Thou hast a clear, unsullied brow, A bright and dreaming eye,-- And a spirit free and chainless, As cherubs in yon sky! The meteor lights of intellect, Glance lightly on thee now, And play like fairy revellers, Upon thy parian brow! Well, be it so--and may thy life Be like a summer stream, That sparkles into gladness, Beneath the sun's bright beam. May thy brow ne'er wear the coloring Of passion's stern commotion,-- Which darkens many a God-like one, While on life's stormy ocean! May the sunny hours of childhood Be the last to pass away,-- And the setting sun of life's dark night, Dawn on a brighter day! For the Southern Literary Messenger. CUPID'S SPORT. "Am I in fairy land?--or tell me, pray, To what love lighted bower I've found my way? Sure luckless wight was never more beguiled In woodland maze, or closely-tangled wild." Some where in Virginia, and in a certain year,--but I beg you will not inquire when or where, for you will break the thread of my discourse, and I shall be compelled, like corporal Trim when he was rehearsing the Lord's prayer before my dear uncle Toby, to begin at the beginning, at every interruption,--there lived a young man, in a certain town-- Now my dear reader, do you suppose I intend telling you a story without a single name, date or place in it? If you do, I am afraid you would see me at Kamschatka, or in Simms' hole, before you would make up your mind to travel one inch with me, or listen to one syllable. Well, then, in a _certain_ place, and at a _certain_ time, as young _Timothy_ was sitting in the cool evening's shade, musing o'er the events that human life befall, and reflecting upon the many ups and downs he must necessarily encounter during the residue of his life, that _old_ heathen god, who, paradoxical as it may appear, is still as _young_ as he was at the day of his birth, I mean sly Cupid, who was, is, and ever will be a boy to all eternity, happened to have been snugly perched upon a branch of the very tree under which our friend was reclining, and the little urchin sat pluming his variegated wings, and feeling the points of his keen feathery arrows, preparing for his evening's sport.