Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-05-18

Only the walls of it remain to-day. Then
q ruin, it is now a wreck. When the moon
Laws upon it they say it is bewitched. There
lives in Charlestown now an old pegress
with haggard, ghoulIsh eyes, who tells some
queer tales OF st. Georges. Among others
is the story of the poet-lover seen wringing
his hands and crying over the shadowy pile,
early, very early in the evening. and
whether there be moon no, whether the
stars are out or the black night beetles, a
very black brow-seen crying, wringing his
hands aud calling Florence! Florence!
There he goes, they say, long and lumin-
Gus figure, once in the year on certain
night, and in the harvest time. How sim
gular, indeed the contrast of that with sad
rapture of the living words:
That spot-the hues Elysiau
I treasure in my vision,
Florence Vane.
On the walls of room in a cottage on the
skirts OF Charlestown hangs a tinv picture.
A Daguerreotype taken in those days could
not be expected to be beautiful, vet this one
is. 1t is of the lovely Florence Vane. The
cottage is the home OF lady-a writer
relative Of the poet; and here, too, strangest
of al things, is a grandchild of the poet and
the very image of the lost love of long ago.
For one to see either of these pair of ewes.
the living or the dead upon the wall, it is
not q difficult thing to understand the
writing of the words:
Thou wastlovelier than the roses
In their prime;
Thy voice excelled the closes
OF sweetest rhyme.
We have endeavored to reproduce the
picture but it is faint imitation, and not
fair. There is depth in the eyes of this
beautiful face which cannot be hastily
copied. In Italy once at Modena there was
an artist who strove winter in and out, and
in vain, to catch the depth of meaning in the
eyes of this fair Virginia girl. For even the
poet revealed his inability to put it in words
when he broke out:
1hy heart is as a river
Without main
Would had loved thee never
Florence Vane.
In this fair region there are manv fair
girls. There is yet an air of the Old World
social over everything and every one. Beau
tiful girls that look like pictures stepped
from canvas of the olden time meet YOU on
every hand. But over all things earthly
there comes a change, and the change is lust
now being felt: Only the memory of him
who wrote it is left, only this dim Daguerreo-
type Of her. "Harewood House" yonder
where he visited as a boy and went into
ingtons, of Lafayette, who was frequently
guest there; of james Madison, who was
married there; of Louis Philippe and his
two ducal brothers often entertained. Only
these relics of his days remain.
But fairest, coolest wonder,
Thy glorious clay
Lieth the green sod under
Alas-the day.
She was dead. And there was a mighty
mourner over her grave for many wears in
the person of Philip Pendleton Cooke. Like
Poe. with him the croaking of those old
years would be hushed in the nevermore.
He would lie all night and sob with his face
in the grass over her grave. He could not
forget. He would not forget And yet in
the next sane moment exclaim:
But it boots not to remember
Thy disdain
To quicken loves pale ember,
Florence Vane.
Thus, from love to regret, and regret to
remorse, he lived. 1t was all dirge Said
q lady, Partisan, once while visiting his
grave: "Do you believe that Mr.. Cooke
could have been guilty OF so much romanti-
cism." But that question is not yet an
swered.
One morning not many dSys ago crept
into the shadows of deep thicket in a Sc
cluded burying-ground, and stood for some
time beside little narrow depression in the
ground, and thought how this strange man
used to go there and cry, for it was the grave
of Florence Vane. l have somewhere q
harebell which grew out of the top of that
grave. The place is the Old Chapel bury
ing-ground, the nearest town is Berryville
and the county, Clarke. Hidden away out
Of sight from the curious it bears simply the