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pitality of a friendly roof; and as I rested in an ample arm-chair from the fatigues of my journey, which, in my debilitated state, had nearly exhausted my strength, I felt that here "I could take mine ease."

The reader will perceive, that in the journey from Havana to Guines and thence to this place, I met with not a single accident; that the means of travelling were easy, and the difficulties of the route only nominal. I moreover was not compelled to speak one word of Spanish; for whenever I left a place, full directions were given to the postlion where to carry me, and as to the dangers of the road, I have learned to disbelieve nine tenths of the tales of robbery I hear, and seldom carry pistols, unless when rambling through unfrequented woods, where the only danger is from the cimarones. These, being often but a few months from the wilds of Africa, retain much of their native ferocity, but are easily kept off by fire arms. The courtesy of the Spaniard is well known, and there is no country through which a stranger can pass more easily than Cuba, if he will but obey the laws regarding passports, etc., and refrain from an insolent bearing towards those with whom he comes in contact. El desterrado,

which against the neck of his intelligent steed suf- |I could not but rejoice heartily in the change from ficed to guide him. We crossed rather a barren the cold civilities of an hotel, to the unstinted hoscountry for a couple of leagues, when my postilion turning to the left through a newly made road, I parted company with the other volantes, and entered a succession of deep woods. I now met few persons, but a solitary traveller could occasionally be seen riding rapidly along, his valise buckled to the back of his saddle, and his holsters fixed to the crupper. My postilion, who seemed impatient to arrive at the end of his journey, kept the horses in a continued trot, galloping up all the hills, and we soon reached the Canimar river, which, seen from the high grounds we were descending, presented a picturesque landscape. From its margin, high cliffs rose abruptly, covered with air plants, vines and shrubbery, having their summits crowned by large timber; while the stream silently glided out of one gorge in the mountains to enter another, and was soon lost to the view. On the opposite shore was the Caserio, the embarcadero at which all the produce of the surrounding country is shipped by launches to Matanzas, its wharehouses reaching to the very edge of the water; while a road was seen leading up the steep hill behind it, with several ox-carts slowly descending into the village. On the banks I met two pretty girls with their horses, afraid to enter the swollen stream; they gazed wistfully at my volante, and I was more than half tempted to offer a passage; but my postilion driving suddenly into the water, which rose nearly to the top of the seat, I lost all thought of them in a desire to protect myself. After floundering about a while, we reached the other shore; and driving through the crowded streets of the Caseric, or small village, where hides, boxes of sugar, pack horses, oxen, carts and harrieros seemed all mingled in one mass, we moved rapidly over the stony road that led to my future residence. It was but two leagues distant, and I soon saw its lime hedge and coffee shrubs, and its numerous orange trees ladened with their golden fruit. A few more cracks of the whip, and I entered its avenue of low trimmed orange, and was set down at the door of the house, receiving the warm welcome of my kind friend. As I had passed the larger part of the two preceeding winters on this estate, I was known to all the slaves, who, as they passed, greeted me by low salaams, the must graceful of all bows; the arms being crossed on the chest, the head bent, and the body half bending, half sinking, and retiring slightly. The young creoles, who were gamboling on the secaderos, naked black imps, sent up a shout of "el medico, el medico," not unmindful of the dulces I had often thrown among them on a Sunday afternoon; and the large bloodhound, the frequent and close companion of many of my former rambles about the estate, suddenly recognizing me, expressed his joy by whining and rubbing all the red clay dust from his rough coat on my clothes. As Mercy's pledge from Him who knew no guile.

TO MY MOTHER.

BY MRS. MARIA G. BUCHANAN.
List to that music on the summer air,

Low breathe its tones around.
-I see a child as opening rosebud fair-

Upon a woman's neck its arms are wound,
'Tis from its lips that seraph music wells,

And Mother is the sound

That echo answers from her mystic cells.
Behold that beautiful and quenchless light,
Breaking the prison's gloom,
Like moonbeams on the dusky brow of night
It gilds with golden rays the convict's doom.
Oh! 'tis the lustre of a Mother's love,
Fading not at the tomb,
Where guilt and shame and fear keep watch above.
Over the ocean of unquiet thought,

As wave on wave mounts high,
By passion's stormy tempest overwrought,
A Mother's voice steals in low melody;
Calm grows the soul's fierce discord 'neath her will,
As if her words had caught
Some portion of His might who uttered "Peace, be still.”
When tears of meek repentance humbly fall

From the crushed penitent;

When 'tween him and his God frowns sin's dark wall,
A cheering brightness with his woe is blent;
Oh! 'tis the rainbow of a Mother's smile,

Which seems as if 'twere sent

Oh! mother, fast between thy child and thee
A hundred rivers flow,

But still thy speaking smile's dear witchery
Is present with me wheresoe'er I go;
By Fancy's ear thy thrilling voice is heard
Swelling in harmony,

Thro' sleep's dim realms by mortal sound unstired.
I've left my home upon thy gentle breast,

Where love and peace are met.
Within a husband's shelt'ring arms I rest
And shadowed by his tenderness-but yet,
Even in that blissful circle of repose,

Thee do I ne'er forget,

Thee will I love 'till life's last scene shall close.

Tho' on thy lofty brow sad age has placed
The signet of the tomb-

Though lines by time and sorrow deeply traced
Now inar the cheek on which the rose did bloom-
Tho' bent thy form where once reigned perfect grace,
Oh! yet to cheer this gloom

Beauty's best sunshine still illumes thy face.
Thine eyes' clear lustre, beautiful as night
When stars are on her brow,

Is yet scarce faded, and love's spirit bright,
Which on my childhood shed its angel glow,
Lives yet within them, and undimmed thy smile,
As when, so sweet and low,

Thou sangst 'till sleep flung round me her soft wile.
Oh! mother, loved inspirer of my song,

Source of its melody,

With whom are linked the brightest shapes that throng
The twilight realms of dark-eyed Memory,
Accept this humble tribute to thy worth,

Unworthy far of thee

Thee in whose breast all virtues have their birth.

My Mother, when of thee I think, or speak,
So perfect is my love,

The energy of language is too weak,

Its wondrous height and depth to fully prove,

Words fail as dies the taper in the blast;

"Tis known to Him above,

," "The Zucca," and

particularly "The Question,"

"The Woodman and the Nightingale," with a few
others, are, as poems, what the works of Titian
were among the painters-the execution far sur-
passes the design. They appear to have been
written just for the delight which they gave him.
The richness of his genius flowed unconfined, and,
like a mighty, crystaline river, gathered volume
as it onward flowed. Human language never ex-
pressed a more sublime, poetical truth than may be
found in his "ODE TO LIBERTY," where he calls
"The Dedal Earth,

THAT ISLAND IN THE OCEAN OF THE WORLD.

A more perfect truth was never uttered than the following, which may be found in his " REVOLT OF ISLAM"-"TO THE PURE ALL THINGS ARE PURE. What, but a generous nature, could have given birth to such a divine sentiment as this? "LET

SCORN BE NOT REPAID WITH SCORN.

He was the most purely ideal being that ever existed. He possessed the intellectuality of Plato, with the ideality of Æschylus, and the pathos of Sophocles. His divine conceptions are all embalmed in the sacred tenderness of melting pathos. He possessed the artistical skill of Moore, without his mannerism. One of his peculiar characteristics is the giving to inanimate objects the attributes of animation. His description of the manner in which the rock overhangs the gulf in "THE CENCI," is an instance of it, where he says it has, "From unimmaginable years, Sustained itself with terror and with toil

Over a gulf, and WITH THE AGONY

WITH WHICH IT CLINGS SEEMS SLOWLY COMING DOWN,"-
No lines ever conveyed to me more meaning
than the following, wherein you can see the agony

With whom we hope to live when death's dark gulf is passed. of Beatrice setting itself into a resolve:
Wetumka, Ala., 18th Oct., 1843.

SHELLEY.

(Extract from a Lecture on the " Genius of Shelley.")

BY T. H. CHIVRES, M. D.

"All mortal things must hasten thus To their dark end. LET US GO DOWN." "THE CENCI" is far superior to any thing written in modern times. The following lines are not to be surpassed by any thing that Shakspeare ever

wrote:

"They say that sleep, THAT HEALING DEW OF HEAVEN, "How rose in melody that child of Love!"-Young. STEEPS NOT IN BALM THE FOLDINGS OF THE BRAIN," &c. Shelley was a poet of the highest order. He His delineation of the character of Beatrice is was the heavenly nightingale of Albion, whose gol- true to the original. It is the most effectingly den eloquence rent the heart of the rose bud of beautiful that can be conceived. From the divine Love. There is an unstudied, natural elegance fountains of her infinite affections the warm tide of expression about his poems which makes them of her female nature gushes forth in unfathomable truly enchanting. There is a subtle delicacy of fullness. There are no leprous stains of selfishexpression, an indication of the wisdom-loving ness spotting the saintly purity of that divine form divinity within-which enervates while it capti- which stands before us in all its naked majesty. vates the admiring soul. He was the swiftest- Her unflinching determination is dignified by its winged bee that ever gathered the golden honey of sincerity. I firmly believe that any being who poetry from the Hybla of this world. He was, could thus be induced to vindicate and revenge her among the Poets, in delineating natural objects, injured honor, contains, in her very nature, the what Claude was among the painters in delineating essence of all that is noble and good. It is the the landscape. All his minor poems, and more

* See note at end.

wretchedness by which we are surrounded, which of his divine genius, he could transmute the most makes us what we are. There is a dignified com- earthly things into the most heavenly idealities. posure in her resignation to death, which nothing In his own beautiful language on the "DEATH OF bat an inward goodness could impart. Her pas- KEATS," sions were inspired by a lively respect for the sacredness of her honor, although they were the inaudible prophets of her own destiny. Her love, rising into

"He is made one with Nature; there is heard
His voice in all her music, from the moan
Of thunder, to the song of Night's sweet bird.”

devotion, is consecrated by her sorrows. There He is the "PRINCE ATHANASE" of his own beauti

is a mournful sweetness in her death, and we em- ful creation. balm her virtues in our memory, while we weep

over her misfortunes!

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"He had a gentle, yet aspiring mind;
Just, innocent, with various learning fed;

His soul had wedded wisdom, and her dower

Is love and justice, clothed in which he sate
Apart from men, as in a lonely tower,
Pitying the tumult of their dark estate."
For none than he a purer heart could have,
Or that loved good more for itself alone;
Of nought in heaven or earth was he the slave.

Shelley has invested the most ideal thoughts in the most beautiful language. His poems are the most perfect idealisms of the subtelty of his divine gemus. His spirit was like a Sybil, who saw from the "heaven-kissing hill" of truth the vision of the coming centuries. The seeds of divine liberty, which he has sown in the hearts of England's slaves, will spring up, like immortal Amaranths, in The difference between Byron's poetry and Shelthe glorious Summer of To-come. Soon will the ley's consists in this, that the breathings of the Spring of Liberty, which he so much desired, burst former are the melancholy outbreaks of a spirit at forth, in all its splendor, on the enraptured souls war, from disappointment, with the world; those of of men. Then will her barren nakedness be the latter are the pathetic expressions of a soul covered with the green verdure of perpetual happi- which panted after an ideal of intellectual perfecness. Then will the winter of her slavery be clad tion. Shelley carolled for the listening ears of an in the rich garments of the Summer of Liberty. enraptured world, while Byron sang its requiem. Then will she appear like a BLESSED ISLAND rising Byron was like the sun in eclipse. Shelley was out of an ocean of divine tranquility, greened with like " Hesperus, the leader of the starry host of the freshness of an immortal SPRING, heaven."

His poems are the elms of the soul, where there Moore is as different from both, as they are from are many palm trees, and much running water. each other. His poetry is the heart-sustaining Hope was the Evening and Morning Star of his expressions of the phases of his own uninterrupted life. The mother of his Hope was FAITH; her pleasures. Though widely different from Byron's, daughter, PATIENCE; and her husband, Love. Life in many respects, yet it has the same object in was to him precisely what Jean Paul Richter said view in regard to the perfection of man. They of it, “ Man has but two minutes and a half to live were no reformers-they appealed immediately to one to smile-one to sigh—and a half to love-for the affections and the passions of men. They the middle of this minute he dies!" He was wrote for the Present and the Future, when it annointed by the hands of Liberty as the Prophet should become Present, without any determinate of humanity. Some of his Elysian scenes are as object in view, save that of conferring on mankind, sadly pleasing as the first sight of the green pas- in general, the same kind of delight which they tures of our native land, from which we have been experienced themselves in their own compositions. absent a long time. We are, while perusing his Shelley was a reformer he had a more lofty object poems, like a Pilgrim in the LAND OF OLIVES, who in view. His poetry is the liquid expressions of sees the mournful aspect of the country around, that undying self-sacrificing desire within, to perwhile tasting of its delicious fruit. He treated the fect the nature of MAN-to establish some princimost of his enemies like the King of Aragon did ple, through the deathless yearnings of the divinity his. When some one railed out against him, he within him, for his regeneration. The poetry of sent him a purse of gold. Being asked the reason Byron and Moore will satisfy the intellectual wants for so doing, he replied, "When dogs bark, their of a Nation, far inferior to what Shelley conceived months must be stopped by some morsel." He was as his ideal of human greatness. The poetry of that divine harmonist whose seraphic breathings Byron and Moore is the studied expression of the were the requiem-carols of his soul panting after inspiration of the divinity within. Shelley's poetry perfection. There was in his patient spirit some- is the artless expression of the perfection of Art. thing of the tender sorrow which dictated the Book It proceeded from the burning fountains of his soul, OF JOB, mixed with the spirit-stiring felicities in the unpremeditated exercise of his prolific gewhich filled the heart of Solomon. He embalmed nius, with as much unstudied sweetness, for the his most tender expressions in the fountain of his gratification of the intellectual wants of perfectly heart's best tears, which were the outgushings of mature man, as did the crystalline waters from the the joy of his sorrow. By the astonishing alchemy Rock oF HOREB, when stricken by the rod of

VOL. X-14

Moses, to quench the parching thirst of the Israelites in the valley of Rephidim.

THE CRUSADER'S RETURN.

BY D. H. ROBINSON.

entitled, we think, "the Faith of Woman," published in the This poem is a counterpart to one by the same author, late Magnolia. This was also intended for that popular Magazine; but on its suspension, its accomplished Editor kindly sent it to the Messenger.-Ed. Mess.

TO ISABELLA.

DEAREST, will you accept this little poem as some slight atonement for the slander against your gentle sex contained in the rhymes you wot of?—The Author.

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Where should this music be? i' the air or the earth?
Sitting on a bank

"I hate inconstancy-I loathe, detest,
Abhor, condemn, abjure the mortal made
Of such quicksilver clay, that in his breast
No permanent foundation can be laid,
And yet last night"-

It was the Venus Urania-the intellectual lovewhich is the handmaid of the heavenly Uranian Muse-which inspired the poetry of Shelley. She was the virgin which kept the fires of love upon the altar of his heart forever bright. It was the Venus Pandemos which inspired the poetry of Byron and Moore-as it appeals more directly to the passions of man. The poetry of Shelley was presided over by the elder Venus, the daughter of Uranus, who had no mother, but was co-eternal with the divine Berazhith. The poetry of Byron Weeping and Moore, and all the poets of passion, is the in-It crept by me upon the waters Allaying both their fury and my passion spiration of the younger Venus, the daughter of With its sweet air!"-The Tempest. Jupiter and Dione, who is called the Pandemian. Those who gaze upon the divine countenance of the Venus Urania, are ever afterwards impressed with the god-like grandeur of the immortal mind. She is the aspiration of the love of the intellectual. Those who gaze upon the less radiant countenance of the Venus Pandemos are inspired with a pasIsion to adore the form-not the soul. The former is the companion of the spiritual-the latter of the corporeal. The Venus Urania lives in the poetry of Shelley as the perfume does in the flower-she is the soul of the body of his verse. The intellectual love is the divine redolence of the rosebuds of thought, which adorn the enchanting garden of his soul. He has arrayed the spotless body of his divine love in the snow-white linen garments of the purest poetry. He stands in the TEMPLE OF FAME like a BAS RELIEF cut in the solid wall-you can never move him without pulling it down.

*Note to p. 104. Shelley was probably indebted for this beautiful sentiment to the Bible, in which the following pas sage occurs."Unto the pure all things are pure; but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled." Epis. to Tit. I., 15. Though he denied its truth, his mind could not but have appreciated the poetical and moral beauties of the Bible. Ed. Mess.

GOODNESS.

There is a grace in Goodness that outshines
The pomp of Kings. "Tis loftier than lines
Of beauty-it commands the soul with all
Its deep affections-it becomes the brow
Better than coronals of gold-the low
Cluster about it as a gift-the proud

Kneel at its shrine, and Wisdom who hath plough'd
The sea, and traced the sources of the streams
That feed it: who hath realized the dreams

Of fancy in her developements, and borne
The Past upon her palm-e'en she hath gone
And bow'd herself to Goodness.

J. S. R.

New Haven, Conn., 1813.

I.

With golden gladness came the Sun
From the blue skies, the world upon-
Sending afar his glorious glance
Over the vine-clad hills of France.
Oh the young Morning! She is fair
And breathes a blessing everywhere!--
Whether she come to glad the eyes
Of those who gaze on Persian skies--
Or, like a glance of hope that falls
With cheering power on prison walls,
Her car of fire with wheels of gold
O'er the dim Iceland heaven is rolled-
Or when, like patriot's wreath of fame,
She wraps the prairie-land in flame-
Or when in joyful pride she comes
To gild with glory Southern homes,
And Earth, like maid with rosy lips
A draught of dewy sunlight sips,-
Still is she beautiful and grand
In every clime, on every land:
Yet brighter far than o'er them all,
Comes Morning over glorious Gaul !
A young and gallant knight is he

Who rideth o'er the plain-
From battling on right manfully
To set the holy city free
Of infidels profane ;-
From doing deeds of chivalry,-
He rideth on right joyfully

To his dear home again!
He who, for many a weary hour,
Hath battled 'gainst the Moslem power,
Whose eye alone hath caught the gleams
That on the red God's banner dance,
Now drinketh in the peaceful beams

Of Morning in his native France.

And well may joy, like sunrise, now

Byron.

Break brightly o'er the young knight's brow:
And when he gazeth on that scene

With every gorgeous color sheen

Upon the mountains bathing high

Their foreheads in the cold clear sky

Upon the fields of waving grain,

That flash the sunlight back again

Upon the carpet of the grass

Where fairy feet alone should pass

Upon the sparkling of the rill,
That leapeth joyful from the hill,
And murmurs, whilst it rolls along,
Over the verdant sod,

A sweet and tributary song
To its Creator, God!-
Upon the charms on every hand
That deck alone his native land,
Like a bright spirit-band who throng
Alone to some dear home of song;-
Well may a gushing pleasure start
From the deep fountains of his heart!
And more: The Deity who sends

To man each stream of pain and woe With every bitter wavelet blends

The rolling of some pleasure-flow;The sky that frowns with night awhile, Will brighten with a moonlight smile ;The rosy Spring trips o'er a sod Where Winter's icy feet have trod ;And when, with bosom wildly beating, A lover from his lady parts, How joyful ah! shall be the meeting

Between those severed faithful hearts! And our young knight, when first he roved To battle with the Paynim's power, Had parted in a woeful hour With a bright lady whom he loved: And now to meet her once again

He deemeth soon shall be his fate; And over hill and dale and plain

Well may the young knight ride elate!

Alas for hope! Oh who could deem
That with the coming morrow
The sun of joyfulness, whose gleam
Was round him like some happy dream,
Would set in gulfs of sorrow ?-
And he was rushing blindly on,
Beneath the day's empurpled dawn,
To mournfulness and horror!

Who hath not witnessed scenes like this,
When, full of hopefulness and bliss,
The doomed one hastens to the strife
And blindly poureth out his life?
As the proud eagle roams on high
The cloudy path-ways of the sky;-
With plumes unfurled the air upon
He gazes boldly at the Sun;-

He cannot pause from his shadowy flight
To look on this orb of lesser light,-
And deems not, dwelling in the air,
Death's messenger will reach him there!
And thus all proudly to the sight
Speedeth along our gallant knight,
Beneath the mantle of the morning bright
And filled with fleeting phantoms of delight.
Here leave we now our knight while rest
Hope's brightest day-beams on his crest;
When not a shade of warning sorrow
Tells of the anguish of to-morrow;
Whilst the broad flashing joy of Morn
Into his very heart is borne !

II.

It is the mournful vesper bell

That calls the sainted ones to prayer— From gloomy nook and cloistered cell

The nuns are sadly gathering there;They come-they come,-a lengthened train

They pass through each dark recess,
And soul subduing is the strain,
Filling the air with mournfulness,
That sweeps along the chambers dim,
Like sadly-sweet rememberings
Of Heaven-banished Cherubim,
When evening's silent shadow brings
The memory of their lost abode
Within the presence of a God!

"Tis o'er --The sounds have died away
Within the convent's gloomy walls,
And the last light of dying day

Upon the earth so faintly falls
As scarce to give a color back
From wood or plain or rolling stream:
Night lifts aloft her banner black,

Victorious o'er the Day-God's beam!
And nuns in scattered groups repair
In quiet from the place of prayer.
And there were two of whom alone
This story may relate,
Who, on a stone where moss had grown,
In silent sorrow sate.

And one of them had beauty rare-
A death-like beauty-palely fair,-
A radiance which alone was given
By the approaching light of heaven.
In times gone by, what cause of fear,
What dreadful cause had brought her here,
Her kindly friend would often ask;

And now with accents sweet though trembling,

And dying flute notes all resembling,

She hath commenced her painful task.

"There's nothing in my simple tale
Of wild or high romance;-
Even from the cradle to the veil

Needs but a moment's glance;

I scarce can call to mind my sire,
Who passed from earth away
In life's bright morning ere the fire
Of youth had ceased to sway.
My mother,--oh! her gentle form
Comes up before me now,-
An eye with bright affection warm
Beams from that placid brow!
As girlhood grew beneath her glance
I scarcely noted Time's advance :—
Oh swiftly flew the hours away--
"Twas all one bright long summer-day!

I lack the language to express
Our soft and quiet happiness,
Which, like the peace in realms above,
Made life all loveliness and love!

"A change with my young cousin came.

I felt that life was not the same :

The earth more bright and rosy grew,
The flowers and stars were changed in hue!
Beheld with him each sylvan scene
Assumed a brighter, livelier green-
My own heart's deeper glow was thrown
O'er objects dim when viewed alone!

"But summoned by the trump of fame
To gain in holy wars a name

My lover left my side:

Yet ere he went, in words of flame,
He swore he would return to claim,
With honor decked, his bride!
Beneath an oak by moonbeams lighted,
The vows were said-our troth was plighted;-

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