INTEMPERANCE.
| Parent!—who with speechless feeling O'er thy cradled treasure bent, Every year, new claims revealing, Yet thy wealth of love unspent,— Hast thou seen that blossom blighted, By a drear, untimely frost? All thy labor unrequited? Every glorious promise lost? Wife!—with agony unspoken, Shrinking from affliction's rod, Is thy prop,—thine idol broken,— Fondly trusted,—next to God? Husband!—o'er thy hope a mourner, Of thy chosen friend asham'd, Hast thou to her burial borne her, Unrepentant,—unreclaimed? Child!—in tender weakness turning To thy heaven-appointed guide, Doth a lava-poison burning, Tinge with gall, affection's tide? Still that orphan-burden bearing, Darker than the grave can show, Dost thou bow thee down despairing, To a heritage of woe? Country!—on thy sons depending, Strong in manhood, bright in bloom, Hast thou seen thy pride descending Shrouded,—to th' unhonor'd tomb? Rise!—on eagle-pinion soaring,— Rise!—like one of Godlike birth,— And Jehovah's aid imploring, Sweep the Spoiler from the earth. |
| L. H. S. |
The following beautiful lines have been very generally ascribed to the pen of the Hon. R. H. Wilde, a member of the present House of Representatives from the State of Georgia. We do not know that Mr. W. has ever confessed the authorship, but we think that they would not discredit even their supposed origin. We have had the pleasure to read some of Mr. Wilde's brilliant speeches in Congress, and we are confident that they are the emanations of a mind deeply imbued with the spirit of poesy. Not that we thence necessarily infer that these lines are the genuine offspring of his muse—but merely allude to the character of his parliamentary efforts, in connexion with the common opinion that the poetry is from the same source. One of our present objects is to give what we conceive to be a correct version of these admired lines; for in almost all the copies we have seen, we have been struck with several gross errors, alike injurious to their sense and harmony. Not the least remarkable of these errors has been the uniform substitution of Tempè for some other word,—thereby imputing to the author the geographical blunder of converting the delightful and classic valley of Greece, into a desert shore or strand. We have no doubt that Tampa is the word originally written by the author, there being a bay of that name in Florida sometimes described on the maps as the bay of Espiritu Santo.
MY LIFE IS LIKE THE SUMMER ROSE.
| My life is like the summer rose That opens to the morning sky, And ere the shades of evening close, Is scattered on the ground to die; Yet on that rose's humble bed The softest dews of night are shed As though she wept such waste to see, But none shall drop one tear for me! My life is like the autumn leaf Which trembles in the moon's pale ray, Its hold is frail, its date is brief, Restless;—and soon to pass away: Yet when that leaf shall fall and fade The parent tree will mourn its shade, The wind bemoan the leafless tree, But none shall breathe a sigh for me! My life is like the print, which feet Have left on Tampa's desert strand, Soon as the rising tide shall beat Their trace will vanish from the sand; Yet, as if grieving to efface All vestige of the human race, On that lone shore loud moans the sea, But none shall thus lament for me. |
For the Southern Literary Messenger.