THE KNICKERBOCKER.
VOL. X. SEPTEMBER, 1837. NO. 3.
SCANDINAVIAN LITERATURE AND ANTIQUITIES.
NUMBER ONE.
THE predominant taste for the study of ancient literature, and the
investigation of antiquity, has been the means of bringing to light
a vast quantity of matter, which, if written in modern times, would
hardly be regarded of sufficient value to preserve beyond the age in
which it was written. Elegance of style and composition is not the
distinguishing trait in _all_ the Grecian and Roman authors which
have come down to us; nor are the subjects of sufficient importance
to merit a preservation of twenty centuries; although it may be safe
to say, that these qualities in general constitute the beauty and
value of these writings; for we know that the ancients appreciated
the works of their great men, as well as we; and to this we must
owe their preservation. The philosophy of Plato and Socrates--the
histories of Herodotus and Livy--the poetry of Homer and Virgil--the
metaphysics of Aristotle--the geometry of Euclid, and the eloquence
of Cicero and Demosthenes, are not regarded now with more esteem
than they were in the period in which they were produced, although
the great mass of the people were far behind us in knowledge. Poetry
and eloquence are as attractive to the senses of a savage, as to him
who is civilized; and to this circumstance must be attributed the
preservation and transmission of many poems, of people who have left
no other memento of their existence.
The wisdom of the ancient writers above named, was in advance
of the age in which they lived, yet they were appreciated; and
although kingdoms have risen and fallen, nations have been scattered
and annihilated, and language itself become corrupted or lost,
these memorials of learning and genius have been preserved, amid
the general devastation, and still appear in all their original
beauty and grandeur, more imperishable than the sculptured column
or trophied urn; models for nations yet unborn, and drawing forth
the admiration of the most accomplished scholars and profound
philosophers.
In addition to these, we possess many valuable histories, learned
dissertations, poetical effusions, specimens of the early drama,
etc., which, although they may rank lower in their style of
composition, are valuable from the light they throw upon the manners
and customs of the age in which they were penned, and make us better
acquainted with the private life, the tastes and occupations, of the
ancients.
Thus much may be said of the Greek and Roman people. Their origin,
their history, and their literature, are known in all civilized parts
of the world; and from the downfall of their respective kingdoms to
the present time, we are tolerably well acquainted with the leading
events of the history of their descendants, in the modern nations
of the south of Europe. Not so with the Teutonic people, who occupy
the middle and northern parts of that continent. The glory of their
ancestors has never been immortalized; no poet or historian arose
to transmit to posterity an account of their origin, or the fame
of their deeds, as letters were first known to the Goths in A. D.,
360. It is not the intention, in the present essay, to illustrate
the literature of the Germanic nations, but to take up that portion
embraced in the general term of _Scandinavian_, which embraces the
literature of Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Iceland. It is also known
by the term _Old-Northern_ or _Norse_, and as _Icelandic literature_.
It is embodied in the Eddas and Historical Sagas as they are called,
in the countries of the north. The former consists of collections of
Icelandic poems, written upon parchment, or skins, in the language of
that country; and the latter, which include the most important part,
are relations of historical events which have occurred in Iceland and
other countries of the north, including Great Britain and Ireland.
They also extend to the affairs of Greenland, which we know was
colonized by the Scandinavians at an early period, and to accounts of
voyages made by them to an unknown land, called Vinland--supposed to
be America--and to various parts of Europe.
Such are the sources of Scandinavian literature. But before we
attempt to examine these treasures, which form the subject of our
remarks, it may be well to ask the question, which naturally arises
here: Who were this ancient people, who, from the earliest period,
have occupied the north of Europe? Whence came they? And to what
nation of more remote antiquity is their origin to be traced?
To answer these questions satisfactorily, would be a task as easily
accomplished, as that of stating with accuracy the origin of the
Egyptians. Several learned writers, of ancient as well as modern
times, have investigated the subject, without arriving at conclusions
which would agree in the most important points; and strange as it
may appear, it is not the less true, that we are better able, after
a lapse of ten or fifteen centuries, to determine the origin of
the people by whom Europe was populated, about the period of the
commencement of the Christian era, than writers were who flourished
ten centuries ago. At that period, the most noble of inventions had
not been brought to light, to treasure up passing events, and what
had been preserved by tradition. Letters were not cultivated in
Europe, and the intercourse between nations of kindred origin was not
sufficiently close, to have promoted such an inquiry.
The cultivation and advancement of the science of philology, or
system of universal grammar, has furnished us with a more unerring
guide by which to trace the origin of the nations of antiquity,
where sufficient of their languages remain, than history itself; for
the latter, being in a great degree traditionary, cannot be relied
upon, when treating of the origin of nations. The primitive history
of the Scandinavians, Romans, Greeks, Egyptians, and Hindoos, are
so interwoven with their mythology, that it is extremely difficult
to separate truth from fiction. In analyzing the various European
languages, on the principles adopted by philologists, we are enabled
to trace the affinities existing between them; and by a similarity
of grammatical structure, correspondence of words and phrases, and
analogies in the conjugations of verbs and declensions of nouns, to
classify the various languages, and ascertain from what family or
stock they are derived. All the living languages of Europe, with
the exception of the Biscayan, or Basque, and the Gaëlic, have been
traced to Asia, and to languages which were spoken by the most
ancient people of which we have any record. It is now conceded,
that the Celts were one, if not the principal, of the primitive
nations of Europe, distinguished by different names in different
countries. The earliest historians of Europe agree, that they were,
in a remote period, settled in various parts of that continent--in
the mountainous regions of the Alps, and throughout Gaul, whence
they migrated to Great Britain and Ireland, and to the central and
western regions of Spain. At a later period, they inundated Italy,
Thrace, and Asia Minor. 'The Hibernians,' says Malte Brun, 'are an
old branch of the same people; and, according to some authors, the
Highlanders of Scotland are a colony of the native Irish. The _Erse_,
or Gaëlic, is the only authentic monument of the Celtic language; but
it may be readily admitted, that a nation so widely extended must
have been incorporated with many states whose dialects are at present
extinct.'[1]
Another primitive nation was the ancestors of the Basques, a people
now dwindled to a few thousands, and confined to the western base of
the Pyrenees. They were closely allied to the Iberians, who occupied
eastern and southern Spain, and a part of Gaul. In the remnant of
this people is preserved one of the most remarkable languages that
philologists have ever yet investigated, exhibiting undoubted marks
of originality. 'It is preserved in a corner of Europe, the sole
remaining fragment of perhaps a hundred dialects, constructed on the
same plan, which probably existed, and were universally spoken, at a
remote period, in that quarter of the globe. Like the bones of the
mammoth, and the shells of unknown fishes, the races of which have
perished, it remains a frightful monument of the immense destruction
produced by a succession of ages. There it stands, single and alone,
of its kind, surrounded by idioms whose modern construction bears no
kind of analogy to it.'[2]
The south of Europe was occupied by the Etruscans, or Etrurians,
whose splendid monuments alone remain to perpetuate their existence;
also by the Ausonians, and the Osci. In the east of Europe, we know
of no other primitive people than the Thracians, which, however, may
have included others of less note. They are spoken of by all the
early historians, but of their language, no traces are known to exist.
The north of Europe now alone remains. This part of the continent
which embraces Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and the north of Germany, was
originally inhabited by the Goths or Scandinavians; some writers
using the former, and others the latter, to distinguish them. Under
whatever name they have been known, they have filled so important a
place in history, that they deserve more than a passing notice.
'In the beginning of the sixth century,' says Gibbon, 'and after the
conquest of Italy, the Goths, in the possession of present greatness,
very naturally indulged themselves in the prospect of past and future
glory. They wished to preserve the memory of their ancestors, and to
transmit to posterity their own achievements. The principal minister
of the Court of Ravenna, the learned Cassiodorus, qualified the
inclination of the conquerors in a Gothic history, which consisted of
twelve books, now reduced to the imperfect abridgment of Jornandes.
These writers passed, with the most artful conciseness, over the
misfortunes of the nation, celebrated its success, and adorned the
triumph with many Asiatic trophies, that more properly belonged to
the people of Scythia. On the faith of ancient songs, the uncertain
but the only memorials of barbarians, they deduced the first origin
of the Goths from the vast island or peninsula of Scandinavia.'[3]
No dependence, of course, can be placed on this history, obtained in
such a manner, and by a people unacquainted with letters. Commencing
on historic ground, as early as the Christian era, and as late as
the Antonines, the Goths were established toward the mouth of the
Vistula, and in that fertile province where the commercial cities of
Thorn, Elbing, Köningsberg, and Dantzic, were long afterward founded.
In the reign of Antonines, the Goths were still seated in Prussia.
About the reign of Alexander Severus, the Roman province of Dacia
had already experienced their proximity, by frequent and destructive
inroads. In this interval, therefore, of about seventy years, Gibbon
places the second migration of the Goths from the Baltic to the
Euxine.
Another, and perhaps a more plausible theory, for the origin of
the Goths, is that of identifying them with the Thracians. This
theory is strongly advocated by Vans Kennedy, who adduces many and
conclusive arguments in favor of his hypothesis. Then to identify
the Scandinavians with the Goths, and their origin is settled. From
the time of Herodotus, until the general prevalence of the name of
Goths, it is undeniable, that the Thracians remained unconquered,
and that they extended themselves from Macedonia to the Dniester,
and from the Euxine Sea to the confines of Germany. For, as the Getæ
are identified by ancient writers with the Thracians, and as neither
proof nor probability supports the assumption that Thracia was ever
occupied by either Scythians or Scandinavians, it must necessarily
follow, that whatever is predicated of the Getæ, must equally apply
to the Thracians; and, consequently, if the Getæ were Goths, the
Goths were also Thracians. To determine, therefore, the identity of
the Getæ and Goths, it may be remarked, that from Strabo, it appears
that the country immediately to the south of the Elbe was inhabited
by the Suevi; then succeeded the country of the Getæ, which extended
along the southern bank of the Danube, and also to the north of that
river, as far as the Dniester. The Moesi, likewise, dwelt on both
banks of the Danube, and were equally with the Getæ considered by the
Greeks to be a Thracian people. The Dacians, also, were a Thracian
people.'[4]
It will be necessary, in the next place, to identify the other
nations which occupied the interior of Europe from the second to the
fifth century, with one of the great nations before alluded to, in
order to arrive at the point in question. The incursions made by the
barbarians, as they were called, from the North into Italy, which
eventuated in the overthrow of the Roman empire, have generally been
attributed to people who crossed the Baltic into Denmark, thence into
Germany, where, uniting with other tribes, they concentrated their
power, and established an empire between the Euxine and Adriatic,
on both sides of the Danube. The most distinguished of these German
nations, as they were called, were the Goths, Vandals, Visigoths,
and Gepidæ. 'In ancient times,' says Procopius, 'they were called
Sauromatæ and Melanchlæri, and by some the Gætic nation. They thus
differ from each other in name, but in nothing else; for they are
all fair, yellow-haired, and good-looking; they observe the same
institutions, and worship the same God, as they are all of the Arian
sect; and they use the same language, which is called Gothic. It
therefore appears to me, that they were all originally the same
nation.'[5]
The affinities of language which are so apparent in the languages of
the north of Europe and Germany, as well as in Great Britain, do not
require any evidence to prove their identity of origin; and if their
language was the same, the natural conclusion is, that the people
were the same. Gibbon states, that the German nations originally
emigrated from Scandinavia; but his authority was Jornandes, who
abridged the history of the Goths, as written by Cassiodorus, before
alluded to, which is considered as indifferent authority.
Acknowledging the Goths and Scandinavians to be the same, one
originated in the other, or each, migrating from the parent stock,
must have taken a different course to reach their respective
countries. The latter must necessarily have passed around the Gulf of
Bothnia to reach Sweden and Norway, or must have passed to the south
of the Baltic, through the country of the Goths. The former course
is altogether improbable, and the latter makes them a branch of the
Gothic nation, which is far the most probable. After quoting numerous
authors on this subject, Vans Kennedy comes to the conclusion, that
from the Hellespont the Thracians gradually extended themselves to
the shores of the Baltic, and thence to Scandinavia. This hypothesis
is far the most reasonable, inasmuch as it has support from the
analogies of languages; from a close resemblance in the complexion,
color of hair, eyes, etc., and from the testimony of history itself.
The Thracians, as before observed, were one of the primitive nations
of Europe. They are repeatedly noticed by Homer, who speaks of them
as a numerous and hardy race. Alluding to their country, he says:
'To where the Mysians prove their martial force,
And hardy Thracians tame the savage horse;
And where the far-famed Hippomolgian strays,
Renown'd for justice and for length of days;
Thrice happy race!'
ILIAD, B. XIII., v. 1, p. 13.
They are afterward spoken of by Herodotus, and subsequently by
Procopius, from the latter of which we have quoted. As a nation,
the Thracians have long been extinct. Even of their language there
remains no vestige, except what is seen in the Teutonic languages
at the North; those of the South, of Pelargic origin, are by some
philologists derived from the Thracian, inasmuch as the affinities
of the languages of the north and south of Europe are sufficient
to deduce them from some earlier language, all traces of which are
extinct.
This subject might be carried much farther, by tracing the analogies
of language which exist between the German and Sanscrit, or between
the English and Sanscrit, and of the affinity between the Persian
and the two European languages named. They are all so striking as to
place it beyond a doubt that some connexion existed at a very remote
period of antiquity, between the people by whom these languages are
spoken. On this point, the great philologist Adelung observes, that
it has excited the greatest wonder and astonishment. 'The fact is
undeniable; and the German found in Persian consists not only of a
remarkable number of radical words, but also in particles, and is
even observable in the grammatical structure. This circumstance will
admit of two explanations, either from a later intermingling of the
two languages, after they were completely formed, or from their both
being derived from the same mother tongue.'[6]
Having thus traced the Scandinavians to the Thracians, which latter
people, from their proximity to Asia, must have preserved parts of
their mother tongue, particularly if that was the Persian or Zend,
and noticed the remarkable affinity existing, even in our day, in the
languages of Teutonic people (of which the Scandinavians are one) and
the Persian, the antiquity of the former, and their descent from one
of the original nations of Asia, will be sufficiently apparent, to
take up the subject which heads this article.
The early history of the North was traditionary, until the
introduction of Christianity, with which Roman letters were also
introduced. These were easily adapted to express the various sounds
of their languages; and being much more convenient and applicable to
reduce their songs, tales, and histories into, than the characters
heretofore used, they were soon after embodied in them. The letters
in use, previous to the introduction of the Roman alphabet, were
Runic. This alphabet consisted of sixteen letters, which are said to
be Phoenician in their origin, and to have been introduced by Odin.
They were used to sculpture important events on rocks and monuments,
many of which are still found in various parts of the North, as well
as in Great Britain. In another place, a more particular account
will be given of these _Runes_, as they are called, accompanied by
translations.
It does not appear that the Runic letters had ever been employed to
much extent, on parchment, to record passing events, or to preserve
the lays, which memory alone had transmitted from generation to
generation. Like all other people of antiquity, the Scandinavians had
their bards, synonymous with the rhapsodists of Greece. They were
known by the name of _Skalds_, and were both poets and historians.
'They were the companions and chroniclers of kings, who liberally
rewarded their genius, and sometimes entered the lists with them in
trials of skill in their own art. A regular succession of this order
of men was perpetuated--a list of two hundred and thirty in number,
of the most distinguished in the three kingdoms of Norway, Denmark,
and Sweden, among whom are several crowned heads, and distinguished
warriors of the heroic age. Canute the Great retained several Skalds
at his court, among whom was one from Iceland, 'who,' says Snorre
Sturleson, 'having composed a short poem on Canute, went, for the
purpose of reciting it, to the king, who was just rising from table,
and thronged with suitors. The impatient poet craved an audience
from the king for his lay, assuring him that it was very short.
The wrath of Canute was kindled, and he answered the Skald with a
stern look: 'Are you not ashamed to do what none but yourself has
dared--to write a _short_ poem upon me? Unless, by the hour of dinner
to-morrow, you produce a _drapa_, above thirty strophes long, on the
same subject, your life shall pay the penalty.' The inventive genius
of the poet did not desert him. He produced the required poem, and
was liberally rewarded by the king with fifty marks of silver.[7] The
improvisatores of modern times forcibly remind us of the northern
Skalds, who, without the genial skies and classic land of Italy to
excite their imagination, produced their lays with equal facility,
and expressed their ideas, which correspond with the wildness
and rigidity of the North, as the Italian bards assimilate their
effusions with the mildness of their climate, and the delightful
landscapes with which they were surrounded. Southey thus alludes to
them:
----'Wild the Runic faith,
And wild the realms where Scandinavian chiefs
And Skalds arose, and hence the Skald's strong verse
Partook the savage wildness.'
The most important part of Old Northern, or Icelandic literature, is
that contained in the _Sagas_. Of these there are vast quantities
still in a high state of preservation, not less than two thousand
of them being in the collection of the Royal Society of Northern
Antiquaries. They are written upon skins, in dialects of the
Scandinavian languages. The greater portion, however, are in the
Icelandic text; others are in the Faroe, Orkney, and Norwegian
dialects. One of the most noble and praiseworthy undertakings of the
present day, is that of the society alluded to, which contemplates
the examination, elucidation, and immediate publication, of these
valuable manuscripts. They have already advanced to a considerable
extent in the accomplishment of their object. The first and most
important collection of the Saga manuscripts, was that made by
Arne Magnusen, a learned Icelander, who died in 1730. He collected
one thousand five hundred and fifty-four of them, and by his will
bequeathed a large sum for their publication. This fund led Professor
Rafn, in connection with Brynjulfon, Egilson, and Gudmunsson, of
Iceland, to found a society for the publication of the old Norse
manuscripts, which society is the one referred to, having the King of
Denmark for its patron and founder, and embracing among its members
most of the learned men of the north of Europe. In addition to the
bequest of Arne Magnusen, a large fund has been formed, contributed
by the king and other noble and public-spirited individuals of
Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Germany, Great Britain, and Iceland, for the
further prosecution and investigation of old northern Archaeology,
and Scandinavian antiquities generally. 'The ancient literature of
the North,' to quote the language of a letter from the society,
'in point of extent, has not without reason been compared to the
literary remains of Greece and Latium, and which is indisputably of
decided importance to the antiquarians, historians, lawyers, and
philologists of Europe and America.' It is gratifying to observe,
that this enterprise has already begun to excite an interest, not
only within the limited territory of Denmark, or of Scandinavia,
where the resources for so extensive an undertaking are too scanty,
but also in several countries beyond the limits of northern Europe,
whose scholars share with us in the sentiment, that such literary
undertakings ought not to be confined within political boundaries,
but, on account of their extensive tendency, have also a claim to
active participation from other countries; since without it they
cannot meet with the requisite development, nor become of that
utility to literature and science for which they are intended, and of
which they are susceptible. In order more fully to carry into effect
the plans of this society, the cöoperation of several of the most
eminent antiquarians and literary men of Great Britain and the United
States has been solicited, to which they will, no doubt, readily
accede.
The Saga literature, which was cultivated to so great an extent in
that distant and isolated spot, while all Europe was in a state of
darkness, had a great influence in civilizing and promoting the
cultivation of letters throughout the north of Europe. The Icelanders
were a maritime people, inheriting their love of commerce and
adventure from the hardy Scandinavians who planted their colony.
Their continued intercourse with the coast of Norway led them to seek
adventures elsewhere. The Faroe Islands, the Orkneys, Great Britain,
and Ireland, were visited, and a continued trade kept up between
them. The two former were Scandinavian colonies, and spoke a dialect
of the ancient language.
With the introduction of Christianity into the North, the later
Latins, Gothic characters of the Anglo-Saxons, came into general use;
and to this we owe the transcripts, made chiefly in Ireland, of the
sagas and poetry of the pagan times of the North, and also of the
northern history during the middle ages. These sagas are divided
into four classes, the mythic, mythico-historical, historical, and
romantic.
The volumes already published, are the following: Foramanna Sögur,
eleven volumes; Oldnordiske Sagær, eleven volumes; Scripita Historica
Islandorum, six volumes. These contain historical sagas, recording
events which transpired on the continent; a history of the Norwegian
kings from Olaf Fryggvuson to Magnus, Lagabæta, embracing a long
period of years, and terminating in the year 1274; the history
of the Danish kings, from Harold Bluetooth to Canute VI., or the
period between the middle of the tenth and the commencement of the
thirteenth centuries, with critical notes and commentaries on the
narrations and sagas of several northern writers.
_Iselendinga Sögur_, two volumes, contains the historical sagas,
recording events which have transpired in Iceland; giving also a
particular account of the first colonization of the island, in
Icelandic.
_Faëreyinga Saga_, or the History of the Inhabitants of the Faroe
Islands; in Icelandic, the Faroe-dialect, and Danish. _Fornaldar
Sögur Nordrlanda_, three volumes; _Nordiske Fortids Sagær_, three
volumes. The latter six volumes comprise all the _mytho-historical
sagas_, recording events in the North, assignable to the period
anterior to the colonization of Iceland, or the era of authentic
history; in Icelandic and Danish.
_Krakumal sive Epicedium Ragnaris Lodbroci_, or Ode on the Heroic
Deeds and Death of the Danish King, Ragnar Lodbrok, in England; in
Icelandic, Danish, Latin, and French.
These publications will give some idea of the extent, variety, and
interest, of the manuscripts in the possession of this society, and
of the light which, in all probability, many of them will throw upon
the hitherto unsettled points of English, Scottish, and Irish history.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] MALTE BRUN's Geography, vol. VI., p. 77.
[2] MR. DUPONCEAU's Report to the Hist. and Lit. Comm. of the
American Phil. Soc., p. 11.
[3] Gibbon's Roman Empire, vol. I., p. 387.
[4] Researches into the Origin and Affinity of the Principal
Languages of Europe, and Asia, p. 142.
[5] PROCOPIUS in Bell. Van., lib. I., c. 2.
[6] ADELUNG's, Mithridates, vol. I., p. 277.
[7] WHEATON'S Hist. of the Northmen, p. 51, _et seq._
ANACREONTIC.
I.
WILT thou then leave me, ere the hurrying hours
Have yet gone by, when sleepless souls should meet?
Wilt thou then leave me, when in these still bowers,
Time lingers, wrapt in joys so wildly sweet?
Oh, break not thus away, with trembling spirit,
Nor deem a converse so delightful, wrong;
Ah me! the hours of joy we now inherit,
Have never yet been known to linger long.
II.
Haste not away so soon--a while remaining,
Some newer bliss, unknown, shall touch the heart;
Ah me! thy own unto my bosom straining,
If like me thou didst love, we should not part.
Thou still wouldst pause, and with a fond affection,
Re-clasp the hands, unite the lips that burn,
And when in fear thou break'st the sweet connection,
Return and linger, linger and return.
G. B. SINGLETON.
THE AMERICAN WILD ROSE.
A recent English writer says: 'The rose is a flower entirely
unknown to the new world.'
FAIR flower! the opening of whose breast
Of fragrance, on the soft south-west,
Speaks sweet to me, in mem'ries dear--
All that calls up affection's tear;
I love thy heart-leaf'd single cup,
Soft blushing with the hue of morn;
I kiss each essenced dew-drop up,
That trembles on thy thorn:
For thou upon my path hast grown
Since childhood--womanhood, I own.
First on a Pennsylvanian bank,
Where fair my native creek flow'd by,
The breathings of thine heart I drank,
And gazed into thy golden eye.
Where'er I wander, still dost thou
Ever upon my pathway bow;
The field, the cliff--my children's tomb,
To garland with spontaneous bloom.
Where'er a mossy rock hath place,
Thou wavest there in modest grace;
Guarding beneath thy blushing vest,
Midst tufted grass, the partridge-nest.
Where'er o'er mountain path I toil,
Thou spring'st to bless the grav'ly soil;
Where straggling fence-row gives thee room,
Thou fling'st a garland, and perfume;
And oft thy dying odors play,
Mingled in swathe of fragrant hay.
Though thou dost love the woodland shade,
Still for the sun-beam wert thou made.
Stealing from copse to open sky--
Greeting from far the traveller's eye:
Thou wert not 'born to blush unseen,'
Sweet wilding rose; the meadow's queen!
I love thy leaf's indented green;
The tinge of red upon thy stalk;
Thy pointed buds, so neatly furl'd:
O, who hath said this western world
Was to thy smile unknown!
Come, let him take one morning walk,
When May has well nigh flown;
In dell or dingle, chiefly where
A thicket meets the open air;
Or where a gurgling streamlet takes
Its sparkling leap through rocky brakes;
O'er fence-row, to the tassel'd corn,
The smiling rose nods from her thorn:
O! ever, rose! smile thus to me,
Memento of my childhood's glee.
In warmer Greece, thou may'st repay,
With richer glow, the softer day;
At eve, as from the bul-bul's throat,
Love's fabled breathings o'er thee float;
Or England's gardens may enhance,
By florist's art, thy trebled flower;
But here thou'rt free; thy ev'ry glance
Speaks but our nation's dower.
Free as the foot of Pilgrim, set
On Plymouth-rock by salt sea wet;
Free as the soil on which he trod,
Free as the pray'r he breath'd to GOD;
Free as the untam'd Indian's eye,
That tracks the foe none else can spy;
Free as the arrow from his bow--
Free as the dark Missouri's flow;
Free as the forest's untam'd herds;
Free as the lake's migrating birds.
Wild rose, and sweet! still grace the soil,
Won by our fathers' sacred toil;
Still cheer the labors of the plough--
The harvest rose, still flourish thou!
Gayer may blow in Persian loom,
Richer may breathe in Turk's perfume:
But purer, sweeter, never hung
The rocks, the paths, the fields among;
I love thee, for thou dost for me
Garland the country of the free!
W.
EDWARD FANE'S ROSEBUD.
THERE is hardly a more difficult exercise of fancy, than, while
gazing at a figure of melancholy age, to re-create its youth, and,
without entirely obliterating the identity of form and features, to
restore those graces which time has snatched away. Some old people,
especially women, so age-worn and woful are they, seem never to
have been young and gay. It is easier to conceive that such gloomy
phantoms were sent into the world as withered and decrepit as we
beheld them now, with sympathies only for pain and grief, to watch at
death-beds, and weep at funerals. Even the sable garments of their
widowhood appear essential to their existence; all their attributes
combine to render them darksome shadows, creeping strangely amid
the sunshine of human life. Yet it is no unprofitable task, to take
one of these doleful creatures, and set fancy resolutely at work to
brighten the dim eye, and darken the silvery locks, and paint the
ashen-cheek with rose-color, and repair the shrunken and crazy form,
till a dewy maiden shall be seen in the old matron's elbow-chair.
The miracle being wrought, then let the years roll back again, each
sadder than the last, and the whole weight of age and sorrow settle
down upon the youthful figure. Wrinkles and furrows, the hand-writing
of Time, may thus be deciphered, and found to contain deep lessons
of thought and feeling. Such profit might be derived, by a skilful
observer, from my much-respected friend, the Widow Ingersoll, a nurse
of great repute, who has breathed the atmosphere of sick-chambers and
dying-breaths, these forty years.
See! she sits cowering over her lonesome hearth, with her gown and
upper petticoat drawn upward, gathering thriftily into her person
the whole warmth of the fire, which, now at nightfall, begins to
dissipate the autumnal chill of her chamber. The blaze quivers
capriciously in front, alternately glimmering into the deepest chasms
of her wrinkled visage, and then permitting a ghostly dimness to mar
the outlines of her venerable figure. And Nurse Ingersoll holds a
tea-spoon in her right hand, with which to stir up the contents of a
tumbler in her left, whence steams a vapory fragrance, abhorred of
temperance societies. Now she sips--now stirs--now sips again. Her
sad old heart has need to be revived by the rich infusion of Geneva,
which is mixed half-and-half with hot water, in the tumbler. All day
long she has been sitting by a death-pillow, and quitted it for her
home, only when the spirit of her patient left the clay, and went
homeward too. But now are her melancholy meditations cheered, and her
torpid blood warmed, and her shoulders lightened of at least twenty
ponderous years, by a draught from the true Fountain of Youth, in a
case-bottle. It is strange that men should deem that fount a fable,
when its liquor fills more bottles than the congress-water! Sip it
again, good nurse, and see whether a second draught will not take
off another score of years, and perhaps ten more, and show us, in
your high-backed chair, the blooming damsel who plighted troths with
Edward Fane. Get you gone, Age and Widowhood! Come back, unwedded
Youth! But, alas! the charm will not work. In spite of fancy's most
potent spell, I can see only an old dame cowering over the fire, a
picture of decay and desolation, while the November blast roars at
her in the chimney, and fitful showers rush suddenly against the
window.
Yet there was a time when Rose Grafton--such was the pretty
maiden-name of Nurse Ingersoll--possessed beauty that would have
gladdened this dim and dismal chamber, as with sunshine. It won for
her the heart of Edward Fane, who has since made so great a figure
in the world, and is now a grand old gentleman, with powdered hair,
and as gouty as a lord. These early lovers thought to have walked
hand in hand through life. They had wept together for Edward's little
sister Mary, whom Rose tended in her sickness, partly because she
was the sweetest child that ever lived or died, but more for love of
him. She was but three years old. Being such an infant, Death could
not embody his terrors in her little corpse; nor did Rose fear to
touch the dead child's brow, though chill, as she curled the silken
hair around it, nor to take her tiny hand, and clasp a flower within
its fingers. Afterward, when she looked through the pane of glass in
the coffin-lid, and beheld Mary's face, it seemed not so much like
death, or life, as like a wax-work, wrought into the perfect image
of a child asleep, and dreaming of its mother's smile. Rose thought
her too fair a thing to be hidden in the grave, and wondered that an
angel did not snatch up little Mary's coffin, and bear the slumbering
babe to heaven, and bid her wake immortal. But when the sods were
laid on little Mary, the heart of Rose was troubled. She shuddered at
the fantasy, that, in grasping the child's cold fingers, her virgin
hand had exchanged a first greeting with mortality, and could never
lose the earthy taint. How many a greeting since! But as yet, she
was a fair young girl, with the dew-drops of fresh feeling in her
bosom; and instead of Rose, which seemed too mature a name for her
half-opened beauty, her lover called her Rosebud.
The rosebud was destined never to bloom for Edward Fane. His mother
was a rich and haughty dame, with all the aristocratic prejudices
of colonial times. She scorned Rose Grafton's humble parentage, and
caused her son to break his faith, though, had she let him choose, he
would have prized his Rosebud above the richest diamond. The lovers
parted, and have seldom met again. Both may have visited the same
mansions, but not at the same time; for one was bidden to the festal
hall, and the other to the sick-chamber; he was the guest of Pleasure
and Prosperity, and she of Anguish. Rose, after their separation, was
long secluded within the dwelling of Mr. Ingersoll, whom she married
with the revengeful hope of breaking her false lover's heart. She
went to her bridegroom's arms with bitterer tears, they say, than
young girls ought to shed, at the threshold of the bridal chamber.
Yet, though her husband's head was getting gray, and his heart had
been chilled with an autumnal frost, Rose soon began to love him, and
wondered at her own conjugal affection. He was all she had to love;
there were no children.
In a year or two, poor Mr. Ingersoll was visited with a wearisome
infirmity, which settled in his joints, and made him weaker than a
child. He crept forth about his business, and came home at dinnertime
and eventide, not with the manly tread that gladdens a wife's heart,
but slowly--feebly--jotting down each dull footstep with a melancholy
dub of his staff. We must pardon his pretty wife, if she sometimes
blushed to own him. Her visitors, when they heard him coming, looked
for the appearance of some old, old man; but he dragged his nerveless
limbs into the parlor--and there was Mr. Ingersoll! The disease
increasing, he never went into the sunshine, save with a staff in
his right hand, and his left on his wife's shoulder, bearing heavily
downward, like a dead man's hand. Thus, a slender woman, still
looking maiden-like, she supported his tall, broad-chested frame
along the pathway of their little garden, and plucked the roses for
her gray-haired husband, and spoke soothingly, as to an infant. His
mind was palsied with his body; its utmost energy was peevishness.
In a few months more, she helped him up the staircase, with a pause
at every step, and a longer one upon the landing-place, and a heavy
glance behind, as he crossed the threshold of his chamber. He knew,
poor man, that the precincts of those four walls would thenceforth
be his world--his world, his home, his tomb--at once a dwelling and
a burial-place, till he were borne to a darker and a narrower one.
But Rose was with him in the tomb. He leaned upon her, in his daily
passage from the bed to the chair by the fireside, and back again
from the weary chair to the joyless bed--his bed and hers--their
marriage-bed; till even this short journey ceased, and his head lay
all day upon the pillow, and hers all night beside it. How long poor
Mr. Ingersoll was kept in misery! Death seemed to draw near the door,
and often to lift the latch, and sometimes to thrust his ugly skull
into the chamber, nodding to Rose, and pointing at her husband, but
still delayed to enter. 'This bed-ridden wretch cannot escape me!'
quoth Death. 'I will go forth, and run a race with the swift, and
fight a battle with the strong, and come back for Ingersoll at my
leisure!' Oh, when the deliverer came so near, in the dull anguish of
her worn-out sympathies, did she never long to cry, 'Death, come in!'
But, no! We have no right to ascribe such a wish to our friend Rose.
She never failed in a wife's duty to her poor sick husband. She
murmured not, though a glimpse of the sunny sky was as strange to
her as him, nor answered peevishly, though his complaining accents
roused her from her sweetest dream, only to share his wretchedness.
He knew her faith, yet nourished a cankered jealousy; and when the
slow disease had chilled all his heart, save one lukewarm spot, which
Death's frozen fingers were searching for, his last words were: 'What
would my Rose have done for her first love, if she has been so true
and kind to a sick old man like me!' And then his poor soul crept
away, and left the body lifeless, though hardly more so than for
years before, and Rose a widow, though in truth it was the wedding
night that widowed her. She felt glad, it must be owned, when Mr.
Ingersoll was buried, because his corpse had retained such a likeness
to the man half alive, that she hearkened for the sad murmur of his
voice, bidding her shift his pillow. But all through the next winter,
though the grave had held him many a month, she fancied him calling
from that cold bed, 'Rose! Rose! come put a blanket on my feet!'
So now the Rosebud was the Widow Ingersoll. Her troubles had come
early, and, tedious as they seemed, had passed before all her bloom
was fled. She was still fair enough to captivate a bachelor, or, with
a widow's cheerful gravity, she might have won a widower, stealing
into his heart in the very guise of his dead wife. But the Widow
Ingersoll had no such projects. By her watchings and continual cares,
her heart had become knit to her first husband with a constancy which
changed its very nature, and made her love him for his infirmities,
and infirmity for his sake. When the palsied old man was gone, even
her early lover could not have supplied his place. She had dwelt in
a sick-chamber, and been the companion of a half-dead wretch, till
she should scarcely breathe in a free air, and felt ill at ease with
the healthy and the happy. She missed the fragrance of the doctor's
stuff. She walked the chamber with a noiseless footfall. If visitors
came in, she spoke in soft and soothing accents, and was startled and
shocked by their loud voices. Often, in the lonesome evening, she
looked timorously from the fireside to the bed, with almost a hope of
recognising a ghastly face upon the pillow. Then went her thoughts
sadly to her husband's grave. If one impatient throb had wronged him
in his lifetime--if she had secretly repined, because her buoyant
youth was imprisoned with his torpid age--if ever, while slumbering
beside him, a treacherous dream had admitted another into her
heart--yet the sick man had been preparing a revenge, which the dead
now claimed. On his painful pillow, he had cast a spell around her;
his groans and misery had proved more captivating charms than gayety
and youthful grace; in his semblance, Disease itself had won the
Rosebud for a bride; nor could his death dissolve the nuptials. By
that indissoluble bond she had gained a home in every sick-chamber,
and nowhere else; there were her brethren and sisters; thither her
husband summoned her, with that voice which had seemed to issue from
the grave of Ingersoll. At length she recognised her destiny.
We have beheld her as the maid, the wife, the widow; now we see
her in a separate and insulated character: she was, in all her
attributes, Nurse Ingersoll. And Nurse Ingersoll alone, with her
own shrivelled lips, could make known her experience in that
capacity. What a history might she record of the great sicknesses,
in which she has gone hand in hand with the exterminating angel!
She remembers when the small-pox hoisted a red-banner on almost
every house along the street. She has witnessed when the typhus
fever swept off a whole household, young and old, all but a lonely
mother, who vainly shrieked to follow her last loved one. Where
would be Death's triumph, if none lived to weep! She can speak of
strange maladies that have broken out, as if spontaneously, but were
found to have been imported from foreign lands, with rich silks and
other merchandise, the costliest portion of the cargo. And once, she
recollects, the people died of what was considered a new pestilence,
till the doctors traced it to the ancient grave of a young girl, who
thus caused many deaths a hundred years after her own burial. Strange
that such black mischief should lurk in a maiden's grave! She loves
to tell how strong men fight with fiëry fevers, utterly refusing to
give up their breath; and how consumptive virgins fade out of the
world, scarcely reluctant, as if their lovers were wooing them to a
far country. Tell us, thou fearful woman! tell us the death-secrets!
Fain would I search out the meaning of words, faintly gasped with
intermingled sobs, and broken sentences, half-audibly spoken between
earth and the judgment-seat!
An awful woman! She is the patron-saint of young physicians, and
the bosom friend of old ones. In the mansions where she enters, the
inmates provide themselves black garments; the coffin-maker follows
her; and the bell tolls as she comes away from the threshold. Death
himself has met her at so many a bed-side, that he puts forth his
bony hand to greet Nurse Ingersoll. She is an awful woman! And,
oh! is it conceivable, that this handmaid of human infirmity and
affliction--so darkly stained, so thoroughly imbued with all that
is saddest in the doom of mortals--can ever again be bright and
gladsome, even though bathed in the sunshine of eternity? By her long
communion with wo, has she not forfeited her inheritance of immortal
joy? Does any germ of bliss survive within her?
Hark! an eager knocking at Nurse Ingersoll's door. She starts from
her drowsy reverie, sets aside the empty tumbler and tea-spoon, and
lights a lamp at the dim embers of the fire. Rap, rap, rap! again;
and she hurries adown the staircase, wondering which of her friends
can be at death's door now, since there is such an earnest messenger
at Nurse Ingersoll's. Again the peal resounds, just as her hand is on
the lock. 'Be quick, Nurse Ingersoll!' cries a man on the door-step;
'old Colonel Fane is taken with the gout in his stomach, and has sent
for you to watch by his death-bed. Make haste, for there is no time
to lose!' 'Fane! Edward Fane! And has he sent for me at last? I am
ready! I will get on my cloak and begone. So,' adds the sable-gowned,
ashen-visaged, funereal old figure, 'Edward Fane remembers his
Rosebud!'
Our question is answered. There is a germ of bliss within her. Her
long-hoarded constancy--her memory of the bliss that was--remaining
amid the gloom of her after life, like a sweet-smelling flower in a
coffin, is a symbol that all may be renewed. In some happier clime,
the Rosebud may revive again, with all the dew-drops in its bosom.
THE SONG OF THE SHIP.
'I'VE a long stout bill, like the condor bird, and a cloak of
canvass white,
And walking sticks, full two or three, that sport a banner bright;
I carry an anchor on my bows, and cannon in my sides,
And a compass true, that night and day my course unerring guides.
'My way is on the stormy deep, and the tempest as it blows,
But rocks my darling sons to sleep, who laugh at human woes;
I bear a nation's arms abroad, where nations without me
Could never speak in sovereign power--I'm mistress of the sea!
'When night comes on, I light a lamp, when storms, I trim a sail,
My hardy boys are e'er alert, with hearts that never fail;
I rove in might the dark blue deep--I draw a golden chain,
That causes man on man to smile, and rivets main to main.
'Wealth follows where my canvass flies, and power attends my roar,
I dance upon the bounding sea, and smile beside the shore;
If art and nature both be taxed, they all are found a-lee,
Compared, in might and glory, to a noble ship at sea.'
Here ceased the ship to speak, the while she proudly dashed her way,
When thus a meek and lowly man took up the broken lay:
'Ah! thus,' he cried, 'shall all be borne, and thus shall all be blest,
Who put their trust in Alohim, and in Messiah rest.'
_Michilimackinack, August, 1837._ H. R S.
MARK!
BY PATER ABRAHAM A SANCTA CLARA.
IN TWO PARTS--PART ONE.
A WRITER in Blackwood, in reviewing the poems of Bishop Corbet, of
facetious memory, insists that the church has been more distinguished
for wit and humor, than any other of the learned professions. This
may not hold true in these refined days, and especially with us,
where the strength of a man's principles is apt to be measured by the
length of his face, and where a large portion of the community seem
to think that
'To laugh were want of goodness, and grimace.'