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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. popular titles. . ... s For lire Southern Literary Gazette. 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