The mandrake yet remained, and when the keen frost pierced his breast, Sent forth his voice in agony upon the soughing blast: It told of happiness too ripe, of dewy rapture fled, Of ecstacy, and green of heart, with vanished verdure dead. The quiet snow came lightly through the thick and misty air, And slantingly descended when the cold wind left his lair; The cold wind! aye, the wind had chilled since buoyed on sunny mirth Young Euroauster came to woo the virgin bloom of earth. I saw no more the antlered stag--his rocky solitude Was fitter palace for the king than lea or roofless wood; The robin's song had died away as all things else must die-- Death's sleet had bound her ribbed wing and dimmed her gleeful eye. I saw the maiden, but alas! the snow thro' ether gliding, Was not more chill than she, erewhile so tender, so confiding; I saw the youth--to him naught here might honey-balm impart, He wandered from the haunts of men in brokenness of heart. Oh, is there not a sympathy of all-controling power The mother and her brood between--old earth, weak man, frail flower? From some hearts soon the fetters fall, as spring frees lake and river, But many with the withered leaf, wear ruin's chain forever. For the Southern Literary Messenger. LETTERS FROM A SISTER. MR. WHITE,-- The prominent characters in the following pages are fictitious; but the circumstances narrated are founded on fact, and the descriptions correct. The author was an actor in the scenes, and visited the places described. She has not however, relied solely on her own observations and the oral communications of others, but consulted the best guide books and historical traditions. LETTER FIRST. Voyage--Havre de Grace--Light Houses--Frescati Baths, and Sea Bathing--Tower of Francis the First. HAVRE DE GRACE, ----. _My Dear Jane:_--