f~
poetrq.
ga.,ln the latter part of Bayard Taylor's new volume
Z-."Poeins of Orient"—WO find a poem upon which ee
have exhausted our acisniration. We cannot, lu the
wide round of English Literature, discover a poem on . a
kindred subject which rivals it in all the qualities wish la
rivals it in all the guanaco which are necessary for the
perfection of so delicate a work. It is no business of
the critic to inquire into the history upon which this
poem was founded, or to invade the sanctity of the po
et's hearth with indecent hints and impudent conjec.
tures, Too much of this has been done lately by the
saibblingworld — too much In the cable of the author of
tuts poem. We, therefore, give it without further cons.
moat :--[iteading Gazette.]
THE PHANTOM.
Again I sit ritthinthe mansion,
In tho old familiar seat;
And shades and ISUllbhilleB rhaseleAch other
O'er the carpet at my feet.
Hut the sweet brier's arms have wrestled upwards
lu the summers that are passed,
And the willow trolls Its branches lower
Than when I saw them last. •
Thoy strive to shut the sunslitpe wholly
• From out thu haunted room;
To fill .the !home that once was joyful,
With idlonco and with gloom
And many kind, remembered faces,
Within the doorway
Or voices that wake the sweeter 'mule
Of one that uoti ,- is dumb.
They sing in tones as glad as ever,
The songs she loved to•hear;
They braid the roses in tho summer garland s,
Whose flowers to her were dear.
And still her feutsteps in the passage,
Iler_blualles.at-the.noor,
fler timid words of maiden welcome,
Come Lack tome once mme.
And all forgetful of my Enrrow,
Unmindful of my pain,
.1 think she has but nowly loft me,
And soon will come again.
ehe stays perchance a moment
To dres 7 s her Uark brown hair;
I hear the rustle of her garments,
______iteritght step on the stair.
0, fluttering heart! control thy tumult,
' Lost oyes profinui should pro
My cheeks botray the rush or rapture
t iler coming brings to cool
Mho tarios long: but 10l a whisper
Beyond tho open door, '
And gliding through the quiet sunshine.
shadow on the floor.
Ab I the whispering pine that calls me,
. The pine, whose shadow strays;
And my patient heart must still await her,
Nor chide her long delays.
But my heart groes Melt with weary waiting,
As many a time befare;
tier foot is ever at the threshold,
Yet never passes o'er.•
Pled d)'tile.
From the PletorMl
A WINTER STORY.
A cold night! The 'wind sharp as a Da
mascus schnetar, cuts aough the fine chinks
in the windows, causing my mother continu
ally to change her seat, to avoid what she
calls the draught; but as the draught comes
everywhere, she is at length fain to come to
a settlement close to the mantel piece, caber
she keeps cutting • out mysterious hexagons
and rhomboids from some linen stuff, here
after to be united by cunning fingers into
some wonderful article of female apparel.
My two sisters are playing chess. Fanny,
triumphant over a check inate, leans hack on
her chair, and watches with an air of proud
pity, the frowning and cogitative countenance
of Lizzie, whose little brain is throbbing with
a thousand stratagems by which- to extricate
her unhappy queen from the impending dis
aster. 1, wrapped in all the dignity of nine;
teen years, am absolutely smoking a cigar in
in the sacred chandler, (a privilege awarded
to me on raro occasions by my Mother, who
would generally dismiss too to my own room
the moment I displayed a Havana,) and
reading Sir Thomas Brown's poetic essay on
Urn Burial. There is a solemn quiet reigh
ing through the, room. The pine logs on the
- it tag - out - spaun • is - tre-nn -
hiss like wounded snakes, as the babbling
resinous juice oozes from each gaping
split. The. click of my mother's scissors
►u,ap monotonously, and at regular intervals.
The wind screams wildly outside, and clat
ters at the window pane; :Is if it was" cold
and -wanted to comp "Plcroughlhe_dusty
panes theins;:lves, half revealed 1w thCi
linrti
ally drawn curtains, glitnmor whitely ,the
snowy uplands, and on the crest of the
ghastly hills a hate old oak lifts up its itTi - k'cil
arms,liko
,aged Niobe -frozen in an Dui•
-
tilde of sorrow. The ~took., or lily ci g ar
.g3es curling, eciling-ward in concentric! rings
of evanescent vapor, and I am whi4eriug,
to Invsolf one of 'those sonorous and /0 1 0r i l ,
~ e ntenees with which-the ohl. knight of Nor
wich terminates his chapters, and which,
after one has read them,,reverberate and
echo in the brain, when—rat--tat—there
comes a fainyirresolute knock at the hall
door. My moffier Shuts her scissors, and
looks up - inquiringly as much as to say "who
in Heaven's name, is out on a night like'
this?"' rhe s 'eliess players are immovable,
and seem as if an earthquake wouldba a
matter of perfoa indifference to them. I
lay down my book and go to the door. I:
open it with a shiver, and a resolution to be
cross and uncivil: the wind rashes triumph
antly in with a great sigh of relief, the mo
ment the first chink appears, and I look out
into the bitter ghastly night. i w
What a strange group stands on the
piazza!:
'Winter seems to htive become incarnate
in human form, and, with the four winds as
his companions, come to pay us a visit.
There is a tall, old man, with a long grey
moustache, which, as it hangs doWn his jaws,
the rude breeze snatches up, and ,swings
about, and pulls insolently, as if it knew he
was poor, and could be insulted with impu
nity. He looks bitterly cold! His long,
arched nose is-as, blue as the blue sky above
him, in which the stars twinkle so clearly,
an! he has on a scanty little coat, on which
a few remnants of braid flutter- sadly, like
the shreds of vine that bang on walls in
winter time, which they; in the golden sum.
mer, had wreathed with glossy leaves so
splendidly. holds a little, child, his
arms—a Itle, shivering child; that trembles
most
,incessantly, and. tries, poor thing, to
put its head in the Beauty and threadbare
folds of that insufficient coat, By the side
of this pair is another effigy of poverty and
winter. A small, pale, delicate woman,
with great blue eyes—profuse hair, , which,
matted in frozen intricacies, burst out from
beneath a most remarkably shapeless bonnet
--s—a shawl so thin that it must have been
woven by spiders; another little shivering
child clasped in her arms, and carefully en
veloped in the poor old shawl, though one
can see by her blue neck and thin dress, that
she is sacrificing herself to keep the little
one warm. A huge umbrella dangling from
one of her hands, and which she leans .on
Occasionally with great dignity—and the icy
picture is complete. But the main picture
is not yet finished. A girl about ten years
old, standing a little back, clings to her
mother's skirt with one hand, while with the
other she tries to. keep something that looks
like a pair of trousers
and
round her
neck. She is shadowy and pale, and seems
like Northern mirage, ready to dissolve into
cold air at a moment's notice.
"Who are you, and wliat do you want?" I
said, in a gruff tone; for the wind blew bit
terly on my cheek, and I mtide up my mind
to be cross.
The old man inclined his heal slightly,
and spoke.
"We are Poles," said he, in excellent Em
glish, with a slight fore 4 a accent; "we wish
to go to Boston, which we hear, is but one
day's journey from this, but we do not know
where to lodge to night. We are here to ask
you for a night's shelter."
"Pooh!" said I, swinging the door almost
to; "we know nothing about you, and never
admit beggars. We , caunot do it."
The man fell back a pace or two, and
looked at the little woman With the great ,
eyes. Heavens how full of despair those
great. , eyes seemed just at that moment" -
saw his arm tighten c ) onlidsively round the .
little shivering child if his arms. A slug.
Gish, half frozen tear r died slowly down that
blue nose of his. lie brushed it away with
his fold; shrivelled hand, and nodded mourn
fully to thh l;ttlo woman, who clutched her
umbrella firmly and then turned to doper.
without a
.Iyord. As the door was htiug
slowly closed, he shook his head once cr
twice, and said in a very low voiee, " God
help ma l"
These words had scarce been spoken, when
I felt a slight touch on my shoulder.
" John," said my mother, "call those pro•
ple back."
IMAr felt so relieved in -all my life.
When that old man turned away in silence
at my sudden refusal of his prayer, disdain
ing to address himself, to me, but whispdring
his mercy to God, a pang of remorse shot
through my heart; I would have given wprldS
to have called him 'back, but the hideous s Id
len pride, which,h r' chained up
mt . nature, until it 4M's hedemie a mve d
bear, put 'a padlock on toy lips. .Itow glad
I was when my mother caste and dissolved
the bonds with a lunch.
" Come Imelt," said I "my frientl , , we
wish to speak with yen."
1 nut sure my Yoke mtv,t. have oftlly been
vta'y , Jentle, fo,r as Jlie 'alit Pole turned, his
rugged cheek seemQd to soften, and the great
eyes alibi pale wile newally !lashed though
the aim night, with - a fire of hope. They
eartisle ijeratb.
had landed from an Orn,igran!, ship in New
York, with only . afew dollars in their pos..
Seision ; which was dwindled away to a few
shillings. They could get no employment, -
The old man was a modeler of medallions
and Said bitterly : " They don't care about
art in Now York." So they made up their
minds to go to Boston; .here they heard that
such things find encoragement. With a
few remaining shillings, and what money
they could obtain by pawning their-, little
wardrobe, they struggled thus fareu. their
journey.' They were now penniless, and
scarce knew what to do ; but the old man
said proudly : " If we can only get through to
Beqoa to-morrow we have nothing to fear."
My mother shut the door; by this tithe:the
old man, and the little pale woman and three
shivering Children, were on the inside, and
Fanny and . Lizzie had, kft their game of
-chess with their poor queen Still in prison,
and were passing round the pale little wo
man, whose eyes were now bigger than ever,
and shining with' tears of joy; and they
somehow had got hold of the two youngest
children; and they. were petting them and
talking to them in that wonderful language
supposed to be the tongue•commonl?7 spoken
by infants, the foundation of which is sub
stituting the letter d for the letter 4 and
smothering all the is and hs in a remorseless
manner. The pool little ,foreigners were
therefore informed, confidently, by the young
ladies that"` day was dood littlo tings, and
ley mum% gry zo, for zey would aye a nize
vorm zupper." And whether they understuot
it or not, the "tittle tings', ceased- to shiver
or cry and looked wonderingly about with.
small editions of their mother's great eyes :
and the old man twirled his moustache as it
thawed in the beat of the pine fire, and made
Many bows. and looked that worldless grati•
tude which cannot be interpreted.
But the little wife said nothing; only she
leaned on her umbrella and gazed at my
mother as'she gave orders to the servants
for the preparation of a Sleeping room and
liberal meal for the way-farers; and she
gazed at me, as I stirred up the fire with
immense energy, (between ourselves, I tried
to bustle off the recollection of that cruel
speech with which I first met their appeal,)
and made her husband sit down sd close -to
it, that his legs were nearly scorched through
. his threadbare trousers; and so continually
gazing at every one ; until at last she could
stand it no longer, and flinging away, for
the first time, that ponderous umbrella of
hers, she cast herself on my astonished mo
ther's neck, and sobbed out a heap of Polish
biessings, that if there is any virtue in bcne
diction, will certainly canonize her when she
dies.
I swear to you, that when all was over,
and the - y were sleeping soundly, I went into
a remote corner and Wept bitterly for the
wrong I had so nearly done.
Well, they staid with us that night, and
the next and the next ; and yny mother got
op a little subscription among the neighbors
And we rigged them all out in good- warm
clothing, bought them tickets on the cats to
Boston, and ono fine, frosty morning we all
sallied down to the depot, and saw them ofl
on their journey, and I tell you there was s
waving of hands, and Polish gesticulations.
and far, far away in the distance, we could
e ktch gl'ixyse of that great umbrella, with
the little woman still flourishing it by %%1)
of a farewell.
We heard nothing of oar . Polish friends
fur a whole year. Often, over file fireside,
we would talk about them, and our neigh
hors sneered et Ili And wondered if our
spoons were safe, and 'moralized upon for :
eign imposture and ingratitude. My mother
got much for her charity ; but none of us
minded, tbr there was something so true in
the ways ampwanners of these poor wander
ers., that it yould have been impossible t o
distrust them.
Well, Christmas came. Winter agan and
snow, with huge logs glowing fiercely on the
hearth and mistletoe and ivy swinging mer
rily in the hail. Again the uplands weiu
sheeted iii white ; again the old oak was nit,
ked and sorrowing ; again we were all seat- -
el round the fire, listening to tho snorting of
tile wind as it tore over the hills like a mail
stead. In the midst of a deop silence that
upon us all, there came a rat tat-tat t
the hall'door. It was an enthusia.itic rat-tat•
tat., It was strong, deterwitivd.ivil Qager.—
went t' the door, I'had scarcely tuth:trr.
it, Or took a peep at the new comer, whe'r'i• it
seemod'as if a whirlwind with a 'unmet on
hi; head scoured pa.tt toe at t d swept into lin
parlor. The , next indineut I heard a great
einvonotion: Sobli'ng and
,17tughim!, and
brol;en English, all swept aloup. as it wove
in a catarag of poli,h. 'lt was the litth
pale; woman with the great eyes.' No ltniger
fmle though,' but with ruddy tdietdts ;
the eyeit, this time, looked larger end bright_
cr than ever thrnzh their tcat;:t. They had
. -
been„ever since in Boston, she breathleasly
told us,'and had been . doing well, the. nks 'to
the blessed lady whop helped thein, to get
there. , The huaband• modeled medallions,
she composed polkas, and their only daugh
ter taught music, stit they had saved three
hundred dollars, and boughta piano 'with it.
And she had Said to herselfthat on Christmas
night she 'would come and speak her grati
tude to the pleased lady who had sheltered
her and her little ones ; so she set off in the
cars, and here-she was. And then she com
menced pulling things out of her poelcets.—
Christmas presents for us all I There was a
scarlet fortune teller for Lizzie, and a curi
ous card case for Fanny, and a wonderfully
embroidered needle case for my mother; and
there was a beautiful umbrella for Mr. John
she intimated, *producing:al enormous para
chute. She knew he would because
when she was here last year—thanks to the
blessed lady who had sheltered her—she had
seem hiin looking very much at her umbrella
and she would have offered it to him then,
but was ashamed, it was so old. But: this
was a new one and very large
And then she kissed us all round, and
produced an elaborate letter from her hus
band to my mother, in which she was coin
pared to Penelope, and told us everything
that had !livened to them since they had
left us, until, having talked herself into a
state of utter exhaustion, she went off to her
bed room, where_ she was heard praying in .
indifferent English that we might all ascend
into Heaven without any of the usual . duff'
eulties.
She and her family are still in Boston,
where they make quite a respectable income.
And every Christmas sees her arrival with
presents. for the blessed lady, and her eyes
and Irtr gratitu le are as large : s cher.
It it, you see, a simple Winter Story.
tittle fall:
Prom tho Wine Press
VOYAGE AROUND A PUDDING
Mr. Bushwhacker foldednis napkin, drew•
it through the silver ring, laid it on the to
ble, folded his arms, leaned back in his chair
by which 'we knew that there was something
:it work in his knowledge-box. "My de'ar
madame," said he with an aboriginal shake,
of the head, "there are a great many things
to be said about that pudding."
Now such a remark at a season of the
rear when eggs a-0 five fo: a shilling, and
tot always fresh at that, is enough to d-s
-comfort'anybody. The doctor perceived it
.it once, and instantly added—
"ln
a geographical point of view, there
are many things to be said about that pud
ling. My dear math m 1," he continued,
tak3 tafioca itself; what is it and where
(!o s it come from ?"
Our eldest boy, just emerged from chid:-
°filmed, answered, " 85 Chambers street, two
auors below the Irving House."
"True my dear young friend," responded
the doctor, with a friendly pat on the head ;
"true, but that is not what I mean. "Where,"
he repeated, with a questioning look through
his spectacles, and a Btnhwhacklan nod,
" does tapioca come from ?"
"Rio de Janeiro and Para . !"
" Yes, air ; from Rio de Janeiro in the
qouthern, and Para in the Northern part of
the Brazils, do we get our tapioca ; from the
roots of a plant called the Mandioca, botani
cally, the Jalropoa Aulihol, or, as they say
tie Cassava. The roots are long and round
ike tt . :Weet potato ; generally a foot or more
'n length. Every joint of the plant will pro
ince its'roots like the cutting of a grape
vine. Tito tubers are dug up from the
!round, pealed, scraped, or grated, then put
in long sacks of flexible, rattanysacks air
feet long or more ; and at the bottom of the
sack they susperd a large stone, by which
;he flexible , sides are contracted, and then
lut pours the eassaya-juicein a pan placed
balow to receive it. This juice is poisonous
sir, highly poisonous; and very volatile,
l'hen, my dean madame, it is macerated in
water, and the resiewnr, afer the
part, the poison, j is evaporated, is the innoeu
ms farina, which locks like small crumbs of
bread, and which we call tapioca, The
!ic4t kind of tapiben comes front itio, which
Ll' I lielievo, Ow tit live 'thousand live bun.
teed Miles from New York ; so we must put
(bat donna ?is lilt; pore than one , fifth of
un voyage around thelindiing.“
'fills made our eldest opiM his eves.
" Egg.; antl cont.iflue'Ll Dr, Bosh
"tire home.' proauuti,Cus ; but sm.
s.lgar, is yowl,. partly of ;lit , totilsi
turf slvei.st ye low sugar of I,oui..tlna ; pattl,
hard and dry of the We6f•lndies, 4 N iL);
not go into the proees§ of rifining sngar
noW lint I may ob3prvohore, that the sugi - r
we get froni.Louisirm, it' refined ntl•:rnatle
into a loaf, would be quite soft, with larg
Lose crystals i while. the Havana saga). ,
subjected to the same treatment, wont,
make a white One almost as compact an
hard as granite. But we have made a tri,
to the Antilles for our' sugar, and so yo
may add fifteen hundred miles more for th•
naccliart)int."a,.
"That is equal to nearly one third of th
circumference of the pudding we live , upor
doctor."
"Vanilla," continued the doctor, " witl
which a pudding is so delightfully flavored
is the bean of a Vine that grows wild ia th
multitudinous • forests of Venezuela, No
Granada, Guinea, and, in fact, throughOu
South America. The long PO, whichlook•
like the scabbard of a sword, suggested tht
name to the Spaniards; vayna, meanini
scabbard, from which comes the diminu
five, vanilla, or lictle scabbard, appropriate
enough, as every one will allow. The 4
beans, which are),worth here from six k
twepty.dollars a pound, could be as easily
cultivated as hops in that climate; but the
indolence of the people is so great that not
one Venezuelian has been found with suf
ficiont enterprise •to set out one acre of
vanilla; which ,would yield him a small for.
tune every year. No, sir. The poor peons,
or peasants, raise their garabanias for daily
use, but beyond that they never look. They
plant their cror s' in the. fobtsteps of their an•
castors; they c Nl oald probably have browsed
on the wild grass of the lianas or plains.
Ah I there are a great many such bobs hang.
ing at'the tail of some - ancestral : kite, even -
in this great city, my dear learned friend."
" True, doctor, you are right, there."
"Nell, sir, the vanilla is gathered from
the wild vines in the woods. Off goes the
hi.ialgo, proud of his noble ancestry, and
toils home under a back-load of the' refuse
beans from the trees, after the red monkey
has had his pick of. the best. A few real!
pay him for the day's work, and then, hey
fir the cock-pit I There, Signer Olfogie
meets the Marquis de Shinplaster, or the
Padre Corcorochi, and of course gets whistled
out of his earnings with the first click of the
gaffs. Then back he goes to,his miserable
hammock, and so ends his year's labor:.
That, sir, is the history of the flavoring, and
you wily have to allow a Stretch. across the
Caribbean, say twenty-five hundred miles, for
the vanilla."
" We are getting pretty well round doctor."
"Then we have sauce here, wine-sance---
Teneriffe, I should say, by the flavor.
"- from beneath the cliff
Of Sunny sided Tenncriffo •
And ripened In the blink
Of India's sun."
We must take four thousand miles at least
for the wine, my learned friend, and say no
thing of the rest of the sance.".
"Except the nutmeg, doctor."
"Thank you, my dear young friend; thank
you.—The nutmeg! To the Spice Islands in
the Indian Ocean we are indebted for our
nutme:s. Our old original Knickerbockers,
the web-footed Dutchmen, have the monopoly
of this trade. Every nutmeg has paid toll
at the 11u2ne before it yields its aroma to
our graters. The Spice Islands! The al
most fabulous Moluccas, where neither corn
nor rice will grow; where the only quadru
peds they have are the odorous goats that
breathe the fragrant air, the musky croco
diles that bathe in the high-seasoned waters.
!he Isles
Of Ternate and Tid nom, whence merchants bring
Their spiry drugs."
• There, sir! Milton, sir. Front . Ternate
andTidnore, and the rest of th t marvellous_
cluster of islands, we get our nutmegs, our
utter', ai d our cloves. , Add twelve thousand
miles at least to the circumference of the
pudding for' the nutmeg."
"This is getting to he a pretty large pud•
ding, doctor."
"Yes, sir. we have travelled already
twenty—ti 'e thousand five hundred miles
around it, a-Al now let us , mcireumnavigate
and come back by the way of Mexico, so
that we can get a silver spoon, and penetrate
o the interior."
REASONS FOR-GOING TO CONGRESS.—George
Gordon, Jr., announces hinself - as a candi.
date for Congress in the 13th district of Vir
ginia, and assigns in an address in the
Wyetheville itepublivan the following rut.,
sons for desiring a seat in Congress :
. I think it nothing I) it 001 m m hone,ty
tr ! 'confesgthat I am mainly moved to becon
candidato because of the easy Tito and tht
high wages coneeled Nyith n sent it, Con
dress. Now, do not mean to' assert (1(
ensy and the As":ll'',VS high as re , jori i .
Tho;ze v.ho occupy a di,ting\iishi4l platy, is
the great liaiacss of die CCngre“ of thi
. reat nation ; I :illtPcle. to tho,ot who 5!..0:
(;011 , titniie. thclail of revroet.t. , .li ,4
And of which the r. nin7 , ,t.always
!us4, aneof whieh 1 think, ihvrc may nt,
and thin he an , idkirtion v.!thont any :Trio),
detrimt-nt-,--therefore l 10,ve presort
bccom..l a candidate,"