Lynchburg Star

Miscellany

From the Providence Phoenix.

Mr. O.

Enclosed is a poetical effusion from the pen of SELLECK OSBORN, Esq. editor of that well conducted Journal the Witness--It is with pleasure I transmit you "The Sailor," knowing that the muse of this valuable & yet-living martyr* of political truth, will never fail to delight the lovers of poetry. Though he is yet confined in the solid and sickly glooms of Connecticut prison, we hope he will fill every duty of editorial employment with the sprightly numbers of his lyre. The nightingale's best notes are in the shades of night; and it is said there are instances, in which the confinement of birds in cages, add sweetness and harmony to their notes. We can but indulge a hope that Mr. Osborn, on his enlargement, will bring forward something that shall at once, astonish the public and felicitate his friends. We rejoice that, although he has been called to suffer perils from sickness and from the beasts of Ephesus, his spirits are not in any degree broken; that he has promised the public that he will employ "the last dash of his pen" in the cause he has undertaken and in which he has uniformly succeeded. In employing his happy talent of writing, his own mind, conscious of its merit, must enjoy that self-soothing satisfaction which may compensate, in a degree, the tediousness of imprisonment; at least it would bestow emotions of regret to the minds of those who have read, with painful sympathy, the account of his sufferings, and who view, with indignation and astonishment, that ill fated policy, which though in a state of desperation, continues in the attempt to support itself by temerity and persecution, whose forlorn apology can only be that of the unfortunate Dido to the Trojans.

Res dura, et regni novitas me talia cogunt moliri--

THE SAILOR.

By Selleck Osborn.

The weary sea-bird screams afar;
Along the waves dire omens sweep;
From the veil'd sky no friendly star
Beams on the undulating deep.

Hark! from the cliffs of distant shores
The loon emits his dismal cry--
The wave portentous warning roars,
And speaks the threat'ning tempest nigh!

What guardian angel's watchful pow'r
Shall snatch me from the angry sea
Or bid in that tremendous hour,
The daemon of the waters sleep

Oh, who, if on some desert wild
I drift, weak, famish'd and distress'd
Shall hush the sorrows of my child,
And soothe Lavinia's wounded breast

Sweet objects of my earthly love!
For you with aching heart I mourn.
Far from your peaceful vale I rove,
Ah! hopeless ever to return.

Yet should it be my happier lot
To hail again my native shore,
Secure, within my humble cot,
I'll brave the restless deeps no more.

His prayer was heard, the rolling bark
Rode thro' the storm with stubborn pride
And William, blithe as morning lark,
Flew to his sweet enraptur'd bride.

Yet Will, with love and liquor warm,
Ere yet a month had pass'd in glee,
Forgot the terrors of the storm,
And singing, steer'd away for sea.