TO ——.

Thou arch magician! [emphasise the arch!
I would not—for an office—have it said
That I apostrophized another]—march
Where'er I will, thy strategy has spread
For me, alas! such ambuscades and toils,
I fear thou seek'st to add me to thy "spoils."
'Tis, by my holidame! no more a jest
To cope with thee, than him, whose subtle schemes
Cheat an enlightened people's greatest, best—
While thou art tickling in their downy dreams,
Some half score maidens, putting them in mind
To play the devil—just as they're inclined.
* * * * *
With woman's eyes thou hast my heart assailed,
Yet I withstood them. Lips and teeth in vain
Coral and pearls outshone—form, features failed
To bind me captive in thy treacherous chain;
I know not why, but fancy some bright shield
Hath saved me scathless from the well fought field!
* * * * *
Perhaps it was her eyes—their flashing light
Must have reminded me of quenchless fire:
It may have been her teeth—their dazzling white
Might hint Tartaric snows than Andes higher,
Where shriek the damned from every frozen clime,
Warning poor tempted souls to flee from crime.1
Perhaps her lips foretokened coals as red—
Perhaps her faultlessness of form might tell
Of ruined Arch-angelic beauties, led
By Love or Pride's seduction, down to hell—
But how 'twas possible I can't divine,
To look upon her foot and think of thine!

1 A hot region has no terrors for the Laplanders. None but a very cold place of punishment is adapted to their imagination.

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

LINES

Written in an Album, on pages between which several leaves had been cut out.

What leaves were these so rudely torn away?
Whose immortality thus roughly foiled?
What aphoristic dogs have had their day,
And of their hopes been suddenly despoiled?
Whose leaf was this? and what the bay-wreath'd name
Which here its glowing fancies did rehearse?
What was the subject which it doomed to Fame?
Whose knife or scissors did that doom reverse?
Here gallant knights, imagining the wings
Of the famed Pegasus sustained them, soaring,
Fiddled, thou false one! on their own heartstrings,
Whilst thou thy soul in laughter wert outpouring!
A score of petty minstrels might have lain,
And, like the Abbey Sleepers, found good lying
In this brief space—but none, alas! remain,
Thou'st sent their ashes to the four winds flying!
Behold my Muse, Colossus like, bestride
The fallen honors of each beau and lover—
Ghosts of departed songs, that here have died,
How many of ye now do o'er me hover?
Methought I heard ye then, as first ye threw
Your soft imaginings in dreamy numbers,
And o'er my soul the sweet enchantment flew
Like music faintly heard in midnight slumbers.
* * * * *
When whim, or chance, or spite, my leaf shall tear,
Grant me in turn, ye fates! some gentle poet—
One who shall lie with such a grace, you'd swear
That if indeed he lied, he did'nt know it!