precedent furnished by propinquity of blood, he possibly _might_
be; an aldermanic personage, redolent of wines and soup--goodly in
visage, benevolent in act, but strict in justice. I might fancy
him with a most voluminous periphery, and a laugh that shakes the
diaphragm, from the _imo pectore_ to the vast circumference of the
outer man. These things may be imagined, but not believed. Yet it
is with others as with ourselves: 'We know what they are, but not
what they may be.' Time adds to the novel thoughts of the child,
the tricks and joyance of the urchin--the glow of increasing years,
the passion of the swelling heart, when experience seems to school
its energies. But in the flush of young existence, I can compare
a child--the pride and delight of its mother and its kindred--to
nothing _else_ on earth, of its own form or image. It is like a
young and beautiful bird--heard, perhaps, for once, in the days of
our juvenescence, and remembered ever after, though never seen again.
Its thoughts, like the rainbow-colored messenger discoursed of in the
poetic entomology of La Martine,
'Born with the spring, and with the roses dying--
Through the clear sky on Zephyr's pinion sailing;
On the young flowret's open bosom lying--
Perfume, and light, and the blue air inhaling;
Shaking the thin dust from its wings, and fleeing,
And soaring like a breath in boundless heaven:
How like Desire, to which no rest is given!
Which still uneasy, rifling every treasure,
Returns at last above, to seek for purer pleasure.'
* * * * *
IN truth, I do especially affect that delightful period in the life
of every descendant of old Fig Leaves, in Eden, which may truly be
called the _April_ of the heart. How sweet are its smiles! And on the
face of babyhood, 'the tears,' to use the dainty term of Sir Philip
Sidney, 'come dropping down like raine in ye sunshine, and no heed
being taken to wype them, they hang upon the cheekes and lippes, as
upon cherries which the dropping tree bedeweth.' Halcyon season! Its
pure thoughts and rich emotions come and go, like the painted waftage
of a morning cloud; or most like that fulness of pearls which may
be shaken from the matin spray. The night, to such, comes with its
vesper hush and stillness, like the shadow of a shade. Sorrow is
transient, and Hope ever new. Sabbath of the soul, fresh from its
God! To the vision of these, how brightly the leaves move, and the
breeze-crisped waters quiver! How their quick pulses bound, in the
newness of existence, at that which is ancient and disdained of the
common eye! To them, every color is prismatic, and wears the hue of
Eden. With thoughts like these, however _un-novel_, I apostrophize
'MY BOY:'
THOU hast a fair, unsullied cheek--
A clear and dreaming eye,
Whose bright and winning glances speak
Of life's first revelry;
And on thy brow no look of care
Comes like a cloud, to cast a shadow there.
In feeling's early freshness blest--
Thy wants and wishes few:
Rich hopes are garnered in thy breast,
As summer's morning dew
Is found, like diamonds, in the rose--
Nestling, midst folded leaves, in sweet repose.
Keep thus, in love, the heritage
Of thy ephemeral spring;
Keep its pure thoughts, till after age
Weigh down thy spirit's wing;
Keep the warm heart--the hate of sin.
And heavenly peace will on thy soul break in.
And when the even-song of years
Brings in its shadowy train
The record of life's hopes and fears,
Let it not be in vain,
That backward on existence thou canst look,
As on a pictured page or pleasant book.
* * * * *
IN the wonder which we feel as to children growing old, we are apt
to associate ourselves with them. When one who, in the hey-dey of
his blood, and before the glow of the _purpureum lumen_ of his
'better-most hours' has begun to diminish, is led to regard (and to
_hear_, beside, for the fact rings often at his auricular portals,)
that a vital extract is extant, he wonders if that 'embryon atom'
will ever come to denominate the agent of his being as 'the old
gentleman!' Of course, it must be impossible. Yet 'there is no
mistake on some points.' In the course of his travels, Old Time
effects many a marvel; but he pushes on with his agricultural
implement, and streaming fore-lock; (nobody 'does him proud,' and he
disdains the toupée,) until his _oldest_ friends are metamorphosed,
and his youngest begin to experience how '_tempora mutantur, et
nos mutamur in illis_.' This reminds me of a song, which I like
amazingly, because it contains such a mingling of truth, beauty, and
melody:
I OFTEN think each tottering form
That limps along in life's decline,
Once bore a heart as young, as warm,
As full of idle thoughts, as MINE!
And each has had his dream of joy,
His own unequalled, pure romance;
Commencing, when the blushing boy
First thrills at lovely woman's glance.
And each could tell his tale of youth--
Would think its scenes of love evince
More passion, more unearthly truth,
Than any tale, before or since.
Yes! they could tell of tender lays
At midnight penned, in classic shades,
Of days more bright than modern days--
Of maids more fair than living maids.
Of whispers in a willing ear,
Of kisses on a blushing cheek--
Each kiss, each whisper, far too dear,
For modern lips to give or speak.
Of prospects, too, untimely crossed,
Of passion slighted or betrayed--
Of kindred spirits early lost,
And buds that blossomed but to fade.
Of beaming eyes, and tresses gay,
Elastic form and noble brow,
And charms--that all have passed away,
And left them--_what we see them now_!
And is it thus!--_is_ human love
So very light and frail a thing!
And must Youth's brightest visions move
For ever on Time's restless wing?
Must all the eyes that still are bright,
And all the lips that talk of bliss,
And all the forms so fair to sight,
Hereafter only come to this?
Then what are Love's best visions worth,
If we at length must lose them thus?
If all we value most on earth,
Ere long must fade away from us?
If that _one_ being whom we take
From all the world, and still recur
To all _she_ said, and for her sake
Feel far from joy, when far from her;
If that one form which we adore,
From youth to age, in bliss or pain,
Soon withers and is seen no more--
Why do we love--if love be vain!
In what strange contrast with a picture like this, does the beautiful
UHLAND place some of his nature-colored characters! How sweetly does
he draw the picture of two devoted beings, practising palmistry, with
palm to palm, and uttering a world of downy nonsense beneath the
rolling moon:
'IN a garden fair were roaming,
Two lovers, hand in hand;
Two pale and shadowy creatures,
They sat in that flowery land.
On the lips, they kissed each other,
On the cheeks so full and smooth;
They were wrapt in close embracings--
They were warm in the flush of youth.'
These are very apt verses to be made directly out of a man's head,
ar'n't they? How the author must have been haunted with visions; all
'Sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes,
Or Cytherea's breath.'
* * * * *
I FORGOT to observe, that the postillion of whom I have spoken,
was _rather_ profane. He told a story of his experience some years
before, with a divine, who was riding with him, on his professional
seat, in the west, to attend a 'protracted meeting.' 'It was
about 'lection time,' said he, 'and I had just gi'n in my vote.
Of _course_, I was used with _hospitality_; and I was a leetle
'how-come-you-so?' as Miss Kimball says in her Tower. Well I driv
on, at an uncommon rapid rate; (that's a fact;) and whensumever I
threw out the mail-bags at a stoppin' place, I replenished the inner
individual. At last I became, as the parson observed, 'manifestly
inebriated;' and he ondertook for to lecter _me_! I said nothing,
until he observed, or rather remarked, that 'he should not be
surprised if I fell from my seat some day, and would be found with my
head broke, and extravagantsated blood on the pious matter.''
'Well,' says I, 'I shouldn't be surprised; it would be just my d----d
etarnal luck!''
'He didn't say no more all the trip. I shot him up.'
'But the election'--it was inquired--'did you succeed in that?'
'Oh, yes; and the man that we put in, made a fool of himself at
Albany, into the Legislature, and there was a piece put into a book
about him a'terwards.'
'Ah?--what was it?
'Here it is,' was the reply of my gentleman, as he drew from his
pocket a worn fragment of a printed page.
'On the first day of the session, he was enabled to utter the
beginning of a sentence, which would probably have had no end,
if it had not been cut short, as it was, by the Speaker. On the
presentation of some petitions, which he thought had a bearing on
his favorite subject, the election by the people of public notaries,
inspectors of beef and pork, sole-leather, and staves and heading, he
got on his legs. 'When,' said he, 'Mr. Speaker, we consider the march
of intellect in these united, as I may say confederated, states, and
how the genius of liberty soars, in the vast expanse, stretching her
eagle plumes from the Pacific Ocean to Long-Island Sound, gazing with
eyes of fire upon the ruins of empires----' just at which point of
aërial elevation, the Speaker brought down the metaphorical flight of
the genius, and that of the aspiring orator together, by informing
the latter that he should be happy to hear him when in order, but
that there was now no _question before the House_!'[20]
'But what was the name of this man?' was a query following this
eloquent extract.
'Smith, Sir, was his name; Smith, John Smith, of Smithopolis, and
surrogate of Smith County. He was the first man in Smithville; was
a blacksmith in his youth, a goldsmith a'terwards, and John Smith
through all. A consistent man, Sir; no _change_ with him; always
upright, but always poor; unchanging, for he had nothing to change
with! He was a distinguished man; had letters advertised in the post
office; owned a blood horse; led the choir at church; read 'the
Declaration' on every Fourth-of-July; made all the acquaintances he
could; was exceedingly fussy on all occasions. In short, he was a
very great man in a small way. His speech will stand as a memorial of
his genius, when the Kattskill shall be troubled with the mildew of
time, and the worms of decay!'
* * * * *
WELL--the reign of autumn, for the present year, has come; and
there will doubtless be the annual quotations of description in the
newspaper market. Some of it will remain on first hands, and the
rest will find a ready circulation. Meditation will vent itself upon
apostrophe; poetry will be engendered; old songs will be re-sung.
It is, in truth, a delicious season, and no one can be blamed for
yielding himself up to its influences. When the first yellow surges
of September sunlight seem to roll through the atmosphere; when the
dust of the city street, as you look at some stately carriage, whose
wheels are flashing toward the west, seems rising around them like
an atmosphere, colored betwixt the hue of gold and crimson; when
the mountains put on their beautiful garments, where tints of the
rainbow mingle with the aërial blue of the sky; when the winds have a
melancholy music in their tone, and the heaven above us is enrobed in
surpassing purity and lustre--_then_, the dwellers in great capitals
may perhaps _conceive_ of the richness and fruition of the country;
but they cannot approach the reality. The harvest moon has waned; the
harvest home been held; the wheat is in the garner; the last peaches
hang blushing on the topmost branches where they grew; the fragrant
apples lie in fairy-colored mounds beneath the orchard trees, and the
cheerful husbandman whistles at the cider-press. As September yields
her withered sceptre into the grasp of October, the hills begin to
invest themselves in those many-colored robes which are the livery
of their new sovereign. As my observant friend, (a well-belovéd
Epinetus,) who hath discoursed of matters outre-mer, so richly hymns
it, then there comes
A mellow richness on the clustered trees;
And, from a beaker full of richest dyes,
Pouring new glory on the autumn woods,
And dipping in warm light, the pillared clouds,
Morn, on the mountain, like a summer bird,
Lifts up her purple wing; and in the vales
The gentle wind, a sweet and passionate wooer,
Kisses the blushing leaf, and stirs up life
Within the solemn woods of ash deep crimsoned,
And silver beech, the maple yellow leaved--
Where Autumn, like a faint old man, sits down
By the way-side a-weary. Through the trees
The golden robin moves; the purple finch,
That on wild cherry and red cedar feeds,
A winter bird comes with its plaintive whistle,
And pecks by the witch hazel; while aloud,
From cottage roofs, the warbling blue-bird sings.
To me, there is nothing of that dark solemnity about the autumnal
season, which it has to the morbid or the foreboding. It comes, laden
with plenty, and breathing of peace. There seems a sweet monition
in every whisper of the gale, and the rustle of every painted leaf,
which may speak a world of tranquillity to the contemplative mind.
If there be sadness around and within, it is the sadness which is
cherished, and the gloom that purifies; it is that doubtful twilight
of the heart, which is succeeded at last by a glorious morning. We
think with the serene and heavenly-minded Malcolm, of the distant,
or the departed, who have gone before us to lay down their heads
upon pillows of clay, and repose in the calm monotony of the tomb.
Reflection asserts her sway, and the spirit expands into song:
Sweet Sabbath of the Year!
When evening lights decay,
Thy parting steps methinks I hear,
Steal from the world away.
Amid thy silent bowers,
'Tis sad but sweet to dwell,
Where falling leaves and fading flowers,
Around me breathe farewell.
Along thy sun-set skies,
Their glories melt in shade;
And like the things we fondly prize,
Seem lovelier as they fade.
A deep and crimson streak,
The dying leaves disclose,
As on Consumption's waning cheek,
Mid ruin, blooms the rose.
The scene each vision brings
Of beauty in decay;
Of fair and early-faded things,
Too exquisite to stay:
Of joys that come no more;
Of flowers whose bloom is fled;
Of farewells wept upon the shore;
Of friends estranged, or dead!
Of all, that now may seem
To memory's tearful eye
The vanished beauty of a dream,
O'er which we gaze and sigh!
* * * * *
AND now, reader, _Benedicite_! 'Hail--and farewell!'
Decidedly thine,
OLLAPOD.
FOOTNOTE:
[20] SANDS.
LAMENT
OF THE LAST OF THE PEACHES.[21]
'LONE, trembling one!
Last of a summer race, withered and sere--
Say, wherefore dost thou linger here?
Thy work is done!'
W. G. C.
I.
IN solemn silence here I live,
A lone, deserted peach;
So high that none but birds and winds
My quiet bough can reach;
And mournfully, and hopelessly,
I think upon the past--
Upon my dear departed friends,
And I--the last--the last!
II.
My friends!--oh daily one by one
I see them drop away,
Unheeding all my tears and prayers,
That vainly bade them stay;
And here I hang, alone--alone!
While life is fleeing fast,
And sadly sigh that I am left,
Alas!--the last--the last!
III.
Farewell then, thou my little world,
My home upon the tree;
A sweet retreat, a quiet home,
Thou may'st no longer be;
The willow trees stand weeping nigh,
The sky is overcast,
The autumn winds moan sadly by--
I fall--the last--the last!
FOOTNOTE:
[21] 'THESE lines,' writes a fair correspondent, in a delicate
crow-quill hand, and on an aroma-breathing sheet, 'were written
the other day in my album, by a dear friend of mine; a school-girl
of sixteen. Are they not pretty? I think they are worth
publishing--don't you?' Of course we answer, 'Yes.'
EDS. KNICKERBOCKER.
LITERARY NOTICES.
THE TOKEN AND ATLANTIC SOUVENIR. A CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEAR'S
PRESENT. Edited by S. G. GOODRICH, pp. 312. Boston: American
Stationers' Company. New-York: WILEY AND PUTNAM.
TALENT of a high order has been employed to enrich both the pictorial
and literary departments of the 'Token' for the coming year; and, in
our judgment, the work greatly exceeds in merit, as it certainly does
in size, any of its predecessors. Let us first take a running glance
at the embellishments. The presentation-plate, from a tasteful design
by CHAPMAN, is engraved on wood by ADAMS; and in so masterly a manner
is it executed, that it seems more like a fine steel engraving, than
a cutting upon wood. The succeeding picture, 'The Expected Canoe,'
painted by CHAPMAN, and engraved by ANDREWS and JEWETT, is very
spirited in its conception, and finished in execution. The rising
storm, the lightning, the anxious countenance of the Indian maiden,
and the ease and grace of her position, are worthy of especial
praise. There is something quite _yankeeish_ in CHAPMAN's design
of the frontispiece--a cupid leaning over a huge pumpkin to see
another carve a 'token' upon the rind. We can say little for 'The
Only Daughter,' although engraved by ANDREWS, from a painting by
NEWTON. The subject is harsh and unpleasing. There is CHAPMAN's old
fault in the 'Indian Maiden at her Toilet,' or 'The Token.' There is
not an Indian feature, nor the semblance of one, in the face of the
girl. Otherwise, the picture is well conceived. One of the richest
plates in the volume, is 'English Scenery,' engraved by SMILLIE, from
a painting by BROWN. It is mellow and soft, in the ensemble, yet
distinct in minute detail, and there is about it an almost living
atmosphere. A very clever picture, too, is HEALY's 'Young American
on the Alps,' and it has received ample justice at the hands of the
engraver, G. H. CUSHMAN. 'The Last of the Tribe,' painted by BROWN,
and engraved by ELLIS, should have been called 'A Mountain Scene,'
and the Indian figure omitted. He lacks the proper physiognomy,
sadly. The scenery is well imagined. 'The Fairies in America,' like
all attempts at depicting such nondescript creatures of air, strikes
us as a failure. Leaving out _all_ the figures, both the painting
and engraving reflect credit upon the artists, CHAPMAN and SMILLIE.
'MARTHA WASHINGTON,' engraved by CHENEY and KELLOGG, is a good
engraving of a far more beautiful female than we have been accustomed
to consider the original, from the portraits we have hitherto
seen. She is here depicted in her young and rosy years,'plump as
a partridge,' and most delectable to look upon. Thus much for the
plates; and now a few words touching the literary contents.
'The Wonders of the Deep,' by PIERPONT, well deserves the place of
honor which it occupies. It is a poem, without the form of verse;
and its poetry is of a high order. We ask attention to the annexed
paragraphs:
"What a wonder is the sea itself! How wide does it stretch out
its arms, clasping islands and continents in its embrace! How
mysterious are its depths!--still more mysterious its hoarded
and hidden treasures! With what weight do its watery masses
roll onward to the shore, when not a breath of wind is moving
over its surface! How wonderfully fearful is it, when its
waves, in mid ocean, are foaming and tossing their heads in
anger under the lash of the tempest! How wonderfully beautiful,
when, like a melted and ever-moving mirror, it reflects the
setting sun, or the crimson clouds, or the saffron heavens
after the sun has set; or when its 'watery floor' breaks into
myriads of fragments the image of the quiet moon that falls
upon it from the skies!
"Wonderful, too, are those hills of ice that break off, in
thunder, from the frozen barriers of the pole, and float
toward the sun, their bristling pinnacles glistening in his
beams, and slowly wasting away under his power, an object at
once of wonder and of dread to the mariner, till they are lost
in the embrace of more genial deeps. And that current is a
wonder, which moves for ever onward from the southern seas,
to the colder latitudes, bearing in its waters the influence
of a tropical sun, and saying to the icebergs from the pole,
'Hitherto may ye come, but no farther.' And, if possible,
still more wonderful are those springs of fresh water which,
among the Indian Isles, gush up from the depths of a salt
ocean, a source of refreshment and life to the seaman who is
parching with thirst 'beneath a burning sky.' And is it not
as wonderful, when, not a spring of fresh water, but a column
of volcanic fire shoots up from 'the dark unfathomed caves
of ocean,' and throws its red glare far over the astonished
waves, that heave and tremble with the heaving and trembling
earth below them! wonderful, when that pillar of fire vanishes,
leaving a smoking volcano in its place! and wonderful, when
that volcano, in its turn, sinks back, and is lost in the
depths whence it rose!
"Then there are other wonders in the living creatures of the
deep, from the animalcule, that 'no eye can see,' and that
scarcely 'glass can reach,' up to 'that Leviathan which God
hath made to play therein.' In 'this great and wide sea are
things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts.'
Yet He, who hath made them all, even there openeth his hand
and satisfieth the desires of all. Wonderful is it, that, of
these 'creatures innumerable,' each one finds its food in some
other, and in its turn, serves some other for food; and that
this great work of destruction and reproduction goes on in an
unbroken circle from age to age, in the deep silence of those
still deeper waters where the power of man is neither felt nor
feared!
"What a wonder, too, is that line of phosphoric light, which,
in the darkest night, streams along 'the way of a ship in the
midst of the sea!' What is it that gives out this fire, which,
like that of love, 'many waters cannot quench, neither can the
floods drown it?' Theorists may speculate, naturalists may
examine, chemists may analyze; but none of them can explain;
and all agree in this, that it is a wonder, a mystery, a
marvel. A light that only motion kindles! a fire that burns
nothing! a fire, too, seen, not in a bush on Horeb, which is
not burned, but in the deep waters of the ocean that _cannot_
be! Is not this a wonder?
"And, if that path of light is a wonder, which streams back
from the rudder of a ship, is not that ship itself a wonder?
That a fabric so gigantic as a first rate ship, of traffic or
of war, framed of ponderous timbers, compacted with bolts and
bands of still more ponderous iron, holding in its bosom masses
of merchandise, under whose weight strong cars have groaned,
and paved streets trembled, or bearing on its decks hosts of
armed men, with the thundering armament of a nation--that
a fabric thus framed and thus freighted, should float in a
fluid, into which, if a man fall, he sinks and is lost, is
in itself a wonder. But that such a fabric should traverse
oceans, struggling on amid the strife of seas and storms, that
it should hold on its way like 'a thing of life,' nay, like a
thing of intellect, a being endued with courage, and stimulated
by a high purpose, a traveller that has seen the end of his
voyage from the beginning, that goes forth upon it without
fear, and completes it as with the feeling of a triumph, is,
as it seems to me, a greater wonder still. Let me ask you to
stand, as you perhaps have stood, upon the deck of such a ship,
'In the dead waist and middle of the night,'
now in the strong light of the moon, as it looks down upon you
between the swelling sails, or now in the deep shadow that
the sails throw over you. Hear the majestic thing that bears
you, breasting and breaking through the waves that oppose
themselves to her march! She is moving on alone, on the top of
the world, and through the dread solitude of the sea. Nothing
is heard, save, perhaps, the falling back of a wave, that has
been showing its white crest to the moon, or, as your ship is
plowing her way, the rushing of the water along her sides. Yet
she seems to care for all that she contains, and to watch,
while they sleep as sweetly in her bosom as in their own beds
at home: and, though she sees no convoy to guard her, and no
torch-bearer to guide her, she seems as conscious that she is
safe, as she is confident that she is going right. Is not all
this a wonder?"