The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1868-05-24
For The Sunday Crescent
"GOOD-NIGHT, DARLING"

Her happiness was not in physical enjoyment,
but in love and faith. Give her but . note OF
kindness-the nature of feminine loyeliness-and
she asked no more.
1 allude TO an older sister, my second mother.
Each night when my little eyelids were about to
close into quiet slumber, could distinguish
melodious voice trill out " Goodnight, darling"
and with an sffectionate kiss imprinted on my
cheek, would turn away to dream of the angels.
What salutaTy influence is exerted by love Its
power of enhancing every enjoyment would give
it a rank among the most influential operations.
upon the human mind. While the enchantment
continues seems to possess the faculty of raising
our ideas above this sublunary sphere, though in
remembrance it claims naught but passing sigh,
a momentary regret that we have lost the nucleus
of our early existence. Sometimes after such
retrospection, we smile because we have awakened
from delusion, to know that the sunshine which
appeared food of radiance illuming our Utmost
sensibiities has become an ordinary light of day.
We smile because the gurgling brook, whose
waves dashing DER its pebbly bottom once like
the secret springs Of unsophisticated thought, has
become wearisome and mOnotonous.
Or, if after such retrospectOn, we sigh, it is
caused by vague feeling of a mere illusion-an
evanescent charm which existed in the vivid
imaginatoD-yet we sigh. To mediate upon life's
infancy, to dwell upon the loves the hopes, the
teipations of our early days, must AIKEN ardent
desire to i've them over again, and in meditating
upon little deficiencies which the matured under
Standing can correct, We sigh with regret that we
had not earlier possessed the conviction of right.
Helen was my monitor. How frequently
oDged to be blessed with as noble a character
as smable disposition, as loving heart The
atmosphere Of our home was inhaled alike by
both. but she appeared to take the sweets alone =,
while my portion was sduterated with what
forms phlegmatic temper.
She left me for a northern cline. So warm
so frail and so tender nature meier was intended
to breathe that chilling atmosphere. Ny sole
consolation was in believing her exstence-that
the same sun illumed our housshold--thRt we
gaZed upon the self-same moOn-that the music
OF the winds which breatbed its spiritual intel
gence into mine ears might, in its lawIess wander
ngs, wait sigh to her distant dwelling; but
above all, that day would arrive when should
meet her again, 10 hear the same gentle tone, to
experience the same love, though long estranged
yet never extinguished. But this was never to
occur, and why? Not from any cause that the
casualty of after-eVents could avert, but simply
because the sister of my devotion has winged her
flight TO heavenly elysium. Ii is true that reli
gion. directs us TO happier sphere, where love
exists in deathess bleom," but our earthly
feelings frequently usurp the place where religion
ought 10 reign predominant, and we reject the
consolation of the Heavenly Comforter.
Love keeps an inventory Of the treasures Of
the secret heart of which the higher faculties
take no oOgnizance-the smiles the tones OF mu-
tual enjoyment, the wellknown song of Aud
lang syne," and all that forms the nucleus of
long cherished affection, exchanged for what?-
an aching void in the heart. never to be relied
for the unnatural gloom of that profound
sepulchre which conceals what love itself will
now Tesign-in short, the rending asunder of a
sweet chord, without which the once harmonious
strains Of social intercourse are musical no
more.
That gentle flower withered and died before
the untimely blasts of a northern cline.
ii is sad to think of her as numbered with the
dead. Her grave is beyond the seas, but her
tombstone rests in my heart, surrounded with
ivy leaves.
As breathe my evening prayer, | beseech the
Almighty soon to bless a reunion of our souls in
Heaven; and an angel voice watts through the
breeze the echo, GOOD night, dsrlingn and
my spirit communes with one who once taught
me to dream of the angels and is now numbered
with their group. How often long to re echo in
the same musical voice the tones, Good night,
darling ~