WRITTEN AT THE WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS OF VIRGINIA.

With spirits like the slacken'd strings
Of some neglected instrument—
Or rather like the wearied wings
Of a lone bird by travel spent;
Ah! how should I expect to find
Midst scenes of constant revelry,
A solace for a troubled mind,
A cure for my despondency?—
There was a time when mirth's glad tone
And pleasure's smile had charms for me—
But disappointment had not strown
My pathway then with misery:
Health then was mine—and friends sincere—
Requited love—and prospects bright—
Nor dreamt I that a day so clear
Could ever set in such a night!

* * *

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

TO —— —— OF THE U. S. NAVY.

Tell me—for thou hast stood on classic ground,
If there the waters flow more bright and clear,
And if the trees with thicker foliage crowned,
Are lovelier far than those which blossom here?
Say is it true, in green unfading bowers,
That there the wild bird sings her sweetest lay?
And that a light, more beautiful than ours,
Lends richer glories to expiring day?
Wooed by Italian airs, does woman's cheek
With purer color glow, than in our land?
Or does her eye more eloquently speak,
Or with a softer grace her form expand?
Does music there, with power to us unknown,
Breathe o'er the heart a far diviner spell?
And with a sweeter, more entrancing tone,
The thrilling strains of love and glory swell?
Tell me if thou in thought didst dearer prize
Thy home, than all that Italy could give?
Didst thou regret that her resplendent skies
Should smile on men as slaves content to live?
Didst thou, when straying in her cities fair,
Or in her groves of bloom, regret that here
No perfumes mingle with the passing air?
And was thine own, thy native land, less dear?
Or didst thou turn where proudly in the breeze
America's star-spangled flag was flying?
The flag that o'er thee waved on the high seas;
With conscious heart exultingly replying,
"No slothful land of dreaming ease is ours,
Her soil is only trodden by the free—
Less rich in music, poetry, and flowers,
Still, still she is the land of all for me!"

E. A. S.

Lombardy, Va.