[2] Norfolk, it must be owned, presents an unfavorable specimen of
America. The characteristics of Virginia in general are not such as can
delight either the politician or the moralist, and at Norfolk they are
exhibited in their least attractive form. At the time when we arrived the
yellow fever had not yet disappeared, and every odor that assailed us in
the streets very strongly accounted for its visitation.
[3] Bermuda.
A BALLAD.
THE LAKE OF THE DISMAL SWAMP.
WRITTEN AT NORFOLK, IN VIRGINIA.
"They tell of a young man, who lost his mind upon the death of a girl
he loved, and who, suddenly disappearing from his friends, was never
afterwards heard of. As he had frequently said, in his ravings, that
the girl was not dead, but gone to the Dismal Swamp, it is supposed he
had wandered into that dreary wilderness, and had died of hunger, or
been lost in some of its dreadful morasses."--Anon.
_"La Poesie a ses monstres comme la nature."_
D'ALEMBERT.
"They made her a grave, too cold and damp
"For a soul so warm and true;
"And she's gone to the Lake of the Dismal Swamp,[1]
"Where, all night long, by a firefly lamp,
"She paddles her white canoe.
"And her fire-fly lamp I soon shall see,
"And her paddle I soon shall hear;
"Long and loving our life shall be,
"And I'll hide the maid in a cypress tree,
"When the footstep of death is near.
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