July 9th. Started from St. Thomas', with the assurance that our little schooner was awaiting us at Chagres. We all longed to see the wee craft once more, and to be again with her upon the waves; and indeed we regretted her, clipper as she was, with as much fondness as if she were the most stately man-of-war. I close my portfolio for the present; where I shall open it next, Fate knows, not I. But wherever it may be, for your eyes and yours alone, my friend, are these “types of travel” recorded. I do not write for the public eye; I leave that to your friend N. P. W. and to my friend Mrs. Trollope, content, when again we meet, and shake hands once more after my wanderings, to hear you say, in the language of Old Will—Well, Ned, “thou didst make tolerable vent of thy travel.”
* * * * *
Wherever the Inquisition had power, the word fata was not allowed in any book. An author wishing to use the word, printed in his book facta, and put in the errata “for facta read fata.”
LINES.
BY P. P. COOKE.
I sometime at sweet even go
Forth to the greenwood tree,
To watch the day-flush fading slow
Over the west countrie.
There, sitting on a gnarled root,
I place my hand upon my cheek—
And sitting thus, whole hours, all mute,
Feeding on thought too rich to speak,
I hear the ever rushing wings
Of the many cloudy things
Which are my brain's imaginings.
And sometime am quite happy—quite—
Under the influence, soft and holy,
Of the eve's bough-broken light,
(Bough-broken and most melancholy!)
Quite happy! and my fingers pass
Over my brow and through my hair,
In rude—rude mimicry, alas!
Of the soft fingers slim and fair
That once were so familiar there—
But which now death-eaten are.
So I do sit me down and dream—
Acquaint with mystery; and seem
To prying Ouphes a happy mortal,
And seem aright!—For through the portal
Of joyful meditation stream
All bright and lovely things. But then
These come not to the haunts of men,
And I, (sad I!) am happy only
In the old wood, dim and lonely!