Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 19.djvu/50

 44 Southern Historical Society Papers.

DEBATING CLUBS.

The debating club of Division 22 meets every Friday night. President]. ]. Riverd, Major Sixth Louisiana (?) Secretary and Treasurer]. E. Roberts, Captain Fourth Virginia. The debating club of Division 32 meets every Thursday evening. President C. ]. Palmer, Captain Third Virginia Cavalry. Secretary- -W. A. Darden, Captain Sixty first North Carolina.

ORIGINAL- POETRY.

THE LOW, SOFT MUSIC OF THE PINES.

Oh there's music in the glad gurgling waters As they bound over rocks and through dells,

A music that lends an enchantment To deep forest's moss-festooned cells.

There's music in the low heaving billows

As they break on the far distant lea, When the sea nymphs and dolphins are sporting,

But there's music far sweeter for me.

There's music in the soft-sighing zephyr,

Where lovers oft linger to list, And hear in its harmonious measures

A song of long-promised bliss.

All nature's a grand choral organ

That swells with melodious chimes, But the sweetest of all nature's music

Are the tones of the murmuring pines.

There's music for stern, reckless manhood,

Where the storm king rides on the wave, When the bark of the tempest-tossed sailor

Madly drives to a watery grave.

When the winds lash the waves into fury, And the thunders and wild winds combine,

But more fearfully grand is the music, When the hurricane plays with the pine.

Then tell me not of the music

That is held in the reveling hall, When the feet of the light-hearted dancers

Glide gaily at Terpsichore's call.

There's music around the home of my childhood,

Where clamber the ivy and vine, And I long to sit neath the shadows

Of the low, soft, musical pine. A. H.