The Girl of Harper's Ferry [pp. 740]

SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER.
the artillerymen of logic should first acquire skill in
battering to pieces erroneous opinions on natural philosophy ere his piece should be directed against errors
in ethics and psychology. Its modus operandi.was,
generally, that of empiricism. This is in a degree true
of all from Thales to Plato.
As the astrologers and alchemists of all ages, so did
the philosophers of the time of Thales. Though arguing on correct bases, they obtained the most improper
results. Pushing their analysis beyond the bound of
reason-not content with the phenomena of matter, of
which experience has taught us more than suffices for
the mind of man, they sought to discover the arcanumn,
the hidden principle of the world's existence. They
failed of course, and it is a humiliating though not less
instructive task to glance in succession at the varied,
though not less incoherent, labors of those great spirits
who, notwithstanding that absurdity which belonged
more properly to their age than to them individually,
yet emitted occasional glimpses of what we in vain
would hope had led to better results.
According to Thales the principle of the world is
water. He is said to have been induced to adopt this,
in consequence of some partial experiments. There
was besides another principle, prime mover of all things,
which he called nouts. To him we are indebted for that
best and most ancient of maxims, Know thyself.
Friend and townsman of Thales was Anaxamander.
He lit his lamp at the same light and cast its blaze on
the same subjects. His point de depart is infinity, which
he surnamed all-containing and divine, without determining it more precisely. Perpetual changes of earth
and of things can take place in infinity. These were
his principia, but from them he developed multitudes of
doctrines which it is not now important to examine.
He bent his attention to astronomy, and nearly similar
were the doctrines of Pherecydes of Syros. He called
his trinity of principles, God, time, and matter. He attempted to explain animated bodies and mankind. He
considered the soul as imperishable. Anaxamander
and Pherecydes were the two first philosophers who
wrote their doctrines out.
Now bursts on us a genius of the most astounding
kind-Pythagoras. Mighty as was his fame-great
as the influence he exerted on posterity-Homer-like,
it seems his doom was to have "no place of burial or of
birth." Iamblychus, in his life of Pythagoras, makes
him appear even from his infancy a sage and a philosopher. Where he was instructed-how-by whom-we
know not. There are accounts that he travelled far
and wvide in search of science, studied among the Egyptians for twenty-two years, and travelled so far as to
meet and converse with the Indian Gymnosophists. His
life was a varied one-now persecuted from town to
townl-now a prisoner at Babylon. With the sages of
Egypt he doubtless there met with, and imbibed a portion at least of that God-revealed doctrine, which we
have reason to believe had sent some glimmerings of its
glorious radiance to Babylon, the Rome, the Athens of
the East.
In our days, when the genius of the press flits from
clime to clime —when distance is annihilated, it seems
a small matter to us to study the philosophy, to pour
over the lucubrations of distant lands; but it was not
so then Each dogma was learned with difliculty and
attained with labor; we may then juidge how great was
that philosophic spirit which prompted its possessor to
so long and painful voyages, and how strongly circumstances favored him, turning even apparent obstructions
into favorable events. For another paper we reserve
the philosophy of Pythagoras.
THE GIRL OF HARPER'S FERRY.
Ah! tell me not of the heights sublime,
The rocks at Harper's ferry,
Of mountains rent in the lapse of time They're very beautiful-very!
I'm thinking more of the glowing cheek
Of a lovely girl and merry,
Who climb'd with me to yon highest peak The girl of Harper's ferry.
She sailed with me o'er the glassy wave
In yonder trim-built wherry;
Shall I ever forget the looks she gave
Or the voice which rang so merry?
To the joy she felt, her lips gave birth Lips, red as the ripest cherryI saw not Heaven above, nor Earth Sweet girl of Harper's ferry!
We clamber'd away over crag and hill
Through places dark and dreary;
We stooped to drink of the sparkling rill
And gather the blushing berry;
Dame Nature may sunder the Earth l-by storms
And rocks upon rocks may serry,
But I like her more in her fragile forms,
My girl of Harper's ferry.
I followed her up the "steps of stone"
To where the dead they bury;
On Jefferson's rock she stood alone,
Looking on Harper's ferryBut I, like Cymon, the gaping clown,
Stood, lost in a deep quandary,
Nor thought of the river, the rock, the town,
Dear girl of Harper's ferry.
She carv'd her name on the well known rock,
The rock at Harper's ferry;
You would not have thought me a stone or stock
Bending o'er charming MaryInsensible rock! how hard thou wert
Hurting her fingers fairy,
Deeper she writ upon nay soft heart The girl of Harper's ferry.
Ye who shall visit this scene again,
This rock at Harper's ferry,
Come pledge me high in the brisk Champaigne
Or a glass of the palest SherryAnd this is the name which ye shall qua,f
The name of Mary Perry!
She's fairer than all your loves by half The girl of IHarper's ferry.
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