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SOUTHERN LITERARY GAZETTE:
’ A WEEKLY JOURNAL OF LITERATURE, SCIENCE AND ART. . .
WM. C. RICHARDS, Editor,
Original Poetni.
Far the Southern Literary Gazette.
BEN HADI:’
A PERSIAN ECLOGUE.
BY CHARLES L. WRELEII.
r.VRT FIRST.
>iy a river, dark and turbid,
Flowing in the Eastern clime,
Stands a ruin, grim and hoary,
Remnant of the by-gone time,
•
Virent ivy, upward creeping,
Ilangs upon the crumbling wall,
While the sun-beams, soft and genial,
Nurse fair flowers in keep and hall.
High the herbage, in the pathways,
Springs elate ’neath Time’s slow feet,
While the Stork-king, lord of ruin,
Cleaves the air with pinions fleet.
When the sunset, soft and golden,
’ Bathes it deep in dappl’d light—
Upward looms it, like Death’s castle,
On the solemn shore of Night.
♦Seen in twilight, ’tis a ruin,
Round which mortals well might deem
Oho ills and Syrens, Fauns and Faeries,
Hold their sports in moonlight gleam.
—There Ben Hadi, brave and noble,
Held his princely rcvelrie:
Kerczom’s vintage, bright and ruby,
Flow’d upon his board full free.
• *
Forms of beauty, frail as lovely,
Moved thro’ its halls bediglit;
Hearts enchaining, souls entrancing,
In the spell of Love’s delight.
Strains of music, low and liquid,
Like the voice of fountains near,
’Neath the arches, floating gently,
h?tole into the list’ner’s car.
Dancers moved, light and graceful,
Marking joy by Music’s chime;
All bejewel’d, gaily flashing.
Like a Faery pantomime.
Pleasure’s goblet, full and flowing,
* Drank Ben Uadi on that night;
For the bacch’nal, song and music,
Lasted till the morning light.
When the star-eyes, tired with watching,
Closed upon the Morning’s breast,
Host and bacchant, slow retiring,
Sought their troubl’d couch of rest.
—Thus the revel, oft renewed,
Broke the stillness of the night:—
Could such pleasures, pour'd so freely,
Aught have yielded hut delight 1
f
When his fortune, oaco so ample,
Pass’d into another’s hands,
Then Ben Iladi, poor and friendless,
Cried, “ Alas ! for friends and lands !
.
“ Bright they smiled, soft they lisped,
Eyes and tongues of servile souls !
Lowly bowing, hate-concealing,
For the joys which gold controls. ’
“ Liko the ivy, winding closely,
Round some tall, primeval tree,
Clung the flatt’rers, me beguiling
With their flowers of flatteric l
—Friend-deserted, broken-hearted,
Wander’d pale Ren Hadi then ;
Shunning hamlets, shunning friendships,
Hating e’en the forms of men !
Days of sorrow, nights of waking,
Fed the death-worm in his heart;
And, his spirit, wingless flying,
Reigns where traitors havo no part.
TART SECOND.
When the day-god, slow descending,
Sinks to rest on Night’s dark shore,
Then Ben Hadi, spirit-errent,
Come3 to visit earth once more.
Through his castle, dank and mould’ring,
Walks he in the deep’ning gloom
ATHENS,, GEORGIA, SATURDAY, APRIL 7, 1849.
Wherefore comes he _ he tin wrong’d one
-1-1 @ia the slu ni jer 0 f t [ lo tomb 1
Birds awaken’d, fo ptiles jostl'd,
Scream nm i hiss him all around;
Making midni ght, else so silent,
Biiug, th c feelings of a swound.
Hoc din g r /-thing, voice or presence,
aU he holds his lonely w;iy;
Halvin’ / converse, wild and mournful,
AV/hich, in echo, seems to say :
“ Uarth is earthly, still and ever—
All things bear the sad impress;
-Nor concealment, however artful,
Hides the heart of rottenness.
“ Gold and glory, crowns and honors,
Heal no pnng of aching hearts ;
Basest passions, man degrading,
Blast the soul in Glory’s marts.
“ When soft Pleasures, odor breathing,
Witch’d away my wilder’d soul,
Naught they left me, hope or friendship,
Leading back to Virtue’s goal.
“Pleasure sought I, (sad the error!)
In the path of Passion’s train;
Long I follow’d, thoughtless, dreaming,
Hugging but a gilded chain.
“ Dreaming, dreaming ! oft awaking,
Long'd my soul for something still;
In my spirit, void unnamed was,
Which e’en Pleasure could not fill.
“ Youth and manhood, passing quickly,
Left me friendless —left Remorse ;
Age and sorrow, o’er my spirit,
Flow’d with dark and turbid course.
“ Virtue's pathway, Truth’3 effulgence,
. Lead and guide alone to Heaven ;
When they guide not, Life’s frail vessel
Rudderless to wreck is driven!”
—Heeding nothing, voice or presence,
Holds he thus his lonely reign—
Preaching hoarsely, weeping often,
Till the morning come3 again.
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EVELYN HAMILTON:
• —OR—
THE SISTERS.
BY MISS ELIZA G. NICHOLS.
Upon one of the broad and beautiful rivers
of South Carolina, stood the ancestral resi
dence of the Hamiltons. Its antique, low
window’s, reached to the floor of vine-clad
balconies, which opened out upon park and
parterre, spreading away into umbrageous
labyrinths and flower-enameled dells, like a
gorgeous carpeting. The “mossy oaks”
and proud magnolias, which embowered the
cottage, cast their shadows upon the soft
sward, which swept away until it was laved
by the waters that rolled proudly onward,
tossing the flowery wreaths and soft foliage,
which fell ill rich festoons upon its bosom.
Far away in the park nestled a fairy lake,
mirroring the perfumed violets and snowy
water-lilies that drooped their heads upon its
44 waveless tide;” where, if the soft air but
breathed too roughly over them, crushing a
fragile stem, it would fall away, and float
like a fairy shallop upon the silvery tide.
Fair and fairy was this 44 Maiden s Mirror.”
And thence gurgled a pearly stream, toying
writh the wild flowers that burst into bloom
in every nook and niche; then, frolicking
away, its murmur was lost in the soft ca
dence of a distant water-fall. Upon its banks,
the o'ercanopying jessamine, the luxuriant fo
liage of myrtle and wild orange, embowered
grottoes of rare loveliness. All was bright
as the ideal of a poet’s imagination.
Amid such scenes of quiet beauty, was
passed the childhood of Evelyn and Alice
Hamilton—scenes imbued with that mystic
poetry of nature, whose gentle influence the ;
spirit so readily imbibes’. Though so early :
orphaned, they had never missed a parent's I
care : the place of their parents had been
by Miss Lydia Hamilton, a maiden
sister of £ol. Hamilton, arid the kind old
minister, who had resided at the little par
sonage, near the cottage, from his earliest
boyhood, and had grown up like an elder
brother to Col. Hamilton. To their mutual
love and care did he commit the guardian
ship and training of his own beloved chil
dren, and of Walter Preston, and Horace
Sydney, the orphan children of his early
friend and beloved sister, whom he hail loved
and watched over as his own,
“Lydia, my sister, take my children—
Walter, Horace, all—to your warm, kind
heart, and never let them feel their bereave
ments, when my head lies pillowed beside
the dear and gentle one, for whom I have
sorrowed.”
And well and faithfully had that sacred
trust been fulfilled. With parental anxiety
and watchful tenderness had they nurtured
and trained every fiowret of heart and mind,
as they were developed, that no pernicious
weed might spring up to infect their pure
young souls.
Lydia Hamilton was one of the poor old
maids who had “learned to grow old grace
fully there was a dash of romance in her
nature, which kept still green the youthful
beauty of a heart that went forth in sympa-*
thy and kindness to every living thing. She
had a kind word and look ever ready to bc.-
stow on all: no one, child or servant, would
have thought of rebelling against her mild
ana gentle discipline. A conscientious re
gard of her duty to others was evidently the
governing motive by which she was actua
ted, so little was there that was exacting in ‘
her nature. Imperceptibly to herself, the in
fluence of her own disposition and principles
were modeling the plastic hearts around her:
they were imbibing those principles which
are the true basis of elevated character. In
earlier days, Lydia Hamilton had been very
beautiful, and was long the toast among the
young officers, both of the British and Ameri
can camp; for the cottage had, even during
the most hostile times, been a hospitable
asylum for the sick and wounded of both ar
mies. Though Cos). Hamilton was a most
warm-hearted revolutionist, yet there were
few, from officer to subaltern, in the British
camp, who did not bless the name of his gen
tle and beautiful wifc. .
Lydia Hamilton was the affianced bride of
the son of a most bitter loyalist, but one
who fought beneath the proud flag of liberty.
He had been promoted to a station of honor
and high responsibility in the Division com
manded by Col. Hamilton. At the battle of
Eutaw, he fell mortally wounded, whilst the
god of victory was binding the immortal
chaplet upon his throbbing brow. He was
borne to the grave gmid a train of gallantand
lordly officers of both armies; and, as they
heaped his quiet resting-place, the promised
bride of his bosom knelt, and, in the wild
agony of her heart, pledged again the change
less devotion which had soothed his dying
moments, as he pressed her for the last time
to his yearning heart.
Though so young when her beautiful
mother died, yet painfully vivid to Evelyn
Hamilton was the recollection of the hour,
when each of her parents was laid in the lit
tle church-yard. It was from these sad re
miniscences, perhaps, that her temperament
had imbibed that gentleness which gave a
VOLUME I.—NUMBER 47.
subdued cast to the happy‘enthusiasm of her
heart: they also exerted their maturing influ
ence upon the energies of her mind, for, ve
ry early, she gave evidence of powers of
mind and of heart widely dissimilar to those
of her young sister, whose merry laugh and
sunny face were the light of their home—the
household pet —who looked up with child
like confidence to all around her, to be guid
ed, governed, cared for. Evelyn was to her
a guiding spirit. She would never chili or
check her clinging affection and girlish en
thusiasm, by repulsing or disregarding them.
Yet, withal, Alice was not wayward or ca
pricious, for the earliest lesson of her heart
had been a regard for the feelings of others.
Evelyn loved to stroll alone through that
venerable aisle which led to the church, with
t / *
its mantle of long grey moss waving and
sighing above her in the soft evening air, to
linger in that quiet church-yard—or, wrapt
in revery, to sit beneath the pillared porch of
that time-honored church, with its ivy-grown
belfrcy, w here the wrens built their nest, and
chirped and sang, as they flitted in the mos
sy foliage: and, at twilight’s holy hour, she
would steal away from the happy society of
Alice, to strew, fresh flowers and pray beside
the graves of her parents.
The education of the children of his charge
had, for many years, been almost the sole
employment of the good old Minister.—
Though a man of profound erudition, and
well-disciplined powers of thought, he did not
wish to limit their advantages of education ;
and, after maturely deliberating his plans
with regard to their future course, he commu
nicated his views to Aunt Lydia. Though
it was a bitter task to think of remaining
three or four years away from the cherished
spot where her days had been so serenely
passed, yet she could submit to any sacrifice
for the advantage of those she loved with
such deep solicitude. It was arranged,
therefore, that Evelyn and Alice should pass
a few years at a hoarding-school in Boston,
and that Aunt Lydia, and their faithful old
nurse, should board with them. Horace and
Walter w ere not to be governed in their de
cisions. Walter preferred attending a Uni
versity in Europe, and subsequently making
a lour of the continent. Horace, less aspi
ring in his views, would remain with his
cousins. With what painful rapidity the
weeks fleeted by*, which intervened be
fore their departure from the loved, familiar
objects and haunts, around which their be
ing’s light had been shed —haunts which en
shrined some of the purest joys their hearts
would ever know', whose tics had become
links in being's chain.
It was the evening preceding their depar
ture, that Walter and Evelyn had strolled to
the grotto by the Lake. The perfume-ladeu
air came stealing through the leafy solitude,
wrapping the spirit in revery by its soothing
murmur.
“ Evelyn,” said Walter, “how many long
and changeful years must pass, and how
many trying events will fling their shadows
upon our pathway, before we meet here
again ! Reflect upon it: we leave all to
mingle in that heartless world, from which
hitherto the sanctuary of our own home has
shielded us. Spring's coming flowers will
bloom again, as fresh and fair, to glad these
consecrated haunts so endeared to us all; the
birds, too, w ill pour their melting melody us
blithe and free; but where, alas! shall we,
who have lingered so long beneath those hal
lowing influences, be straying V ’
“Walter, we may not divine the future—
we cannot scan the scenes which it veils:
but, whatever the events, the changes reserved
for its unwritten page, it will be sweet to