For the Southern Literary Messenger.

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.