LINES:

Dedicated to my friends in Spartanburg, S.C.:

By Jane T.H. Cross

Ye groves of pine and oak that stand around,

Whose foliage trembles to the plaintive sound

Of melting dove-not on the ear that falls

And unto silence, as a sister, calls:-

(So falls the strain as if the Cenci fair

Were pouring forth her wailings on the air

How oft my soul has floated on that stream,

While all the shimmering midnight was a dream!)

Ye many-color flowers that deck the wood,

Ye gushing streams that cheer the solitude,

And cow-bell, tinkling wheresoe’er we roam—

A pleasant and perpetual sound of home:

Ye skies, whose canopy of red and gold

Falls round the earth in many a gorgeous fold,

While trooping starts come like the angel-train

By Jacob seen on Bethel’s shining plain:

Ye tower of Wofford, that serenely rise—

That animate the heart and cheer the eyes—

Where Piety in shining robes commands,

And Science, “made a little lower,” stands:

Ye scenes, upon whose back-ground, dark with pain

The golden pictures of the heart remain,

Portraying how, beneath the strokes of wo,

The streams of friendship but the faster flow:

And you, ye friends—alas! No skill can lend

Sufficient magic to depict a friend—

What you have been, and are, exceeds my art

Yet “all these thing I ponder in the heart:”

To you--farewell!  With not uncheerful heart

I speak; we separate, but do not part;

You journey with me still from spot to spot;

In leaving you dear friends, I lose you not.

Title:  Lines
Author: Jane T.H. Cross
Location: Spartanburg, S.C
Year: 
Media:  Newspaper article, glued to page 2 of  the Ledger of Captain W. B. Blair

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