SONG OF MARION'S MEN.

Well knows the fair and friendly moon
The band that Marion leads-
The glitter of their rifles,

The scampering of their steeds.
'Tis life our fiery barbs to guide
Across the moonlight plains;
'Tis life to feel the night wind
That lifts their tossing manes.
A moment in the British camp-
A moment-and away

Back to the pathless forest,

Before the peep of day.

Grave men there are by broad Santee,
Grave men with hoary hairs,
Their hearts are all with Marion,
For Marion are their prayers.
And loveliest ladies greet our band,
With kindliest welcoming,
With smiles like those of summer,

And tears like those of spring.
For them we wear these trusty arms,
And lay them down no more

Till we have driven the Briton,
Forever, from our shore.

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A POET'S DAUGHTER.

A POET'S DAUGHTER.

BY F. G. HALLECK.

Written for Miss ***, at the request of her father.

'A LADY asks the minstrel's rhyme.'

A lady asks? There was a time
When, musical as play-bells' chime

To wearied boy,

That sound would summon dreams sublime

Of pride and joy.

But now the spell hath lost its sway,
Life's first-born fancies first decay,

Gone are the plumes and pennons gay

Of young romance;

There linger but her ruins gray

And broken lance.

"This is no world,' so Hotspur said,

For 'tilting lips' and 'mammets' made,
No longer in love's myrtle shade

My thoughts recline

I'm busy in the cotton trade,

And sugar line.

"'T is youth, 't is beauty asks-the green

And growing leaves of seventeen

Are round her; and, half hid, half seen,
A violet flower:

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A POET'S DAUGHTER.

Nursed by the virtues she hath been
From childhood's hour.'

Blind passion's picture—yet for this
We woo the life-long bridal kiss,
And blend our every hope of bliss
With her's we love;

Her's-who admired a serpent's hiss
In Eden's grove!

Beauty-the fading rainbow's pride,
Youth-'t was the charm of her who died
At dawn, and, by her coffin's side,
A grandsire stands;

Age-strengthened, like the oak, storm-tried,
Of mountain lands.

Youth's coffin-hush the tale it tells!

Be silent, memory's funeral bells!

Lone in my heart, her home, it dwells,

Untold till death,

And where the grave-mound greenly swells
O'er buried faith.

'But she who asks has rank and power,
And treasured gold, and bannered tower,
A kingdom for her marriage dower,
Broad seas, and lands;

Armies her train, a throne her bower,
A queen commands!'

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A POET'S DAUGHTER.

A queen? Earth's regal suns have set.
Where perished Marie Antoinette?
Where's Bordeaux's mother? where the jet-
Black Haytian dame?

And Lusitania's coronet?
And Angouleme ?

Empires to-day are upside down,
The castle kneels before the town,
The monarch fears a printer's frown,
A brick-bat's range-

Give me, in preference to a crown,
Five shillings change.

'Another asks-though first among
The good, the beautiful, the young,
The birthright of a spell more strong
Than these hath brought her;
She is your kinswoman in song,
A poet's daughter!'

A poet's daughter? Could I claim
The consanguinity of fame,
Veins of my intellectual frame,
Your blood would glow

Proudly, to sing that gentlest name
Of aught below!

A poet's daughter! Dearer word
Lip hath not spoke, nor listener heard;

TO A BLANK SHEET OF PAPER.

Fit thente for song of bee and bird

From morn till even,

And wind-harp, by the breathing stirred
Of star-lit heaven.

My spirit's wings are weak-the fire
Poetic comes but to expire,

Her name needs not my humble lyre
To bid it live;

She hath already from her sire
All bard can give.

TO A BLANK SHEET OF PAPER.

BY O. W. HOLMES.

WAN visaged thing! thy virgin leaf
To me looks more than deadly pale,-
Unknowing what may stain thee yet→
A poem or a tale.

Who can thy unborn meaning scan? Can Seer or Sibyl read thee now? 'No-seek to trace the fate of man Writ on his infant brow.

Love may light on thy snowy cheek,
And shake his Eden breathing plumes;
Then shalt thou tell how Lelia smiles,
Or Angelina blooms.

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