Epigram [pp. 612]

SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER.
For the Southern Literary Messenger.
WHERE SHALL THE STUDENT REST I
A Parody or Constance's Song in Marmion.
Where shall the student rest
Whom the fates destine
Old law-books to digest,
That baffle all digesting?
Where through tomes deep and dry
Spreads the black letter,
Where endless pages lie
Genius to fetter.
Eleu loro,
Eleu loro,
Toil "sans remitter."
There, while the sun shines bright,
In law-fogs he's buried;
There too by candle light,
On law points he's worried:
There must he sit and read,
Puzzled forever When shall his mind be freed?
Never-more, never.
Where shall the lawyer rest?
He the hors-pleader?
With brass and blunders drest His client's misleader:
In the lost lawsuit,
Borne down by demurrer,
Or forced to withdraw suit,
Or quaking with terror.
Eleu loro,
Eleu loro,
Fearing writ of error.
His sham-pleas the court shall chide,
Disgusted to see them;
His warm blush the crowd deride
Ere he can flee them;
Blund'ring from bad to worse,
Disgraced foreverClients shall fill his purse,
Never! oh, never!
For the Southern Literary Messenger.
THE AGE OF REPTILES.
Poets affect, that when the Earth was young
All Nature's works were beautiful and bright,
That Planets in their spheres harmonious sung
Like Seraphs-joining in celestial flight;
That flowers bloomed in one eternal spring,
Scenting with luscious sweets the ambient air,
That life was luxury, and pain a thing
Not meant for man, but spirits of despair.
Lady! it was not so-the world was rude Behold the proof in Mantell's strange narration:*
Its form, and elements, and fabric crude,
And REPTILES were the "Lords of the Creation:"
0! ingrate man! bethink thee of thy fate,
Had thy Creator called thee then to being
And left thee to the chances of a fate
Beyond all bearing-hearing-feeling-seeing!
* See the Edinburg Philosophical Journal and the 21st No. of
Silliman's Journal, for some account of the Geological Age of
Reptiles, by Gideon Mantell, Esq. F.R.S. &c. &c.
Then lumbered o'er the rugged Earth strange forms,
Misshapen-huge-gigantic —living wondersHowling fit chorus to discordant storms,
That, like a thousand Etnas, crashed in thunders.
Cleaving the dismal sky, with rushing sound
Appalling monsters hurl their cumbrous length,
And through the murky sea, in depths profound,
Gambolled Leviathans in mighty strength.
What thinks Philoclea of the pristine Earth?
Believ'st thou Nature smiled at such beginning?
If those huge occupants inclined to mirth,
Their's was an age of awful ugly grinning!
The seaman's figure of a seventy-four
Showing her teeth-her guns in triple tiersWere no hyperbole in days of yore,
Howe'er extravagant it now appears.
For the Southern Literary Messenger.
ANSWER
To Willis's "They may talk of your Love in a Cottage."
You may talk of your sly flirtation
By the light of a chandelier;
With music to play in the pauses,
And nobody over near:
Or boast of your seat on the sofa,
With a glass of especial wine,
And Mamma too blind to discover
The small white hand in thine.
Give me the green turf and the river The soul-shine of love-lit eyesA breeze and the aspen leaf's quiver,
A sunset and GEORGIAN skies!
Or give me the moon for an astral,
The stars for a chandelier,
And a maiden to warble a past'ral,
With a musical voice in my ear.
Your vision with wvine being doubled,
You take twice the liberties due,
And early next morning are troubled
With "Parson or pistols for two!"
Unfit for this world or another,
You're forced to be married or killed —
The lady you choose —or her brother —
And a grave-or a paragraph's filled.
True Love is at home among flowers,
And if he would dine at his ease,
A capon's as good in his bowers
As in rooms heated ninety degrees:
On sighs intermingled he hovers,
He foots it as light as he flies,
His arrows, the glances of lovers,
Are shot to the heart from the eyes!
For the Southern Literary Messenger.
EPIGRAM.
Said a Judge to a culprit he'd known in his youth,
"Well Sandy! What's come of the rest of the fry?"
"Please your worship," said Sandy, "to tell you the
truth,
They're every one hanged but your Honor and I."
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