TO ——.
BY W. GILMORE SIMMS.
'Twas meant for thee, when all look'd dark,
And ev'ry friend my childhood knew,
Shrunk from the slight and vent'rous bark
As reckless, through the waves it flew—
Unshaken still, to keep thy faith,
And through each gloomy storm that came,
To shield me, in thy pray'rs, from scaith,
To keep me, in thy words, from blame.
When narrow fears beset the base,
And selfish hopes o'ercame the mean,
'Twas love alone whose gentle face
Look'd still unchanged through all the scene;
And with the darkness of the hour,
Thy truth but more conspicuous shone,
As some sweet star, when clouds have power,
Looks proudly out from Heaven, alone!
Shall I not love thee, evermore,
Thou more than planet guide to me,
Whose gentle light, on sea and shore,
Still spoke thy true heart's constancy!
Oh, be Time's changes what they will,
They cannot change that sleepless thought,
That tells,—that teaches of thee still,
By thee, for evermore, still taught.
A REMINISCENCE.
BY DR. FRANCIS LIEBER.
Charleston, S. C. June 28—the day of
Fort Moultrie—1836.
Dear Sir—Your favor of Richmond, June 18—the anniversary of the battle of Waterloo—reached me here, a few minutes ago. The vacations of South Carolina College have begun, and I am here waiting for a vessel to carry me to the Island of Porto Rico, whither I intend to proceed for the sake of recreation! A strange way of getting cool, you will say, to go from South Carolina to the West Indies, from degree 31 northern latitude to degree 18—it is a more formidable experiment than the process of annealing, by which glass is passed into an oven not quite so hot as the first in which it was melted. I allow, it may be strange; still I shall go. But here I am, not only without any materials or memoranda, but confined to the sofa by a faux-pas, which has made of me, ever since, a lame man. Now if you sum up all these items—vacations just begun, without books or papers, lame and windbound in a seaport, a voyage of considerable interest before me, for which one ought to prepare himself a little—you will own that they are as many difficulties in the way of granting your request, which otherwise it would have given me much pleasure to comply with.