We count the broken lyres that rest
Where the sweet wailing singers slumber,--
But o'er their silent sister's breast
The wild flowers who will stoop to number?
A few can touch the magic string,
And noisy Fame is proud to win them;--
Alas for those that never sing,
But die with all their music in them!
Nay, grieve not for the dead alone
Whose song has told their hearts' sad story,--
Weep for the voiceless, who have known
The cross without the crown of glory!
Not where Leucadian breezes sweep
O'er Sappho's memory-haunted billow,
But where the glistening night-dews weep
On nameless sorrow's churchyard pillow.
O hearts that break and give no sign
Save whitening lip and fading tresses,
Till Death pours out his cordial wine
Slow-dropped from Misery's crushing presses,--
If singing breath or echoing chord
To every hidden pang were given,
What endless melodies were poured,
As sad as earth, as sweet as heaven!
I hope that our landlady's daughter is not so badly off, after all.
That young man from another city, who made the remark which you
remember about Boston State-house and Boston folks, has appeared at our
table repeatedly of late, and has seemed to me rather attentive to this
young lady. Only last evening I saw him leaning over her while she was
playing the accordion,--indeed, I undertook to join them in a song, and
got as far as "Come rest in this boo-oo," when, my voice getting
tremulous, I turned off, as one steps out of a procession, and left the
basso and soprano to finish it. I see no reason why this young woman
should not be a very proper match for a man that laughs about Boston
State-house. He can't be very particular.
The young fellow whom I have so often mentioned was a little free in
his remarks, but very good-natured.--Sorry to have you go,--he
said.--Schoolma'am made a mistake not to wait for me. Haven't taken
anything but mournin' fruit at breakfast since I heard of
it.--_Mourning fruit,_--said I,--what's that?--Huckleberries and
blackberries,--said he;--couldn't eat in colors, raspberries, currants,
and such, after a solemn thing like this happening.--The conceit seemed
to please the young fellow. If you will believe it, when we came down
to breakfast the next morning, he had carried it out as follows. You
know those odious little "saäs-plates" that figure so largely at
boarding-houses, and especially at taverns, into which a strenuous
attendant female trowels little dabs, sombre of tint and heterogeneous
of composition, which it makes you feel homesick to look at, and into
which you poke the elastic coppery teaspoon with the air of a cat
dipping her foot into a wash-tub,--(not that I mean to say anything
against them, for, when they are of tinted porcelain or starry
many-faceted crystal, and hold clean bright berries, or pale virgin
honey, or "lucent syrups tinct with cinnamon," and the teaspoon is of
white silver, with the Tower-stamp, solid, but not brutally heavy,--as
people in the green stage of millionism will have them,--I can dally
with their amber semi-fluids or glossy spherules without a
shiver,)--you know these small, deep dishes, I say. When we came down
the next morning, each of these (two only excepted) was covered with a
broad leaf. On lifting this, each boarder found a small heap of solemn
black huckleberries. But one of those plates held red currants, and was
covered with a red rose; the other held white currants, and was covered
with a white rose. There was a laugh at this at first, and then a short
silence, and I noticed that her lip trembled, and the old gentleman
opposite was in trouble to get at his bandanna handkerchief.
--"What was the use in waiting? We should be too late for Switzerland,
that season, if we waited much longer."--The hand I held trembled in
mine, and the eyes fell meekly, as Esther bowed herself before the feet
of Ahasuerus.--She had been reading that chapter, for she looked
up,--if there was a film of moisture over her eyes, there was also the
faintest shadow of a distant smile skirting her lips, but not enough to
accent the dimples,--and said, in her pretty, still way,--"If it please
the king, and if I have found favor in his sight, and the thing seem
right before the king, and I be pleasing in his eyes"--
I don't remember what King Ahasuerus did or said when Esther got just
to that point of her soft, humble words,--but I know what I did. That
quotation from Scripture was cut short, anyhow. We came to a
compromise on the great question, and the time was settled for the last
day of summer.
In the mean time, I talked on with our boarders, much as usual, as you
may see by what I have reported. I must say, I was pleased with a
certain tenderness they all showed toward us, after the first
excitement of the news was over. It came out in trivial matters,--but
each one, in his or her way, manifested kindness. Our landlady, for
instance, when we had chickens, sent the _liver_ instead of the
_gizzard_, with the wing, for the schoolmistress. This was not an
accident: the two are _never_ mistaken, though some land-ladies
_appear_ as if they did not know the difference. The whole of the
company were even more respectfully attentive to my remarks than usual.
There was no idle punning, and very little winking on the part of that
lively young gentleman who, as the reader may remember, occasionally
interposed some playful question or remark, which could hardly be
considered relevant,--except when the least allusion was made to
matrimony, when he would look at the landlady's daughter, and wink with
both sides of his face, until she would ask what he was pokin' his fun
at her for, and if he wasn't ashamed of himself. In fact, they all
behaved very handsomely, so that I really felt sorry at the thought of
leaving my boarding-house.
I suppose you think, that, because I lived at a plain widow-woman's
plain table, I was of course more or less infirm in point of worldly
fortune. You may not be sorry to learn, that, though not what _great
merchants_ call very rich, I was comfortable,--comfortable,--so that
most of those moderate luxuries I described in my verses on
_Contentment_--_most_ of them, I say--were within our reach, if we
chose to have them. But I found out that the schoolmistress had a vein
of charity about her, which had hitherto been worked on a small silver
and copper basis, which made her think less, perhaps, of luxuries than
even I did,--modestly as I have expressed my wishes.
It is rather a pleasant thing to tell a poor young woman, whom one has
contrived to win without showing his rent-roll, that she has found what
the world values so highly, in following the lead of her affections.
That was a luxury I was now ready for.