Part 11

"My heart cold!" replied she, smiling, "What a happy poet! In one moment basking in the light of the evening star, and in the next ungenerously censuring a heart of which you know nothing."

"I do know it! I know that you have chilled its better feelings by the dictates of reason, and from long obedience to stern prudence, you cannot, dare not love! You have seen the sincerity of my passion, and you have trampled on the purity of that love which adores you! Hear me, dear Isa," I continued, seizing her hand and arresting her departure, "hear my unworthy love. I am a wretched, desolate being, and live alone."

"Lionel!" said she, suddenly interrupting me, "I do not love you! You have noble qualities, and a genius which promises the highest distinctions of fame. Forget your idle passion, and be assured that I shall ever retain for you the most affectionate friendship. Enter into the busy throng of the world, and you will quickly gain that chastened wisdom which can laugh to scorn all your boyish dreams of romance, and in the race of ambition you must and will forget your fancied sorrows. Is it not true that

'Love seldom haunts the breast where learning lies And Venus sets--ere Mercury can rise.'"

"I did not reckon on insult," I replied with much temper, "nor did I wish you to read me a homily on the extravagance of that passion which you alone have caused. You may scorn, yet I can love."

Lucy, accompanied by Arthur Ludwell, appeared at this moment, and relieved me from a scene of distress, confusion, and embarrassment. They returned with Isa to the parlor; and I, in a state of tempestuous feeling and subdued pride, sauntered to the shores of the Chesapeake. A _whip-poor-will_ seated on the leafless branch of a ruined oak, was carolling his funereal notes to the responsive echoes of the forest. The moon was rising far in the East, and the broad sea before me had already flushed its rippled surface in her mellow light. Here and there in the fretted horizon, might be dimly discovered the diminished sail, or the frail bark of the silent fisherman. All nature was slumbering in deathlike solitude, while I alone was the rude string whose vibrations jarred into discord the peaceful scene around me. In the bitterness of wounded pride I solemnly resolved to conquer my unrequited passion. I returned to Chalgrave, proud, stubborn and unconquerable. I looked up to its dreary grandeur and my eye caught the light form of Isa flitting athwart a window. My obstinacy vanished like the mist of the morning, and I was again the creature of love, hope, and imagination.

On the succeeding day she quitted Chalgrave. Her parting interview was simple and affecting. A kiss for my mother--a tear for Lucy, and a smile for me, were the little legacies her affections bequeathed. With strained eye and intense interest, I watched the chariot which bore her away, and when it had sunk into the forest, I turned off to meditate on her virtues and dream on her beauty. My old nurse gently touching me, placed in my hand a little packet which she said Miss Isa had left for me. I tore off the envelope, and a golden locket fell at my feet, on which was inscribed in faint though legible lines, "_Dinna forget_." That momento is now on my heart--a holy relic of the wreck of my happiness.

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

TO H. W. M.

When the cup is pledged, and the bright wine flowing, At the festal board, in the halls of light; And gentle eyes, like stars are glowing, In the cloudless sky of a summer's night: Oh! breathe but my name o'er the wine, for yet I will dare to believe that all will not forget.

When the moon looks out on the leafy bowers, Where the gladsome daughters of beauty are wreathing The brightest and fairest of all the flowers, To crown their altars with incense breathing, Oh, name one flower for the absent one, Who forgotten by thee is remembered by none.

In that home, to thee brightest and best upon earth, Where the spirits thou lovest are yearning to greet thee, When round the light of the household hearth, The smiles and the tears of affection greet thee, Mid the beam of the smile and the glow of the tear, Shall a thought ever whisper "I wish he were here?"

For if life were changed, and its beamings of gladness, Were shrouded in gloom by the veil of sorrow, And the pale cold shade of unaltered sadness, Found no ray of hope in the coming morrow; Each pang could but render more precious to me, The friendship of M----, the beauty of B.

MORNA.

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

LINES

Written on being accused of coldness of character and manners by some friends--1830.

They call me cold--they know me not, nor can they understand The warmth of my affections, by the breeze of _kindness_ fanned; My feelings may not show themselves in countenance or voice, But my _heart_ can weep with those who weep--with those who sing, rejoice! My best affections lie concealed--I bring them not to light, For I know that those with whom I dwell can never read them right; But their fountain, tho' it calmly flow, is warm and full and deep, And the stream of love within my breast, tho' _silent_, does not _sleep_. To all the dearest ties of life I cling most tenderly; And the few whose unbought love is mine, compose the world to me: It is not those who feel the most their feelings best express, Nor those the most sincerely fond, who with the _tongue_ can bless-- The paltry counterfeit may shine with radiancy as bright As the costly gem which monarchs wear--may look as pure and white; The artificial rose may glow with a color full as fair As the lovely flower which nature rears in sunshine and in air; 'Tis time, and time alone, can show the real gem and flower, And time will oft on those we love, exert its magic power; It may change the beaming smiles to frowns, kind greetings to disdain, And cause the _seeming_ friend to scorn our poverty and pain. Oh! it is not thus with me, I know, the tide of feeling flows; Affection may not speak in looks, but in my bosom glows, With a warmth which time can never chill, scarce injuries suppress, And my heart responds to every tone of the voice of tenderness.

E. A. S.

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

ON THE DEAF, DUMB, AND BLIND GIRL OF THE ASYLUM AT HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT.

Yet deem not, though so dark her path, Heaven strew'd no comforts o'er her lot, Or in its bitter cup of wrath The healing drop of balm forgot.

Oh no!--with meek, contented mind, The needle's humble task to ply, At the full board her place to find, Or close in sleep the placid eye.

With order's unobtrusive charm Her simple wardrobe to dispose, To press of guiding care the arm, And rove where Autumn's bounty flows,

With Touch so exquisitely true, That vision stands astonish'd by, To recognize with ardor due Some friend or benefactor nigh,

Her hand mid childhood's curls to place, From fragrant buds the breath to steal, Of stranger-guest the brow to trace, Are pleasures left for her to feel.

And often o'er her hour of thought, Will burst a laugh of wildest glee, As if the living forms she caught On wit's fantastic drapery,

As if at length, relenting skies In pity to her doom severe, Had bade a mimic morning rise, The chaos of the soul to cheer.

But who, with energy divine, May tread that undiscover'd maze, Where Nature, in her curtain'd shrine, The strange and new-born Thought arrays?

Where quick perception shrinks to find On eye and ear the envious seal, And wild ideas throng the mind, Which palsied speech may ne'er reveal;

Where instinct, like a robber bold, Steals sever'd links from Reason's chain, And leaping o'er her barrier cold Proclaims the proud precaution vain:

Say, who shall with magician's wand That elemental mass compose, Where young affections pure and fond Sleep like the germ mid wintry snows?

Who, in that undecipher'd scroll The mystic characters may see, Save Him who reads the secret soul, And holds of life and death the key?

Then, on thy midnight journey roam, Poor wandering child of rayless gloom, And to thy last and narrow home Drop gently from this living tomb.

Yes, uninterpreted and drear, Toil onward with benighted mind, Still kneel at prayers thou canst not hear, And grope for truth thou may'st not find.

No scroll of friendship or of love, Must breathe its language o'er thy heart, Nor that Blest Book which guides above, Its message to thy soul impart.

But Thou who didst on Calvary die, Flows not thy mercy wide and free? Thou, who didst rend of _death_ the tie, Is _Nature's_ seal too strong for thee?

And Thou, oh Spirit pure, whose rest Is with the lowly, contrite train, Illume the temple of her breast, And cleanse of latent ill the stain.

That she whose pilgrimage below Was night that never hoped a morn, That undeclining day may know Which of eternity is born.

The great transition who can tell? When from the ear its seal shall part Where countless lyres seraphic swell, And holy transport thrills the heart.

When the chain'd tongue, which ne'er might pour The broken melodies of time, Shall to the highest numbers soar, Of everlasting praise sublime,

When those blind orbs which ne'er might trace The features of their kindred clay, Shall scan of Deity the face, And glow with rapture's deathless ray.

L. H. S.

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

AN ELEGY

Sacred to the memory of the infant children of S. M. and C. W. S. of Campbell county, Va.

By Frederic Speece.

O, they were rose-buds, fresh and bright, Fair flow'rets breathing of delight; Young cherubs from a happier sphere, Too gently sweet to linger here.

The rose-buds withered ere their bloom, The flow'rets strewed an early tomb, The gentle cherubs tasted pain, Then sought their native skies again.

Infants are bright immortal things Though robed in feeble, dying clay: Death but unfolds their silken wings, And speeds their joyful flight away;

Beyond these cold, sublunar skies, They seek a home among the blest; On strong unwearied pinions rise, Cleave the blue vault and are at rest.

What though no marble may attest Where slumber lone their cold remains, Their little cares are hushed to rest, And terminated all their pains.

Nor Fame may deign a feeble blast, To tell the world that _they have been_; Nor snatch the record of the past From the dark grave that locks it in.

Barren the theme--the legend trite Of joys or griefs it could reveal-- The interchange of shade and light That all _have_ felt and all _must_ feel.

Though grief has lost its keener edge, Remembrance lingers where they lie, To muse on ev'ry precious pledge The loved ones left beneath the sky.

And ere oblivion's ebon wing Sweep ev'ry vestige from the spot, Affection shall its off'rings bring, Nor leave them to be quite forgot.

Each lovely flow'r and drooping bell-- Bright daughters of the op'ning year,-- Those beauteous things they loved so well Shall weep their annual tribute here.

Through dreary Winter's storm and cold, These sleep from all his terrors free-- Again their blooming sweets unfold, Emblem of all that they shall be.

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

SONNET.

BY ALEX. LACEY BEARD.

Sunset is past,--and now while all is still, And softly o'er the plain the moonbeams fall, I'll hold communion with myself and call From mem'ry's caverns, feelings deep, that fill My soul with gladness.... Now I feel the thrill Of past delights;--I stand in that old hall, My friends surround me,--yes, I see them all:-- My heart grows faint, my eyes with tear-drops fill.

And now they vanish, from my sight they go. Farewell ye loved ones, we shall meet again As oft we've met, at the dim twilight's wane;-- In dreams and visions which shall brightly show Your sunny faces, and shall bring the glow Of by-gone joys, back to my soul again.

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

TO MARY.

Mary, amid the cares--the woes Crowding around my earthly path, (Sad path, alas! where grows Not ev'n one lonely rose,) My soul at least a solace hath In dreams of thee, and therein knows An Eden of sweet repose.

And thus thy memory is to me Like some enchanted, far-off isle, In some tumultuous sea-- Some lake beset as lake can be With storms--but where, meanwhile, Serenest skies continually Just o'er that one bright island smile.

E. A. P.

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

THE VISIONARY--A TALE.

BY EDGAR A. POE.

Stay for me there! I will not fail To meet thee in that hollow vale. [_Exequy on the death of his wife, by Henry King, Bishop of Chichester_.

Ill-fated and mysterious man! Bewildered in the brilliancy of thine own imagination, and fallen in the flames of thine own youth! Again in fancy I behold thee! Once more thy form hath risen before me!--not--oh not as thou art--in the cold valley and shadow--but as thou _shouldst be_--squandering away a life of magnificent meditation in that city of dim visions, thine own Venice--which is a star-beloved elysium of the sea, and the wide windows of whose Palladian palaces look down with a deep and bitter meaning upon the secrets of her silent waters. Yes! I repeat it--as thou _shouldst be_. There are surely other worlds than this--other thoughts than the thoughts of the multitude--other speculations than the speculations of the sophist. Who then shall call thy conduct into question? Who blame thee for thy visionary hours, or denounce those occupations as a wasting away of life, which were but the overflowings of thine everlasting energies?

It was at Venice, beneath the covered archway there called the _Ponte di Sospiri_, that I met for the third or fourth time the person of whom I speak. It is with a confused recollection that I bring to mind the circumstances of that meeting. Yet I remember--ah! how should I forget?--the deep midnight, the Bridge of Sighs, the beauty of woman, and the demon of romance, who stalked up and down the narrow canal.

It was a night of unusual gloom. The great clock of the piazza had sounded the fifth hour of the Italian evening. The square of the Campanile lay silent and deserted, and the lights in the old Ducal Palace were dying fast away. I was returning home from the Piazetta, by way of the Grand Canal. But as my gondola arrived opposite the mouth of the canal San Marco, a female voice from its recesses broke suddenly upon the night, in one wild, hysterical, and long continued shriek. Startled at the sound, I sprang upon my feet: while the gondolier, letting slip his single oar, lost it in the pitchy darkness beyond a chance of recovery, and we were, consequently, left to the guidance of the current which here sets from the greater into the smaller channel. Like some huge and sable-feathered Condor, we were slowly drifting down towards the Bridge of Sighs, when a thousand flambeaus flashing from the windows, and down the stair-cases of the Ducal Palace, turned all at once that deep gloom to a livid and supernatural day.

A child, slipping from the arms of its own mother, had fallen from an upper window of the lofty structure into the deep and dim canal. The quiet waters had closed placidly over their victim; and, although my own gondola was the only one in sight, many a stout swimmer, already in the stream, was seeking in vain upon the surface, the treasure which was to be found, alas! only within the abyss. Upon the broad, black marble flagstones, at the entrance of the palace, and a few steps above the water stood a figure which none who then saw can have ever since forgotten. It was the Marchesa Aphrodite--the adoration of all Venice--the gayest of the gay--the most lovely where all were beautiful--but still the young wife of the old and intriguing Mentoni--and the mother of that fair child, her first and only one, who now deep beneath the murky water, was thinking in bitterness of heart upon her sweet caresses, and exhausting its little life in struggles to call upon her name.

She stood alone. Her small, bare, and silvery feet gleamed in the black mirror of marble beneath her. Her hair, not as yet more than half loosened for the night from its ball-room array, clustered amid a shower of diamonds, round and round her classical head, in curls like the young hyacinth. A snowy white and gauze-like drapery seemed to be nearly the sole covering to her delicate form--but the midsummer and midnight air was hot, sullen, and still, and no motion--no shadow of motion in that statue-like form itself, stirred even the folds of that raiment of very vapor which hung around it as the heavy marble hangs around the Niobe. Yet--strange to say!--her large lustrous eyes were not turned downwards upon that grave wherein her brightest hope lay buried--but riveted in a widely different direction! The prison of the Old Republic is, I think, the stateliest building in all Venice--but how could that lady gaze so fixedly upon it, when beneath her lay stifling her only child? Yon dark gloomy niche too yawns right opposite her chamber window--what, then, _could_ there be in its shadows--in its architecture--in its ivy-wreathed and solemn cornices that the Marchesa di Mentoni had not wondered at a thousand times before? Nonsense! Who does not remember that, at such a time as this, the eye, like a shattered mirror, multiplies the images of its sorrow, and sees in innumerable far off places, the woe which is close at hand.

Many steps above the Marchesa, and within the arch of the Water-Gate, stood in full dress, the Satyr-like figure of Mentoni himself. He was occasionally occupied in thrumming a guitar, and seemed _ennuied_ to the very death, as at intervals he gave directions for the recovery of his child. Stupified and aghast, I had myself no power to move from the upright position I had assumed upon first hearing the shriek, and must have presented to the eyes of the agitated group, a spectral and ominous appearance, as, with pale countenance and rigid limbs, I floated down among them in that funereal gondola.

All efforts proved in vain. Many of the most energetic in the search were relaxing their exertions, and yielding to a gloomy sorrow. There seemed but little hope for the child--but now, from the interior of that dark niche which has been already mentioned as forming a part of the Old Republican Prison, and as fronting the lattice of the Marchesa, a figure, muffled in a cloak stepped out within reach of the light, and pausing a moment upon the verge of the giddy descent, plunged headlong into the canal. As, in an instant afterwards, he stood with the still living and breathing child within his grasp upon the marble flagstones by the side of the Marchesa, his cloak heavy with the drenching water became unfastened, and, falling in folds about his feet, discovered to the wonder-stricken spectators, the graceful person of a very young man, with the sound of whose name the greater part of Europe was then ringing.

No word spoke the deliverer. But the Marchesa! She will now receive her child--she will press it to her heart--she will cling to its little form, and smother it with her caresses. Alas! _another's_ arms have taken it from the stranger--_another's_ arms have taken it away, and borne it afar off, unnoticed, into the palace! And the Marchesa! Her lip--her beautiful lip trembles: tears are gathering in her eyes--those eyes which, like Pliny's own Acanthus, are "soft and almost liquid." Yes! tears are gathering in those eyes--and see! the entire woman thrills throughout the soul, and the statue has started into life! The pallor of the marble countenance, the swelling of the marble bosom, the very purity of the marble feet, we behold suddenly flushed over with a tide of ungovernable crimson; and a slight shudder quivers about her delicate frame, as a gentle air at Napoli about the rich silver lilies in the grass. Why _should_ that lady blush? To this demand there is no answer--except that, having left in the eager haste and terror of a mother's heart, the privacy of her own _boudoir_, she has neglected to enthral her tiny feet in their slippers; and utterly forgotten to throw over her Venitian shoulders that drapery which is their due. What other possible reason could there have been for her so blushing?--for the glance of those wild appealing eyes?--for the unusual tumult of that throbbing bosom?--for the convulsive pressure of that trembling hand?--that hand which fell, as Mentoni turned into the palace, accidentally, upon the hand of the stranger. What reason could there have been for the low--the singularly low tone of those unmeaning words which the lady uttered hurriedly in bidding him adieu? "Thou hast conquered"--she said, or the murmurs of the water deceived me--"thou hast conquered--one hour after sunrise--we shall meet--so let it be."

* * * * *

The tumult had subsided, the lights had died away within the palace, and the stranger, whom I now recognized, stood alone upon the flags. He shook with inconceivable agitation, and his eye glanced around in search of a gondola. I could not do less than offer him the service of my own, and he accepted the civility. Having obtained an oar at the Water-Gate, we proceeded together to his residence, while he rapidly recovered his self-possession, and spoke of our former slight acquaintance in terms of great apparent cordiality.

There are some subjects upon which I take pleasure in being minute. The person of the stranger--let me call him by this title, who to all the world was still a stranger--the person of the stranger is one of these subjects. In height he might have been below rather than above the medium size: although there were moments of intense passion when his frame actually _expanded_ and belied the assertion. The light, almost _slender_ symmetry of his figure, promised more of that ready activity which he evinced at the Bridge of Sighs, than of that Herculean strength which he has been known to wield without an effort, upon occasions of more dangerous emergency. With the mouth and chin of a deity--a nose like those delicate creations of the mind to be found only in the medallions of the Hebrew--singular, wild, full, liquid eyes, whose shadows varied from pure hazel to intense and brilliant jet, and a profusion of glossy, black hair, from which a forehead rather low than otherwise, gleamed forth at intervals all light and ivory--his were features than which I have seen none more classically regular, except, perhaps, the marble ones of the Emperor Commodus. Yet his countenance was, nevertheless, one of those which all men have seen at some period of their lives, and have never afterwards seen again. It had no peculiar--I wish to be perfectly understood--it had no _settled predominant expression_ to be fastened upon the memory; a countenance seen and instantly forgotten--but forgotten with a vague and never-ceasing desire of recalling it to mind. Not that the spirit of each rapid passion failed at any time, to throw its own distinct image upon the mirror of that face--but that the mirror, mirror-like, retained no vestige of the passion, when the passion had departed.