Thus sang the tortured spirit, while the chant
Of the new bridal filled the quivering air.
The ring of gold upon the finger placed,
The girlish blushes, the groom's joyous smile,
Told all was over, and the crowd dispersed:
But the high face of the wrung spirit pressed
Upon my heart, haunting me with its woe.
What was her doom? Was she midst penal fires,
Whose flames must burn away the sins of life,
The hay and stubble of idolatrous love?
Ah, even in its root crime germs with doom!
Must suffering consume our earthly dross?
Is't pain alone can bind us to the Cross?
She worshipped man; true to his nature, he
Remained as ever fickle, sensuous, weak.
'Love is eternal!' True, but God alone
Can fill the longings of an immortal soul:
The finite thirst is for the Infinite!
JEFFERSON DAVIS AND REPUDIATION.
LETTER OF HON. ROBERT J. WALKER.
London, 10, Half Moon Street, Piccadilly,
June 30th, 1863.
Soon after my arrival in London from New York, my attention was called, by some English, as well as American friends, to an article which had appeared more than a month previously in the London Times of the 23d of March last. In the money article of that date is the following letter from the Hon. John Slidell, the Minister of Jefferson Davis at Paris.
'My dear Sir:
I have yours of yesterday. I am inclined to think the people of London confound Mr. Reuben Davis, whom I have always understood to have taken the lead on the question of repudiation, with President Jefferson Davis. I am not aware that the latter was in any way identified with that question. I am very confident that it was not agitated during his canvass for Governor, or during his administration. The Union Bank bonds were issued in direct violation of an express constitutional provision. There is a wide difference between these bonds, and those of the Planters' Bank, for the repudiation of which, neither excuse nor palliation can be offered. I feel confident that Jefferson Davis never approved or justified that repudiation. What may have been his private opinions of the refusal to consider the State of Mississippi bound to provide for the payment of the Union Bank bonds, I do not know.
Yours truly,
'John Slidell.'
It is due to the editor of the Times here to state, that, in his money article of the 23d March last, he refers to the controversy of that press with Jefferson Davis on that question in 1849, and, as regards the suggestion of Mr. Slidell, that it might have been Reuben Davis who was the repudiator in 1849, instead of Jefferson Davis, the editor remarked, 'it is to be feared that the proof in the other direction is too strong.' Indeed, the editor might well be astonished at the supposition that Jefferson Davis, who subscribed the repudiation letter in question of the 25th May, 1849, as well as a still stronger communication of the 29th August, 1849, should have been confounded, during a period of near fourteen years, by the press of Europe and America, with Reuben Davis, and that the supposed mistake should just now be discovered, especially as Reuben Davis never was a Senator of the United States from Mississippi, or from any other State.