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SOUTHERN LITERARY GAZETTE: A WEEKLY JOURNAL OF LITERATURE, SCIENCE AND ART. m* C. RICHARDS, EDITOR. ©rigutal jOoetrrj. For the Southern Literary Gazette. THE STARS. BY W. GILMORE SIMMS, ESQ., aL'THOR OF “GUY RIVERS,’ ‘YEMASSEE,’ ‘ATALANTIS,’ SiC. The night has settled down. A dewy hush Hangs on the forest, save when fitful gusts Vex the tall pines with murmurs. Spring is here, With breath all incense, and with cheek all bloom, And voice of many minstrels. Balmy airs Creep gently to my bosom, and beguile Each feeling into freshness. I will forth, And gaze upon the stars —the uncounted stars Holding high watch in Heaven—still high, still bright, Though the storm gathers round the sacred hill, And shakes the cottage roof-tree. There they shine, In well-remember’d youth. They hear me back, With strange persuasiveness, to the old time And happy hours of boyhood. There’s no change In all their virgin glory. Clouds that roll, And congregate in the azure deeps of heaven, In wild debate and darkness, pass away, Leaving them bright in the same beauty still, Defying, in the progress of the years, All change, and rising ever from the night, In soft and dewy splendor, as at first, When, golden foot-prints of the eternal steps, They paved the walks of heaven, and grew to eyes Beekoning the feet of man. Ah! would his eyes Behold them, with meet yearning to pursue The holy heights they counsel! Would his soul Claim kindred with the happy forms that now, Walk by their blessed guidance —walk in heaven, la paths of the Good Shepherd ! Then were earth Deserving of their beauty. Then were man, Already following, step by step, their points, To the one Presence : at each onward step Leaving new lights that cheer his brother on, In a like progress. Happily they shine, As in his hours of music and of youth, When every breath of the fresh-coming breeze, And every darting vision of the cloud, Gleam of the day and glimmer of the night, Brought to the craving spirit harmony ; And blessed each fond assurance of the hope With sweetest confirmation Still they shine, And dear t he story of their early prime— And his—the conscious worshipper may read In their enduring presence. Happiest tales Os innocence and joy, events and hours, That never more return. These they rocord, Renew, and hallow, with their own pure rays, When blight of age is on the frame —when grief Weighs the vexed heart to earth—when all beside, The father, and the mother, and the friend, Speak in decaying syllables—dread proof Os worse decay ! —and that sad chronicler, Feeble and failing in excess of years, Old Memory, tottering from his mossy cell, with the imperfect legend on his lips, And drowses into sleep. No change like this Falls on their golden-eyed veracity— Takes from the silvery truths that line their lips, <>r stales their lovely aspects. Well they know she years they never feel; see, without dread, Fhe storm that rises, and the bolt that falls, I be age that chills, the apathy that chokes, l he death that withers all that blooms below, V et smile they on as ever, sweetly bright, Serene, in their security from all she change that troubles man. Yet, hill and tree Change with the season, with the altered heart, And weak and withering muscle. Ancient groves shat sheltered me in childhood, have given place 1 0 S a udy gardens; and the solemn oaks, shat heard the first prayers of my youthful heart for greatness, and a life beyond their own— s !in their stead, a maiden’s slender hand I utors green vines, and purple buds, and flow’rs, As frail as her own fancies. At each step, l miss some old companion of my walks, Memorial of the happy hours of youth, hose presence had brought hack a thousand joys, And images that took the shape of jojTs— l ho loveliest masquers, and all innocent — 1 hat vanish’d with the rest! And brooks that stole rp o greenest margins, and beguiled the ears, l>°wu-trickling ceaseless, with low murmuring song, i lave left their arid channels to the sun, M ho, when the guardian forest was withdrawn, R-isled their virgin sources. Not with these — • ees we the sweet memorials of our youth— x he youth that seems immortal—youth that blooms ATHENS, GEORGIA, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 1848. With hues and hopes of Heaven—proud youth that burns With aspirations for eternal life, Perpetual triumph, and the ambitious thirst For other worlds and waters of domain. In tokens of the soul—that craving thirst That earth supplies not —in the undying things That man can never change, beyond his change, Seek we the sweet memorials of our youth: That season when the fancy is a god— Hope an assurance—Love an instinct—Truth ’ The generous friend, that, ever by our side, Hath still the sweetest story for the ear, And wins us on our way. Ah, stars, ye bring This happy season back, and in my heart, Stand up the old divinities anew ! I hear their well-known voices, see their eyes Shining once more in mine, and straight forget, That I have wept their loss in many tears, Mix’d with reproaches, bitter, sad regrets, Self-chidings, and the memory of wrongs, Endured, inflicted, suffered, and avenged! As I behold ye now, yc bring me back The treasures of my boyhood. All returns That I had long forgotten. Scarce a scene Os childish prank or merriment, but comes With all the freshness of the infant time, Back to my recollection. The old school, The noisy rabble, the tumultuous cries— The green, remember’d in the wintry day, For the encounter of the flying ball— The marble play, the hoop, the top, the kite, And, when the ambition prompted higher games, The battle-array and conflict —friends and foes Mixed in the wild melee, with shouts of might Triumphant o’er the clamors of retreat! These, in their regular seasons, with their deeds, Their incidents of happiness or pain, In the revival of old memories, Your lovely lights restore: nor these alone ! The chroniclers of riper years ye grew, And loftier thoughts and fancies ; and my heart Then took ye for sweet counsellors, and loved To wander in your evening lights, and dream Os other eyes that watched ye from afar, At the same hour—and other hearts that gushed In a sweet yearning sympathy with mine ! And as the years flew by —as I became Warier, yet more devoted—fix’d and strong — Growing in the affections and the thoughts When growth had ceased in stature —then, when life, Wing’d with impetuous passions, darted by, And voices grew into a spell that hung, Through the dim hours of night, about the heart, Making it tremble strangely ; —when dark eyes Were stars that had a power over us, As fated, dimly, at nativity ; And older men were monitors too dull For passionate youth ; and reason and all excellence, (Falling in honied sentences from lips, That, if they vied with coral, must have won.) Were to be gathered from one source alone, Whose thought and word were inspiration, life, That we had barter’d life itself to win ! How sweet was then your language! what fond strains Os promise ye pour’d forth, in sounds that made The impatient soul leap upwards into flight, The skies stoop down and yield to every wish, While earth, embraced by heaven, instinct with love, And blessing, had forgot all fears of death! The brightness of your age in every change, Mocks that which palsies man. Dim centuries That saw your fresh beginnings with delight, Are swallowed in the ocean-flood of years, Or crowd with ruin the gray sands of Time, Who still, with appetite and thirst unslaked— Active but unappeased —voracious still, Must swallow what remains. Sweet images, Whose memories wake our song—whose forms abide— The heart’s ideal standards of delight— Are gone to people those dim lcalms of shade, Where rules the past —that sovereign, single-eyed, Whose back is on the sun! Ah! when all these — The joys we have recorded, and the forms Whose very names were blessings—forms of youth, Os childhood, and the hours we know not twice, Which won us first, and carried us away To strange conceits of coming happiness, But to be thought on as delusions all, Yet such delu.-ions as wo still must love ! When these have parted from us —when the sky Hath lost the charm of its ethereal blue, And the nights lose their freshness —and the trees No longer have a welcome shade for love— And the xaooa wanci into a pa’er bright, And all the poetry that s tirr’d the leaves, And all the perfume that was on the flow’rs— Music upon the winds —wings in the cloud— The carpeted vallies wealth of green—the dew That morning flings on the enamell’d moss— The hill-side, the acclivity, the grove— Sweeter than solitude is sleeping there! — Are gone, as the last hope of misery: When the one dream of thy deluded life Hath left thee, to awaken —not to see The golden morning, but the heavy night, When sight itself is weariness, and hope No longer rifles from the barren path One flow’r of promise!—when disease is nigh, And all thy bones are racking, and thy thought Is of dry, nauseous, ineffectual drugs, Which thou wilt painfully swallow —hut in Amin— And not a hand is nigh to quench thy thirst With one poor cup of water ; and thine eye Strains for the closing heavens, and the sweet sky Which thou art losing—and dread images, Meetly successive, of the sable pall, And melancholy carriage, crowd around, And make thee shudder with a stifling fear; — When thou hast bid adieu to earthly things, Fought through the long, worst struggle with thy self, Os resignation to that sovereign will, Thou may’st no longer baffle or delude— And offer’d up thy prayer of penitence, Doubtful of its acceptance, yet prepared As well as thy condition will admit, For the last change in thy unhappy life 1— Bid them throw wide thy casement, and look forth, And take thy last gaze at the placid sky, And all the heavenly watchers which have seen Thy fair beginning, and thy rising youth, And thy tall manhood. They will bear thee back. With all the current of thy better thoughts, To the pure practice of thy innocent years ; Repentant, then, of errors, evil deeds, Imaginings of darkness, thou wilt weep Over thy recollections, and thy tears, The purest tribute of thy contrite heart, Will be as a sweet prayer sent up to heaven ! Popular Sales. A LEGEND FROM ANTWERP: A CAPITAL STORY FROM BLACKWOOD. I scarcely know why, upon my last pas sage through Antwerp, I took up my quarters at the Park Hotel, instead of alighting, ac cording to my previous custom, at the sign of the blessed Saint Anthony. The change was, perhaps, owing to my hackney coach man, who, seeing me fagged and bewildered by a weary jolting on the worst of European railroads, affected to mistake my directions— a misunderstanding that possibly resulted from his good understanding with mine host of the “ Park.” Be that as it may, my bag gage, before I could say nay, was in the em braces of a cloud of waiters, who forthwith disappeared in the recesses of the inn, whith er I was fain to follow. It was a bright May day, and I felt no way dissatisfied with the change of hostelry, when, on looking from the window of my exquisitely clean Flemish bed-room, I saw the cheerful boule vard crowded with comely damsels and uni formed idlers, and the spring foliage of the lime-trees fluttering freshly in the sunshine. And having picked up the commencement of a furious appetite during my rickety ride from Hergesthal, I replied, by a particularly wil ling affirmative, to the inquiry of a spruce waiter, whether Monsieur would be pleased to dine at the table d'hote , at the early hour of three o’clock. The excellent dinner of the Park Hotel w T as ; served up that day to unusually few guests: so at least it appeared to one accustomed to the numerous daily congregations at the pub lic tables of France and Germany. Twelve persons surrounded the board, or, 1 should rather say, took post in two opposite rows at one extremity of the long dresser-like table, whose capacity of accommodating six times the number was tacit evidence that the inn ■was not w r ont to reckon its dinners by the single dozen. Os these twelve guests, three or four were of the class commis-voyageur — Anglice , bagmen, whose talk, being as usual confined to the rail and the road, their gri settes and their samples, I did my best not to ; hear. There was a French singer, then star ring at the Antwerp theatre : a plump, taci turn, respectable-looking man, in blue spec- ! VOLUME I.—NUMBER 27. taeles and a loose coat, whom I had difficulty in recognising that evening when I saw’ him trip the boards in the character of the gay Count Almaviva. Next to the man of notes sat a thin, sun-burned, middle-aged German, who informed us, in the course of conversa tion, that after spending twenty years on a cochineal farm in Mexico, he was on his way back to his native land, to pass the latter por tion of his life in the tranquil enjoyment of pipe, beer, and competency, in the shadow of his village steeple,, and possibly—although of this he said nothing—in the peaceful com panionship of a placid stocking-knitting, child-bearing Frau, There was another Ger man at table, a coarse, big-headed baron from Swabia, who ate like a pig, used his fork as a toothpick, and indulged, to a most disgust ing extent, in the baronial and peculiarly Teutonic amusement of hawking. These persons were all foreigners; but the remain der of the party, myself excepted, consisted of natives, belonging to the better class oi Antwerp burghers. With one of these, next to whom I sat, I got into conversation; and finding him courteous, intelligent, and good humored, I was glad to detain him after din ner over the best bottle of Bordeaux the “ Park” cellars could produce. This opened his heart, and he volunteered to act as my cicerone through Antwerp. Although 1 had seen, upon former visits, all the “ lions” of the place, it had been under the guidance of those odious animals called valets-de-place; and I now gladly availed myself of my new friend’s offer, and walked out to the citadel. He had lived in Antwerp all his life ; conse quently had been there during the siege, in reminiscences of whose incidents and episodes he abounded—so much so, that the invalid soldier who exhibits the fortress was kind enough to spare us his monotonous elucida tions, and, whilst opening gates, to keep his mouth closed. I lingered willingly on the scene of that unjust aggression and gallant defence, and saw everything worth seeing, including the identical arm-chair in which, as the story goes, old Chasse, gouty as he w r as brave, eat and smoked and gave his orders, unruffled by the thunder of French batteries Stud the storm of French shot. Daylight be gan to fade as we re-entered the town, and passed, at my request, through some of its older portions, where I begged my Antwerper to point out to me any house of particular antiquity, or notable as the residence of re markable persons. He showed me the dwel lings of more than one of those great artists of whom Flanders is so justly proud; also several mansions of Spanish grandees, dating from the days of Alva’s rule, and built in Spanish style, with abundant and massive balconies, and the patio, or inner court. At last 1 thought of returning to my hotel, and was meditating an invitation to supper to my obliging acquaintance, when, as we passed through a narrow and sequestered street, he suddenly stood still. “See there!” he said; “that house, al though of great age, has apparently little to distinguish it from others, equally ancient, scattered through Antwerp; nevertheless, to us Flemings it possesses powerful and pecu liar interest. Aad truly no residence of painter or grandee could tell stranger tales, were its walls to speak all that had passed within them.” I looked curiously at the house, but could see nothing remarkable about it, except that it was visibly very old—to all appearance one of the oldest in the town. It was of moderate dimensions, built of mingled stone and brick, to which time and damp had given one general tint of dingy greenish black. Its door was low, and of unusual strength; its windows were narrow, and defended here and there by iron bars. Formerly these bars had been much more numerous, but many had been sawn off close to the stone-work, in which their extremities still remained deeply set. A shallow niche in the wall contained one of those rudely-carved images of the Vir gin and Child, once deemed an indispensable appendage to Antwerp houses as a protection against evil spirits, and especially against one—a sort of municipal brownie, the scare crow of the honest and credulous burgesses. The features of the images, never very deii cate’y chiselled, were obtuse and scarcely dis tinguishable with age and dirt, but vestiges of blue and crimson were still discernible on the Virgin’s garments. I observed that the house had the appearance of having once stood alone—perhaps in the middle of a gar den, or, more probably, of a paved court—