Southern Telegraph

POETRY.
From the Boston Literary Magazine.

MEMORY.

There is an isle! where lingering plays
The sunlight of those earlier days
When o'er the soul's most sadden'd feeling
Some joyous future would be stealing;
And every passing moment brought
Some rapt'rous sense—some glowing thought,
Effacing that which went before,
Like waves upon the moonlight shore
Which come, and die—so quick—so bright—
That to the wilder'd brain the sight
Conveys th' idea, from this its seeming,
Tis but the same wild wave thus beaming.

The breeze may blow, the waves may roll,
That isle is centered in the soul!
Nor tempest's chill can ever steal
The flowers which blossom favorite there,
'Tis Memory

Moments there are when we must brood
O'er broken vows in solitude;
Then, who does not delight to turn
A tearful eye to friendship's urn!
Ah, thro the shades of Time he traces
To home long beloved "familiar faces."
Whose fond affections used to cast
A radiant halo o'er the past.

"And there be hours when earth and sky
Whisper the bereft heart mournfully;"
When cheerless as winter's snow
Were life, did not that light still glow.
For as upon the crumbling pile
The moonbeams rest with sadd'ning smile
So, gently on the heart's decay
Will shine the pure and quiet ray
Of Memory

The falling tear! that chrystal gem
Set in the warm heart's diadem.
Were but a cold, a senseless thing.
Did it not sparkle from the spring
Of Memory. And, dark the mind!
The senses dull the soul confined!
Did deep Oblivion's stream surround
That little consecrated ground.
What feelings were there, then to bind
Our social hearts to human kind?
For who would idly seek to cherish
Joys that he knows must surely perish?
Like those, whose life, as many deem,
Depends upon the sunny beam.
-Yet die when in that beam you've laid them,
Destroyed by the same beam that made them.
So would our joyous hours depart,
And leave no incense on the heart-
No Memory,

If there's a muse can control
The wilder breathings of the soul.
Whose magic chords have power to bare
The mysteries recorded there:
It is the deep—the moral tone,
Which springs from memory's harp alone;
When mingling with its solemn lays,
Are voices heard of by-gone days.
As does the cold and icy Lake
The winds of Spring their pinions shake.-
Making that chilly depth to shorten,
So will the heart again expand.
Touch'd by that sweet song from the Isle
Of Memory

Y. N. T.