fered much. Several of his negroes—of whom to this hour he thinks well—were hanged, or flogged to death. They confessed nothing, or manifest nonsense; and he believes they knew nothing of any conspiracy, and were guilty of nothing more than the ordinary aspirations of their class. He sacrificed much in payments to save others—in bribes, in fact. I wish the present crisis may not ruin him utterly. He will not himself fly from the scene, nor will Madison; and Anna will not leave them, if she can send the younger children to us, by ship or rail. The oddest change is in Madison, by all accounts. On the first rousing alarm about the South being driven into opposition at Washington, and about the credit and duration of “the peculiar institution,” the Southern spirit came out full and strong, extinguishing the pedant in the planter. Instead of preaching about perpetual motion, Madison now exemplifies it, “pacing” (on the planter’s ambling steed) all over the country by day, and patrolling by night, and being the most vigilant member of the local Vigilance Committee. He swears like—like a Southern man, for no “trooper” ever exceeded our Southern senators in Washington—to say nothing of meaner men further South—in the strength and frequency of oaths. D fears the lad may have caught the trick from him; but he has the disease much more virulently than his father. Madison’s ambition now is to lead the Alabama planters on to conflict and victory.
Minnie has turned out a heroine, after so many dreams of being one. As wife, daughter, and mother she is brave as Bayard, and tender as any one of her dearly-loved poets. She did not marry the lawyer (I knew she would not), but a young planter, whose establishment she rules as if she were a born queen. I wish I could foresee what the destiny of these dear relatives of mine is to be. It is a dark scene, and a darker prospect. All that we really know is, that if we are to meet again, they must come to me and mine. We cannot go to them without plunging them into suspicion, as well as ourselves into extreme danger. Indeed, the way of ingress is barred. I daily dread to hear that egress is no longer permitted. It is no light fate to await in Alabama the issue of a revolution, begun in passion, and sure to end in humiliation or worse.
FAIR ROSAMOND.
A FRAGMENT.
Lord Clifford’s daughter loved a stranger knight.
How met they? Deem some gosshawk chanced to light
Over the river freshets, whence the breeze
Blew the faint bugle-notes thro’ slumbrous trees
Across that sleepy wood that lay about
The limits of Lord Clifford’s land; nor doubt
How the knight, following with jess and hood
Thorough the green realm of the rippling wood,
To call back and recapture his estray,
Met with the maiden. Sure the bold blue jay,
Sitting against the sun on some great bough,
Was over garrulous, and blabb’d, I trow,
The wood’s best secret: or the sweet stock-dove
Moan’d from her warm green hiding-place above
Peculiar pathos to enchant his way.
I, who believe in what old poets say,
Deem the dim-footed Dryads of the place
Flitted before him, each with wistful face
And woodland eyes, from many a sunken hollow,
Athwart the sun-sweet mosses, murmuring “Follow!”
While the leaves wink’d, and clapp’d their hands together,
Too mad with May-dew and the merry weather
To keep the tender secret to themselves,
Breaking their moonlight oaths to the mild elves.
Enough, that—whether by fair fate or chance,
Or led by Powers that ruled in old romance—
He ’lighted on the maid in happy hour,
And found her fairer than the bramble flower
That unbeholden bears the wilding rose,
Fresh as a first spring dawn that, ere it close,
Leaves the world wealthier for the violet;
For ere they parted (howsoe’er they met),
A sweetness, like the scent from some unseen
And new-born flower that makes the mild month green,
Lingering along the thoughts of each, made known
That the first violet of the heart was blown—
Love, the beginning and the end of youth!
Sweet Rosamunda, maid o’ the rosy mouth,
Did the deep skies assume more blissful blue,
Saw ye faint fairy footsteps in the dew,
That eve, when Love’s pale planet made aware
Of Love’s faint advent all the holy air
About the ivy-twine and eglatere
Bowering the balmy casement, where shy fear
Of thine own young heart leaping into life
Against its fragrant girdle, wrought sweet strife
Among thy maiden musings? None shall tell
The secret of that hour, and this is well.
No old worm-eaten page with flowery marge,
And faded letters, once made fair and large
To suit the sight of some lascivious king,
Remaineth now to babble anything
To prying pedants of thine inmost heart;
But, in unfading Fable-land, thou art
(Among green England’s greenest memories)
A flower kept fresh by tears from poets’ eyes.
Albeit, fond fancies sue me to conceive
How many a gleaming morn and glimmering eve
Beheld the stranger, that sweet trespass made
A welcome guest, in Clifford’s hall. I said
“The Stranger:” but not nameless, sure, he came.
The Count Plantagenet had such a name
Might win him welcome when the love of sport
Lured him that way; the manners of the Court,
Moreover, mingling with a debonaire
Frank nature, made his comely presence there
A secret pleasure in the pride of all
The homely inmates of Lord Clifford’s hall.
His stout voice cheer’d the fifty squires that bowl’d
The daylight down in alleys green and cold:
His brave lips blew so shrill a blast among
The echoing glades that, when the high wood rung
To his blithe bugle, every huntsman knew
That note, and merrily his response blew.
Nor less, when oft to snare the sliding fish,
Among the low-bridged moats, with silken mesh,
Fair Rosamunda and her maids would lean,
The courtly guest soft songs could breathe between
The rippled silver of most sweet lute-strings,
Musical with great loves of mighty kings
For queens of old, and every fair romance
By well-skill’d minstrels sung through sunny France;
Till, as a Naiad being slowly born,
That rises up a forest fount forlorn,
The maiden’s misty sense of her own love,
Borne on the mounting music, seem’d to move
