“I saw the old Tar hurrying on its bubbles to the sea, As men on life’s waves e’er are swept towards eternity; And the rippling waters mingled with the warbling of the birds, Returned soft silvery echoes to my deep impassioned words; And in those listening ears I poured the sweet tho’ time-worn story, While swimming were those love-lit eyes, in all their tear-pearled glory; And her little hand was closely pressed in mine so brown and braw, Ah! I no more shall meet her, in the village on the Taw.”[A] He ceased to speak, and through his frame there ran a shiver slight, His blood-shot eyes rolled inward and revealed their ghastly white, His swollen tongue protruded, o’er his face a pallor spread, His comrade touched his pulse--’twas still--and he was with the dead. The moon from her pavilion, in the blue-draped fleecy cloud, Through the window o’er the corpse had thrown her pale but ghostly shroud, The same moon that gazing upon that couch of straw. Was bathing in a silver flood the village on the Taw.[A] [A] The Indian name of this river was _Taw_.--PUBLISHER. REQUIESCAM Oh! give me a grave in a lone, gloomy dell, By the side of a deep, swift creek, Where the ripples run like a tinkling bell, Through the grassy nooks, where love so well The minnows to play hide and seek! Where in summer the thick twining foliage weaves A green, arching roof upon high, And the rain-drops fall from the dripping eaves, Like tears of grief from the weeping leaves On the face upturned to the sky! Where the silence frightens the birds away, And all is still, dreary and weird, Except, perchance at the close of day, The bittern’s boom or the crane’s hoarse bray, Floating over the swamp, is heard. Where the dusky wolf and the antlered deer Ever shun the dark, haunted ground; Where the crouching panther ventures near, His tawny coat all bristling with fear, At the sight of the low, red mound. Where at twilight gray, the lone whippoorwill May perch on the stake at my head, And with its unearthly, tremulous trill The dreary gloom of the whole place fill With a requiem over the dead. Where the greater the ruin in earth’s damp mold, The greater the contrast will prove, When the weary wings of my spirit I fold, In heaven, and swell with a bright harp of gold, The grand pealing anthem of love. _February 9th, 1867_ LINES TO AN ANALYTICAL GEOMETRY KNOWN TO THE STUDENTS AS “MISS ANNIE” WRITTEN AT THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA, 1866