upon her ear; the ballroom has lost its charms; and with wasted health
and imbittered heart, she turns away with the conviction that earthly
pleasures cannot satisfy the longings of the soul!
And so forth and so on. There was a buzz of gratification from time to
time during the reading, accompanied by whispered ejaculations of How
sweet! How eloquent! So true! etc., and after the thing had closed
with a peculiarly afflicting sermon the applause was enthusiastic.
Then arose a slim, melancholy girl, whose face had the interesting
paleness that comes of pills and indigestion, and read a poem. Two
stanzas of it will do:
A MISSOURI MAIDEN S FAREWELL TO ALABAMA
Alabama, goodbye! I love thee well!
But yet for a while do I leave thee now!
Sad, yes, sad thoughts of thee my heart doth swell,
And burning recollections throng my brow!
For I have wandered through thy flowery woods;
Have roamed and read near Tallapoosa s stream;
Have listened to Tallassee s warring floods,
And wooed on Coosa s side Aurora s beam.
Yet shame I not to bear an o erfull heart,
Nor blush to turn behind my tearful eyes;
Tis from no stranger land I now must part,
Tis to no strangers left I yield these sighs.
Welcome and home were mine within this State,
Whose vales I leave whose spires fade fast from me
And cold must be mine eyes, and heart, and tete,
When, dear Alabama! they turn cold on thee!
There were very few there who knew what _tete_ meant, but the poem
was very satisfactory, nevertheless.
Next appeared a dark-complexioned, black-eyed, black-haired young lady,
who paused an impressive moment, assumed a tragic expression, and began
to read in a measured, solemn tone:
141