Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848. Various
his high reputation. In the affair of La Hoya, Sept. 20, 1847, he acted independently, and was perfectly successful.
In the expedition of Gen. Lane, which terminated so gallantly at Huamantla, Walker served for the last time. The prize he had proposed to himself was great, being nothing less than the capture of Santa Anna. Walker on this occasion commanded the whole cavalry force, and led the advance. His charge into the town, from the covering of Magues, is described by old soldiers who saw it as having been terrific. Passing completely through the town, he pursued the enemy's retreating artillery. After the success was sure, Walker returned, and was treacherously shot from a house on which a white flag was hanging. Within thirty minutes he died, after a brilliant victory, in gaining which he had been an important actor. With a force of one hundred and ninety-five men he had beaten and routed five hundred picked lancers, and given the tone to the events of the day.
No man was more regretted than Capt. Walker, who had enjoyed the confidence of every officer with whom he had served. Gen. Scott and Gen. Taylor both highly estimated his good qualities, and reposed the greatest trust in him.
When the news of his death reached the United States, the people were every where loud in their regrets, and he will be remembered as one of the heroes of the Mexican war.
Captain Walker had risen by his own exertions. Brought up in a good school, "the Light Dragoons of the U. S.," his knowledge of tactics, acquired in Florida, was most useful to his first service as an officer in the army of the Texan Republic. He is spoken of as having possessed every requisite for a cavalry officer – a quick perception, a keen eye, a strong arm, perfect control of his horse, thorough knowledge of military combination, and the rarer and more valuable faculty of winning the confidence of his men. Had he not been cut off so untimely in his chosen career, he could not but have become a distinguished general.
Captain Walker died at the age of 33, in sight almost of the famous dungeon of Perote, where he had long been a prisoner. There was something like retribution in the fact that more than one other Texan, who, like himself, had been confined there, contributed to raise above its battlements the colors of the United States.
LAMARTINE TO MADAME JORELLE
What! offer thee the tribute of my numbers?
Thou daughter of the East! whose infancy
The warring desert winds rocked to its slumbers —
Dost thou demand incense of Poesy?
Flower of Aleppo! whom the Bulbul choosing
Would wander from his worshiped rose of May,
O'er thy fair chalice her remembrance losing,
To languish 'mid thy leaves his moonlight lay!
Bear odors to the balm pure sweets exhaling?
Hang on the orange bough a riper load?
Lend fires to Syria's East at dawn unveiling?
Pave with new stars 1 the Night's all-glittering road?
No verses here! – Verse would despair of raising
Aught save an image dark and faint of thee;
But gently in yon basin's mirror gazing
Behold thyself! Embodied Poesy!
When through the kiosque's grated ogive straying,
The sea-breeze mingles with the Moka's fume,
Where softly o'er thy form the moonbeams playing
Glance on thy couch, rich from Palmyra's loom —
When on the jasmine tube thy lip half closes,
Veiled with its golden threads in bright array,
While ruffling at thy breath, fragrant with roses,
Murmur the drops within the Narquité —
When as winged perfumes rise into thy brain,
In light caressing clouds around thee wreathing
All love's and youth's lost visions throng again,
An atmosphere of dreams thy listeners breathing —
When in thy tale the Arab steed forth starting
Yields foaming to thy curb of infancy,
And that triumphant glance obliquely darting
Equals the summer-lightning of his eye —
When thy fair arm, of loveliest symmetry,
Supports the fairer brow in thought reclining,
While gleams with diamond fires thy poniard nigh
In quick reflection of the torch's shining —
Naught is there in the murmured words of feeling,
Naught in the Poet's ever dreaming brow,
Naught in pure sighs from purest bosoms stealing,
Naught redolent of Poesy as thou!
With me the age has flown when Love, life's flower,
Perfumes the heart – my warmest accents falter,
And beauty o'er my soul has lost her power —
Cold is the light I kindle on her altar!
The harp is this chilled bosom's only queen,
But how would homage from its depths have burst
In gushing minstrelsy at bright sixteen,
If then these eyes had rested on thee first!
How many stanzas had thy lover given
To one sweet vaporous wreath that lately graced
Thy meditative lip, or how had striven
To stay that form by unseen artist traced!
That shadow's vague enchanting outline cast
On yonder wall, to arrest with poet's finger
Thy beauty's mystic image fading fast,
As round thy form fond moonbeams cease to linger!
PHANTOMS ALL
It was with a feeling of regret, such as stirs one's heart at parting with a dear friend, that I turned the last page of Irving's most delightful visit to Abbotsford, which he has given us in language so beautiful from its simplicity, so graphic in its details, and so heart-deep in its sincerity, that with him we ourselves seem to be partakers also of the hospitality and kindness of the immortal Scott.
"Every night," says Irving, "I retired with my mind filled with delightful recollections of the day, and every morning I arose with the certainty of new enjoyment."
And so vividly has he painted for the imagination of his happy readers those scenes of delight, those hours of social interchange of two great minds, that we are admitted as it were into free communion with them. On the banks of the silvery Tweed we stroll delighted, or pause to view the "gray waving hills," made so dear to all the lovers of Scott and Burns, through the enchantment which romance and poetry have thrown around them. We listen for the tinkling chime of the fairy bells as we pass through the glen of Thomas the Rhymer, almost expecting to see by our side, as we muse on the banks of the goblin stream, the queen of the fairies on her "dapple gray pony." Again, through the cloisters of Melrose Abbey we wander silently and in awe, almost wishing that honest John Boyer would leave us awhile unmolested even by the praises of his master the "shirra," whom he considers "not a bit proud," notwithstanding he has such "an awfu' knowledge o' history!" Or it may be we recline amid the purple heather and listen to the deep tones of the great magician himself, as he delights our ear with some quaint tradition of the olden time, while Maida, grave and dignified as becomes
The road of heaven, star-paved. Paradise Lost