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THE GIFT.

"A few days after the destruction of the steamer Ben Sherrod by fire, the body of a female richly dressed was washed ashore. Upon one of the fingers was a diamond ring, having engra. ved on it the motto 'Remember the giver.'"-Baton Rouge Gazette.

It was a lovely morn. The early sun
Came up rejoicing, and with lavish hand
Pour'd forth a summer's light o'er land and sea.
Nature with pencil dipt in loveliness

Had thrown a dash of beauty on her brow,

And smiled and wanton'd in her coquetry.

The air was wrapt in sleep, the sunbeams cradling
On its bosom, while the melody of birds
And hum of insects was the lullaby.

Far from its western, forest, mountain spring,
Onward roll'd the noble Mississippi;

And onward still it roll'd, nor stayed its course
For night or day, for sunshine or for storm;
Time's truest emblem! Onward yet it press'd,
A mighty architect of nature, bearing
To the ocean's shore the countless atoms,
To lay them there and form another land,
One day to mark the page of history.

Man's noblest work was on that proud stream's bosom
Floating. Upon her decks were old and young,
The maid and gray-hair'd sire; both friend and foe,
The hated and the lov'd. And beauty too

Was there, and love, and joy, and laughing lip,
And witching smile, and hearts that never dream'd
Of aught save pleasure. Curiosity

And Hope and Selfishness were in the crowd.
There too were eyes of flashing light and cheeks
Where play'd the bloom of beauty; lips which seem'd

A treasure in themselves. It was an hour

Of thrilling interest, for homes and friends
And early scenes, where clings the heart of age,
Were left behind. On sped the noble bark,
While songs of mirth across that river swell'd,
A thousand echoes flinging back the strain.

'Tis night upon the stream. The song of mirth

Is hush'd, while from on high the moon's young beams

Come down with gentle step-serenely-still.

A fearful, horrid change comes suddenly,

A flash of glaring light is on the sky,

While shrieks and prayers and curses fill the air.

A scorching robe of fire is wrapt around

Th' unhappy boat, and death's destroying arrow, More swift than were it wing'd by burning feathers Stript from the lightning's pinion, has sped to slay.

There was a sound of woe! and cheeks

And lips and brows were pale,-hot tears fell fast,
And bosoms swell'd with anguish,-homes were sad,—
While mourning robes were hurried on, and hearts
Grew faint with agony. Friend mourn'd for friend,
And husbands wept for wives, and brothers groan'd,
And children's lips were quivering with sorrow.
But there was one of lovely form, and eye
That dimm'd the lightning's flashes. She had gazed
Upon the future, till a dreamy crowd

Of love and bliss was gather'd there. She went
To meet that crowd, and perish'd by the way.

Days pass'd. Upon the river's brink was seen
That youthful form a lifeless corpse. Yet still
The smile was on her lip, and death had strove
In vain to tear the beauty from her brow.

He coveted the flashes of that eye,

And midnight saw him steal them. One sweet string, Alas, was broken in the family harp.

A voice was hush'd that warbled like the air

When summer morn glides up from stormless sea,

And whisp'ring zephyrs chant their orisons.

Nor friend nor relative was there to weep,

Nor mark nor line to tell her tale, except

A rich and jewell'd ring upon her hand.

That ring of love! who gave? to whom? A voice Seem'd hov'ring round it.

"Remember the giver," in youth's sunny morning,
When life pours around thee its tide of delight,
And the signet of beauty thy cheek is adorning;
Remember me, dearest, tho' far from thy sight.

"Remember the giver," when friends are around thee, And twine their affections about thy fond heart; When flattery's chaplet of roses has crown'd thee, Remember me, dearest, nor yield to its art.

"Remember the giver," when danger assailing
With menacing brow is uplifting its arm;
When 'neath its fierce glances thy bosom is quailing,
Remember me, dearest, I'll save thee from harm.

"Remember the giver," in moments of sadness;
Bid memory picture the scenes of the past,
And chase back the night with the sunlight of gladness;
Remember me, dearest, while mem'ry shall last.

"Remember the giver," when prayer is ascending

At eve's fading twilight to our Maker above;
With thine, my petition shall always be blending;
Remember him, dearest, who lives in thy love.

And I will remember, and nought shall dissever
The bonds of affection which bind me to thee;
Enshrin'd as my idol, this heart shall forever

Remember thee, dearest-oh, think then of me.

AMOURETTE OF AN ATRABILIOUS BACHELOR.

"Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus."

Catullus, Carm. V.

"Love is life's end; an end but never ending;

All joys, all sweets, all happiness awarding;
Love is life's wealth, (ne'er spent but ever spending,)
More rich by giving, taking by discarding.

**

Ah! should'st thou live but once love's truth to prove,
Thou wilt not love to live, unless thou live to love."

Spenser.

THUS truthfully does the Latin poet Catullus, inculcate the principles of genuine Epicurism, and thus faithfully does the laureat Spenser, describe that master-passion of the soul, which has swayed men's thoughts and feelings from the day of woman's creation in Paradise till now. Philosophers have exercised their ingenuity in idle attempts to define this primum mobile of human action with its modus operandi, while poets have exhausted the hyperboles of language in the fruitless endeavor to teach men its effects, and acquaint them with its character. Philosophic subtilty and poetic fancy have both failed to mark the limits of its influence and to explain its mysteries; this delicate essence avoids the scrutiny of the sophist and escapes even the imagination of the bard, yet, though thus defying alike the researches of the student of human nature, and the more vague investigations of its own rapt votary, love is a sentiment as wide and universal as the air we breathe, penetrating through all space, pervading all objects of animate or inanimate nature. It would be foreign to my purpose to dwell upon the thousand lovely and loveable things which present themselves to the sight, and attach themselves to the affections of the pure and gentle-hearted; breathing forth tones of beauty and melody, and speaking to such, in the starry constellations that hang suspended from heaven's dark concave, as well as in the

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tiny insect that flutters in a sunbeam, the eternal truth that God himself is Love.

My present paper lies chiefly with thee, O woman, semper varium et mutabile-with thee, for whose dear sake, stout Hercules resigned his club and lion's hide to assume the female tires and twirl the distaff-with thee, whose influence transformed a Cymon into a hero, and made of Pericles a tyrant-with thee, before whose magic shrine of beauty, alike the carping cynic and the insensible stoic have knelt and worshipped, and as I write, methinks the shapes of ancient beauty, awakening from the slumbers of the past, move in review before me, arrayed in all their early loveliness, and decked in all their pristine graces. Helen, the world's second Eve, that teterrima causa belli, and Lais, for whose possession the Athenian orator, verifying the proverb that non cuivis homini contingit adire Corinthum, surpassed even his own eloquence, and ran through all the epithets of love's persuasive vocabulary; Aspasia, the witty and wise, that philosopher in petticoats, and the nymph Egeria, who skillfully combining tenderness and duty, taught the doctrines of religion and practiced on love's precepts, and Egypt's rare widow Cleopatra, that embodiment of womankind, that triple mistress of the world-lawless queen of the first Cesar, despotic ruler of great Pompey's heart, sovereign arbitress of the last triumvir's fate, Ptolemy's unwedded wife, "lass unparalleled" in the world's history, language is too poor to praise thee worthily!

Methinks I see her now as when of old she visited the noblest and most magnificent of her subjects. Reclining upon her gilded galley, beneath a wide-spread canopy of Persian silks festooned with orient pearls and Nubian diamonds, she moves along the Cydnus to the

notes

"Of flutes and soft recorders,"

while attendant Nereids and wanton Cupids hovering near, breathe around her an atmosphere of life and joy. Her galley lightly touches the marble steps of a palace in Tarsus, and disembarking she moves stately and slow to the forum, where sits enthroned for judgment the haughty conqueror; with averted head and scornful looks he turns away from her approach, as though disdainful of a suppliant, who came the discarded mistress of those twin-born in greatness, Cesar and Pompey, to plead for her kingdom's safety and her own. Still the beauteous queen approaches, and as her speaking eyes halftearful turn their imploring gaze on the triumvir's marble countenance, while her faltering steps, and throbbing bosom, tell plainly of her heart's agony, Antony, starting from his curule chair, thrusting aside the astonished lictors, rushes forward, raises her fainting form, and clasping her to his breast promises his protection and proffers her his love. Euge! 'twas greatly done, old Roman! 'twas done in character, and well became Mark Antony-the eloquent, the for

tunate, the beautiful, the brave, the people's idol, and their scorn,—— thus to forego the baubles of ambition, and a commerce with the harlot, Fortune, for softer dalliance in royal Egypt's arms, and gentle toyings with so fair a queen-thus to resign half the world's empire, with its cares and sorrows, for that surer and better empire, a woman's heart.

Experience is the only mistress whose teachings can acquaint us with the importance of this matter, Love, and the boy-god Cupid, whose shafts transfix without killing, the only deity who can familiarize us with its power and extent.

Had Ponce de Leon, who in the wild spirit of chivalric adventure, ransacked the Floridas to discover that "Fountain of Perpetual Youth," a draught of whose waters conferred an instant rejuvenescence with all the hopes and happiness of the young-had this same Ponce possessed a little more of the propensity cognominated amative, instinct should have taught him that the best means to perpetuate his juvenility, would have been to remain in his own sunny clime of Andalusia, and to bathe himself, if need there were, in the liquid eyes of the dark-orbed beauties of that beauty-producing land, rather than to expose his life in the search for a blessing that nature told him was already within his reach. For if one of love's effects be not to eternize youthful feelings and attractions, how was it that Helen retained to the last that fatal beauty which had set on fire the young hearts of Greece, and armed a nation to avenge her husband's wrongs; or why was it that Ninon de l'Enclos, after having "fathomed all the depths and shoals" of the tender passion, though she had seen fifteen lustres roll by, and attained a period when her beauty might well have waned without any imputation on her reputation, ran some risk of being forced into an elopement with an impetuous grandson, who had unwittingly become enamored of his still lovely grandmother.

Improbe amor! quid non mortalia pectora cogis? exclaims the Mantuan bard, and certainly to a quiet observer nothing has a more ridiculous appearance than an exhibition of those worn out shifts, to which love and its expression are sometimes reduced. To say nothing of the thousand little circumstances which come under one's every day notice in the case of persons thus afflicted, appealing to history, I would ask if it was not in obedience to love's dictates that the same Hercules, who has before been mentioned as twirling the distaff with a patient hand, submitted to have his ears boxed by Omphale's sandal, without a murmur? Did not omnipotent Jove put himself into the different poetic shapes of a bull, a swan, a shower of gold, because the resistless power of love impelled him? Did not the sage Socrates excuse his wife Xanthippe for one of her repeated impertinences, by remarking with philosophical calmness, that it always rained before thunder, and this because he loved her, termagant and shrew though she was? Did not the pretty Rosalind

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