wild Indian lays at evening’s wane ;
No more, where rumbling branches interwine,
They pluck the jasmine flowers, or break the cane
Beside the marshy stream, or from the vine
Shake down, in purple showers, the luscious musca
dine.
VI.
Yet round thee hangs the same sweet spirit still!
Thou art among these hills a sacred spot,
As if shut out from all the clouds of ill
That gloom so darkly o’er the human lot.
On thy green breast the world I quite forgot—
Its stern contentions —its dark grief and care,
And I breathed freer, deeper, and blushed not
At old emotions long, long stifled there,
Which sprang once more to life in thy calm, loving
air.
VII.
1 saw the last bright gleam of sunse t play
On Yonah’s lofty head ; all quiet grew
1 hy bosom, which beneath the shadows lay
<lf the surrounding mountains; deeper blue
Fell on their mighty summits ; evening throw
Her veil o’er all, and on her azure brow
A bright star shone ; a trusting form I drew
et closer to my side ; above, below,
V ithin were peace and hope life may not often know !
VIII.
f hou loveliest of earth’s vallies ! fare thee well!
Nor is the parting pangless to my soul.
outh, hope and happiness with thee shall dwell,
1 nsullied Nature hold o’er thee control.
And years still leave thee beauteous as they roll.
’ ‘h ■ I could linger with thee ! yet this spell
Must break, e’en as upon my heart it stole,
‘Vnd found a weakness there I may not tell —
An anxious life, a troubled future claim me ! fare
thee well!
*The first six stanzas of this poem appeared in the “ Geor
'"''here the author first designed to publish the
• nole, but subsequently altered his mind and withheld
he rest.—[Ed. Gazette.
ATHENS, GEORGIA, SATCRDAV, SEPTEMBER 2, 1848.
IX.
TOCCOA.
Embosomed in the primal forest shades,
And singing gaily through the day and night;
Dashing thy waters into myriad braids
Os diamond spray that sparkles down the height,
And changes hue beneath the shifting light ;
Laughing away the hours in childish mirth,
And gently dallying with the ear and sight,
Scarce calls thy murmuring voice an echo forth,
Toccoa! merriest water-fall of all the earth !
X.
Toccoa ! or the beautiful ! this name
L’o thee was given by the tawny Indian girls
When, with the summer’s sultry noon, they came
To bathe their bosoms where thy water curls,
Around the mossy rocks in countless pearls;
Or when, in Autumn, seeking o’er the hill
From which thy eddying current lightly whirls,
Brown nuts, their baskets of light reed to fill,
They loved to pause and gaze upon thy beauties still.
XI.
Thou liad’st been holy in the classic land
Os ancient Hellas; smiling spirits, deemed
Os birth celestial, by thy rocky strand,
To whisper with a various voice had seemed
To him who in the cadence of thy music dreamed ;
The steps of poets had been printed on
Thy sparkling sand, and eager eyes had beamed
Above thy waters, while the lay was spun,
Which made thee famous for all time, like Helicon !
XII.
Here shall the fevered soul of him who roams
Among these mountains, who has left behind,
Cares, troubles, sufferings, ceaseless toil, and -comes
To seek refreshment for the wearied mind,
In thy soft music, gentle solace find.
Youth seems to livs in thee—thy happy mood,
The fetters of the spirit shall unbind ;
Joy, dead for years, again shall be renewed,
And Hope rebuild her bark from wrecks at random
strewed!
XIII.
TALLULAH.
But hark ! beneath yon hoary precipice,
The rush of mightier waters, as they pour
In foaming torrents through the dark abyss
Which echoes back the thunders of their roar.
Approach the frightful gorge ! and gazing o’er,
What mad emotions through their bosom thrill!
Hast ever seen so dread a sight before 1 ?
Tallulah ! by that name we hail thee still,
And own that thou art rightly called the terrible !
XIV.
In vain o’er thee shall glow with wild delight,
The painter’s eye, and voiceless still shall be
The poet’s tongue, who from this giddy height
Shall kindle in thine awful minstrelsy !
Thou art too mighty in thy grandeur—we
Too weak to give fit utterance to the soul!
Thy billows mock us with their tempest glee,
As thundering on, while countless ages roll,
Thou scornest man’s applause alike with man’s con.
trol!
XV.
Yet standing here where mountain eagles soar,
Among these toppling crags, to plant their nest,
I catch an inspiration from thy roar,
Which will not let my spirit be at rest.
I cast me down upon the massive breast
Os this huge rock, that lifts to meet the blast,
Far, far above thy foam, his granite crest,
And eager thoughts come gathering thick and fast,
The voices of the future blending with the past!
XVI.
I gaze across the yawning gorge and seem
Once more to see upon yon heights that rear
Their summits up to catch the sunset gleam,
The red man of the wilderness appear,
With bounding step, and bosom broad and bare.
And painted face, and figure lithe and tall,
Wild as surrounding nature ; and I hear
From yonder precipice his whoop and call,
That mingle fiercely with the roaring water-fall!
XVII.
But lo ? he pauses, for he sees thee now,
Dread cataract!—he stands entranced—his yell
Is hushed ; appalled he looks where far below,
Thy waters boil with a tumultuous swell.
Thou glorious orator of Nature ! well
May his rude bosom own the majesty
Os thy dread eloqnonee ; he hears the knell
Os human things—ho bends the suppliant knee, •
To the Great Spirit of the terrible in thee.
XVIII.
Once more I look ! —tho dusky form has gone—
Passed with the onward course of time, and passed
To come no more; perhaps a king upon
Yon height lie sleeps, rocked by the winter’s blast
In couch all regal, where dead hands have cast
His glorious bones the nearest to the stars,
And left him there to rest in peace at last,
Forgetful of his glory, scalps and scars —
The unsung Hector of a hundred bloody wars.
XIX.
Again I gaze, and other forms appear,
Os milder mien and far more gentle grace,
And softer tones are falling on my ear ;
And yet, methinks, less kindred with the place,
Another, and (it may be) nobler race
Have made these hills their own, and they draw uear
With kindling spirits, yet with cautious pace;
Youth, age and wisdom, with her brow of care,
And joyous beauty, that has never wept a tear.
XX.
And through the lapse of many ages they
Shall come; year after year to thee shall bring
The thoughtful searcher after knowledge, and the
gay
Who sport through life as though a morn in spring;
And tears shall fall, and the light laugh shall ring
Beside thee, and the lonely heart shall seek
Relief from its eternal sorrowing—
And all shall feel upon their spirits break,
Thoughts wonderful; emotions which they may
not speak.
XXI.
I turn towards tho coming time and hear
The voice of a great people which shall dwell
Among these mountains, free as their own air,
And chainless as thy current’s ceaseless swell.
Behold them growing into power ! They fell
The old primeval forests which have stood
For ages in the valleys; they dispel
The shades from Nature’s face, and, thickly strewed,
Their villages spring up amid the solitude.
XXII.
I look again, and I behold them not;
Silence resumes once more her ancient reign.
A solitary form stands on the spot,
Where mine had stood ; around on hill and plain,
The palace crumbles, and the gorgeous sane
Sinks into dust; he weeps above the tomb
Os human pride, and feels that it is vain ;
Yet shall thy voice arise amid the gloom
Os silent hearths and cities, scornful of their doom.
XXIII.
I look once more : bohold ’tis changed again,
And yet ’tis unchanged! Earth has upward shot
Her twigs from naked mountain, vale and plain ;
How rankly have they'grown above the spot,
Where cities crumble, and their builders rot!
Again the forest moans beneath the blast,
The eagle finds on mountain cliff and grot,
Once more his eyrie undisturbed; the vast
And melancholy wilderness o’er all is cast.
XXIV.
And lo! upon the spot where I had stood,
A second form—how like to mine! has ta’en
His lonely place, and hears the solitude
Return thy stunning anthem back again,
Like distant roarings of some mighty main ;
The earth around lies in her primal dress ;
And far above, just entering on her wane,
The full round moon with not a ray the less,
Looks calmly forth as now, upon the wilderness.
XXV.
He treads the earth, nor dreams that he has trod
On human dust. The oak that o’er him waves
So proudly, tells him not how, through the sod,
Its roots sucked nourishment from human graves.
The renovated stream its channel laves
Beside hi3 feet as freshly as of old ;
Its moist bank not a lingering record saves,
Os those who dried its sources ; flowers unfold
Their tints, nor tell how they have fed on human
mould.
XXVI.
Now from the broad expanse his eye surveys,
Ambition ! summon forth thy votaries !
Whose eagle vision drank the noontide blaze,
Whose eagle pinions fanned the highest breeze.
Power! thou that gloried’st in the bending knees
Or million’s of God’s humbled creatures —seek
Thy favorites now, who strode through bloody seas
To thrones, it may be, and upon the weak.
Bade human passion all her vengeance wreak !
VOLUME It—NUMBER 17.
XXVII.
Bid them arise ! stand forth ! each in his place
From the broad waste, to greet the gazer’s sight,
With bright insignia, which in life did grace
Tho brow, or give the bounding heart delight.
Arise ! each to the stature of his might,
And tell of how he lived and how he died!
18ay ! comes a single voice upon the night 1
Rises a single form above the common tide 1
Ambition! Glory ! Power! oh ! where do ye abide ?
XXVIII.
Speak, Suffering! call thy pallid sons!
And Poverty! thy millions marshal forth!
Thy starving millions, with their rags and groans,
Who knew hell’s tortures on God’s smiling earth ?
Name o’er thy thoughtless legions, reckless Mirth ?
And Disappointment! with thy sable brow,
Summon thy slaves of great or little worth!
And Suicide ! t hou child of darkest woe,
Speak to thy bleeding victims, thou, who laid’st
them low!
XXIX.
Behold they come not! Still he stands alone —
He gazes upward to the midi ightsky,
The same dim vault where orbs as brightly shone,
When watched by the Chaldean’s wakeful eye.
As now they shine ; his dreamings are of high
And holy things ; to him the earth is young—
The heavens are young; in joyous infancy
A nation buds around—to whom belong
No past, no memories,but a future bright and strong.
Savannah, 1848.
(Original Sales.
For the Southern Literary Gazette.
MARIAN GREY.
OR
THE WIFE'S DEVOTION.
“Dear mother, in mercy forbear; your en
treaties are in vain; no earthly consideration,
can sepai ate me from my husband.”
k ‘ Marian, pause, reflect, weigh well your
position; the wife of an inebriate husband;
reviled, persecuted, and despised by him, who
of all others should shield you, even to the
sacrifice of hi sown life; your days and nights,
passed in continual toil, earning a scanty sus
tenance for yourself and little ones, and for
one, who is a disgrace to all connected with
him.”
u Mother, Oh ! mother!”
“ Cease, girl, I have not yet done. Once
before you slighted my entreaties, you turned
the love of a doting mother, almost into hate;
that mother is again before you ; her arm/,
extended to receive you; for your helpless
babes she implores; if totally regardless of
self, let some consideration regarding their fu •
ture welfare bias your decision : once more
my home is open to you ; a moth r’s love shall
be lavished upon your precious babes, and aiJ
care for the future banished from yourmimf,
but the name of Harry Grey must be as one
numbered with the dead. Your children mupl
he fatherless, and you a widow, at least in
name.”
“ Forbear, mother, it is impossible. Harry,
though deeply transgressing, is still my hus
band. When, bowed before the sacred altar,
in the presence of an All-seeing God, I sol
emnly pledged myself to leave all others, cleav
ing only unto him. fervently, and truly, did )
determine come weal or woe, to adhere faith
fully to my promise. His dereliction from
the path of duty, can be no excuse for mine
Once, he was all my fond heart most delight
ed in ; his fortune, love and care, were freely
lavished on me; trials most hard to bear, and
a total loss of fortune, combined with the in
fluence of miscalled friends, has created a ma
mentary madness, no other name can I giye
his present career, and fervently do I trust and
believe, that my assiduous attention to all hir>